Article: Last El Bimbo in Pasay
Magazine: Philippines Free Press
Year: March 21, 2009
Volume: No.
Catalog:
Writer: Bert B. Sulat Jr
Updated 12-Jan-2020
Last El Bimbo in Pasay
Their valedictory concert reaffirms the pervasive influence
of the Eraserheads on their generation and beyond By Bert B. Sulat Jr.
THE Eraserheads' second, purportedly last gig together, generically
billed as "The Final Set," finally unfolded on March 7 at the sprawling
"concert grounds" of the SM Mall of Asia. Unlike the earlier,
meant-to-be final "Reunion Concert" at The Fort on August 30 last
year, which was cut short after the 15th song when lead
singer-guitarist Ely Buendia was rushed to the hospital as he struggled with
chest pains, this latest last get-together reached its anticipated conclusion
without a hitch. Also, unlike the August gig, teeming though it was with some
20,000 attendees, "The Final Set" saw a mammoth crowd that must have
amounted to at least 50,000.
This final reunion was mounted
largely to please the collective craving of the Eraserheads' fan base-which
spans practically the whole archipelago and age groups ranging from emerging
teens to 30- to 40-somethings. Yet, for a reunion concert that follows the
quartet's now seven-year breakup (and varying successes with their newer,
separate bands), besides serving as a solid closure to the prematurely
concluded show in August, "The Final Set" did not necessarily find
the band of Buendia, lead guitarist Marcus Adoro, bassist Buddy Zabala and
drummer Raimund Marasigan (multi-instrumentalist Jazz Nicolas of Itchyworms was
also again onboard) mindlessly giving in to the greatest-hits predilection of
the general public. Sure, the band played a good amount of its classics, from "Pare Ko" to "Alapaap," "Ligaya," "Kailan"
and the immortal “Ang Huling El
Bimbo." The group, however, likewise indulged itself in some of its
other, fairly lesser known tunes, such as "Slo Mo," "Wishing
Wells," "Back2Me," "Poorman's Grave" and "Trip to
Jerusalem" - tracks that do have their admirers if they are not as
massively embraced as the hits. Heck, by the evening's literal end, the band-and
the fans who stayed put-still had its own way, reemerging for an unplanned second
encore just as thousands had already exited the grounds.
In all, the Eraserheads played 28
songs that night without any obvious pattern (chronological or such) other than
the usual upbeat-to-downbeat-to-lively pacing typical of any concert. Neither did
the band succumb to any show-off gimmicks that other, more pandering acts would
have been prone to. But there were close-to-exceptions to the E-heads norm: Marasigan
moved about like a giddy rocker when he assumed the lead-vox duties (as Nicolas
took over the drum set) midway through the first main set. Then the normally
reticent Adoro gamely sang lead for a "reggaefied" take on "Huwag Mo Nang Itanong," and Buendia
invited the enthusiastic audience to sing-in-the-blanks on some tunes, torched his
old piano during the instrumental conclusion of “El Bimbo" and went down to the front-row crowd to let
ecstatic viewers sing lines of "Toyang" straight to the mike.
(There was also a brief tribute
to the pioneering musician Francis Magalona, 44, who lost the "happy
battle" with leukemia the day before “The Final Set.” The E-heads sang and
played the chorus to FrancisM’s “Kaleidoscope World,” while the overhead big screens
presented a montage of The Man's music videos. This would serve as a prelude to
that night's performance of the E-heads' "Superproxy," the recording of
which featured Magalona doing an extensive, closing rap. What a night! Buendia
did the rap verses on FrancisM's behalf.)
In many ways, "The Final
Set" was a historic event-encapsulating the band's milieu and its eclectic
spirit. Essentially a pop act, the Eraserheads incorporated a variety of music styles,
anyway, even a variety of pop-culture and real-life references. This was
evidenced early on by its major-label debut Ultraelectromagneticpop!
(the title itself a play on the hallucination-inspired weapon unleashed by Japan's
Voltes V) and its tracks that cribbed
melodies and words from The Four Tops' "I can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie
Honey Bunch)," Nat King Cole's "Too Young" and Paul McCartney's "Silly
Love Songs.” In "The Final Set," interjections that quoted a remake
of Eric Clapton’s "I Shot the Sheriff" and lyrics to Van Halen’s “Jump”
were cases in point. But the band members complemented this
"reflective" reflex with their ability to channel universal- or at
least national-sentiments and experiences, which everybody in their college phase
has undergone or are still reeling from. All this wrapped in ultracatchymelodiouspop.
One can therefore conclude, as the fans probably surmised, that the Eraserheads
were a natural consequence of the cut-and-paste, knowledge-overloaded,
technology-saturated realm of Generation Why Bother.
That innumerable E-heads followers
stuck with the band throughout its Nineties heyday down to the early 2000s, and
have pretty much kept an ear on each band member via their respective
post-Heads preoccupations, also points to the fact that the Eraserheads had managed
to supply, rather consistently, its ardent following with a unique, high-inducing
kind of E: emotional emancipation. Not only did the band inspire countless
others to form their own sonic outfits and spill out their own juvenile hearts
and minds via simple chord patterns and I-can-do-what they-do chutzpah (with
varying, often dismaying results), the E-beads likewise affirmed what was going
on in our lives as well. To wit: Even if the heartbreaking narrative of “Ang Huling El Bimbo" may never have
happened to the rest of us, we could certainly identify with the life's-like-that
bitter sweetness of its lyrical sprawl. Even if we may have never ended up behind
bars, the poignant longing and black humor evoked by "Kailan" is something we must have experienced ourselves
at some point. And whether or not we can drive, or have been all around the
Philippines, anyone of us must have had some sort of frustrated aspiration that
"Overdrive" wittily encapsulated. More often than not, practically
every E-heads tune-or at least its every album had such an affecting ring that made
the loyal listener feel genuinely alive.
It was great while it lasted and,
as in school, graduation day had come to the College of Eraserheads soon
enough, relatively abrupt as it might have been in the case of the Most Successful
Foursome in Pinoy Pop. I suppose that, even without the unfavorable circumstances
that had led to its disbandment- whatever they were-the band still would have
wanted out; just as any of us can be students only for so long before wanting to
conquer the proverbial real world, Buendia, Adoro, Zabala and Marasigan must
have felt that they had taken their enterprise to its proper outcome and wanted
to get out of the E-heads box to harness their respective potential in other
directions.
While the band members have
affirmed that they will never record again (their last album was 2001's
double-disc Carbon Stereoxide) nor even play together as the Eraserheads again,
it is probably still premature to bid the band farewell. For one thing, their
songs are perpetually our songs, as evidenced by both tangible ownership of
their various albums and, moreover, by the way their recordings have been embraced-
from the karaoke level all the way to anthemic status, as "The Final Set"
got to underscore. For another, these four men-boys are still playing, albeit
in disparate bands that, while not necessarily capturing the E-heads magic, are
worth rooting for nonetheless. And, let's face it: a decade or so from now,
when they will have been in their fifties, the band members-and most of us-just
might want to assess the ensuing years and wonder if, say, the national
condition remains in such a pathetic state that we could not help but heartily,
verbally unearth that best-loved line of “Pare
ko”: “Di ba…Tang ina”*
