15.12.11

Rock The Riles

by: Beau Cimafranca
For beginners, Rock the Riles is an annual event held on the first sunday of december, or the sunday before the day of The Inthernational Human Rights Day. The event is hosted by Rock Ed Philippines which is a non-government org that aims to provide assistance to the masses thru alternative education, and Rock the Riles is one of those stuff.

This event started 7 years ago. i actually heard about it last 2009 but never had a time for it, or i guess it was sheer lazyness, but i did promise to myself that i'll attend the annual event specially when I learned about the performers. The event is scattered in 8 stations of MRT. There are different set of performers for each stations with different theme. I can foretell that i will not be able to cover the event in all station so i'll settle with one. A lot of my favorite bands and performers a scatrred all over the 8 stations, Stonefree and Soapdish are in Taft; Hilera, Turbo Goth and Camerawalls are in Cubao; Paolo Santos, Silent Sanctuary and Duster are in Shaw; Radioactive Sago Project and UpDharmaDown are in Ayala; and Mayonaise is in North Ave. After a thorough deliberation while digesting a hefty serving of pancit cant on friend chicken, i've decided to be in Ayala station. i love the other bands but i just cant resist Armi Millare.

Armi Millare




 Lourd de Veyra


I was having lunch then in Escolta (imagine the points of Ayala and Escolta),i have to dive into the traffic of the metro just to get to Ayala. i finally arrived, i missed one band but sure i can let go of that. Aside from Updhamadown and Radio Active, a lot of underground bands are on the line up;  Encounters With A Yeti, Musical O, Sleepwalk Circus, Hidden Nikki, The Charmes, Not Another Boy Band, Dr.Strangeluv, and Acasha. If ur familar to the undergroud scene, you'll notice that all the bands in Ayala are part of Terno Records. from time to time they do this Terno Nights, usually in Saguijo where all of bands from Terno plays.

There are 2 student dj from monster radio who does the talking while upcoming bands sets up their instrument. by the time that i arrived, there was this chinese looking girl prepping up for the national anthem, the national anthem will be sang by 3pm in all stations and this chinese looking girl did  the anthem. She actually dont speak tagalog so the effort is big time. Musical O did they're part after the national anthem, great music. Encounters with a Yetti came next who did intrumentals. Not Another Boyband is a cracker, they came up as duo, the frontman's excuse is that they dont have permanent member, as for the instrument, the other guy is on lead guitar and the frontman plugged an ipod on the amp and everything is a cracked up history which i think is great. hidden Nikking came up and did their part and so as The Charmes which reminds me of some Franz Ferdinand. Sleepwalk Circus is one of the anitipated band, one thing that i liked from their set is that they did a bjork's unison sample on the last part of the third song, i dont know if other noticed it. up dharma down is up, just the prsence of Armi alone is enough for the crowd to noise up, they played all of faorite stuff from them including the new track entitled "indak". And ofcourse for the closing act is non other than Radio Active Sago Project who consistently played on the event since it started 7 years ago, they've played new songs and some classic such as "wasak"; it was "kape,alak,sugal,babae" that supposed to close their set but the crowed cheered for more, they did Astro where Lourd inserted a lot hot impromptus from the unresolved Maguindanao killings to the recent Kc/Piolo break up that brought the crowd to hysterical bliss.

One funny thing after the event. i inserted my mrt card and then the machine says "rejected, proceed to the ticketing booth", i tred another machine and it said tha same thing. i went to the ticketing booth and the teller said the ticket was expired already and asked me to pay P15, i was a bit nudge to rant but i was to tired  so i just hand her some change took may card and went off. afterall, Rock the Riles for P15 is a very small thing.