Chapter 1: Akap

Since I'm too lazy to file for a vacation leave and my vacation leave credits are not enough anyway for me to have enough time off from work, I have declared numerous numbers of days to be my personal holiday. Just when I thought I'm gonna be enjoying that free time with myself and my baby Cody (the adorable brown labrador), I now have some respiratory infection plus frequent nosebleeds. Great!

Of course that wouldn't stop me from going out. Last Saturday, I went out with Chill and Mitch and checked out the Imago listers night at Saguijo in Makati. It's a small, cozy place situated in a residential area with a nice botique upstairs called the "I Love You store". Initially, I had personal objections of going to that place since it was so crowded the first time I went there with Maysh and watch Admit One but later on it turned out to provide us an intimate setting that perfectly fits the music of the lined up bands.

After checking out the art gallery upstairs and watch the audience wait in stupor while the hosts were giving out Imago bootleg vcds, it was time for SVC to perform. I never really took the time to watch these guys but dude they made me earn a new respect for hiphop/rap music. Galeng! I even ended up chanting "It's the reee-yuhhhl, Hiphop myuuuzik!". And I have the new love of my life, Ryan Ventura, the bassist, whose face is gonna appear soon in my new lj layout. Woo-hoo! Paging Kai: pityurs! pityurs!

When it was Imago's time to perform, we made our way to the front in such a way that we were standing just a few meters away from Aia. They started out the set with three songs from their first album: "Alay", "Idlip", and "Rainsong". One thing that I really admire about them is the evolution of their music. They were able to reinvent themselves. Except for the lyrics, those three songs don't even sound like the original anymore.

Before she proceeded to singing "Akap", she said her thank you's and talked about the struggles of indie artists. "Dahil indie po kami, wala pong label na magbabayad ng payola para ipatugtog yung kanta namin. Salamat sa inyo, parang kayo na rin ang nag-payola para sa min"

One thing that makes Aia's songs unique is her unusual play of words. Nobody really knows what exactly the song means but somehow it works. Come on, what can you make out of lyrics like "Look away/See it coming/Grey skies/Grey skies/See it coming/Cool my fire"? Worst thing is the words are sang in reverse. Haha! But like I said, who am I to argue when it actually works. :)

"Pikit mata kong iaalay, buwan at araw, pati pa sapatos kong suot" When she sings these words she makes an immediate connection with her audience. Somehow it felt magical watching a small lady belt out tunes and wonder how that voice comes out of her.

Another superduper emote song was next, "Taning", which ended with the audience singing with Aia. It was followed by "Phoenix", then Raimund Marasigan and Diego Castillo joined them and performed "Gratitude", "Reset", "Bihag" (hanggang dito na lang, sa huling baitang) and the last song for the night, the uber danceable "Anino". At the end of the night, I ended up listening to their cd over and over again. Haha!