The Scene Around: Summer Noise

05/22/2018 11:23:30 PM

It was six months ago when The Rest is Noise staged a Yearender show much earlier than anyone else in the gig scene. The program lasted for 14 hours and featured 22 musical groups and has drawn massive raves inside the packed Century City Mall. Imagine starting out with IV of Spades and end with Autotelic during that fateful and blockbuster Saturday.

Now, fast-forward to the first Saturday of the month of May (5 May 2018), the arguably crowd-drawing gig producers staged a summer show that showcased the championed talents of the metropolitan and beyond inside that same venue in Makati City. 

On its latest show called Summer Noise, The Rest is Noise didn't only gather some of the sought-after bands in recent memory, but also brought two acts from Cebu and three more from the neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. By the looks, it appears to be a summer indie music festival like no other – all that despite having another concert festival in another side of the metro called PULP Summer Slam.

We started with a sleeper and ended up with another one, but it can't be done with various sets of rock and raw loudness in the entirety of the program. Ruru may have jumpstart the program, but Clara Benin did her part, too; as the afternoon rolls by, Pedicab, tide/edit, and Oh Flamingo! has gradually turned up the tide.

Arguably, the sixth act was the first highlight reel: IV of Spades. It was their first show after announcing the departure of vocalist Unique Salonga, and obviously with the hottest news comes the hottest reactions online and offline – most especially before they hit the platform. The aura was orange-hot and host Jeremy Caisip was able to overcome the pressure on introducing them.

But as much as I personally missed the services of the young singer/guitarist, the now-trio of Blaster Silonga, Zildjain Benitez, and Badjao de Castro proved they can still pull it off with minimal differences between phases of their band life. However, this is just the first challenge for them as a band. Moving forward, the crowd dwindled a bit – either they took a breather somewhere or just left the program for obviously-rabid fangirl problems.

BP Valenuzuela, She's Only Sixteen (and its backwards set), and the first foreign-featured act The Sleeves from Hong Kong took over the reins for the early evening, and the crowd responded with a bit of reserved energy as we are just approaching the near-halfway point of the Summer Noise.

However, rap collective UPRISING has turned up the tide once again with their original hip-hop tracks in rare-long set that featured Illustrado (minus Batas), Apoc, BLKD, Zaito, Emar Industriya, and more. The quite long wait for the setup was worth it, and UPRISING's 40-minute performance, comprised of various backgrounds and elements of hip-hop music, was definitely more than worthy enough to be part of the highlight reel.

Following suit is the rebellious rap and rock group Dicta License. For their third outing since March, Pochoy Labog and company has set fire with their set full of awakeners. Another hit in the list of glorious acts that definitely rocked Summer Noise. Maybe we need chairs for the tired ones who sit in front of them soon.

The Singapore-based Permance turned out be a breather for some, but somehow made its solid presence felt, especially before Munimuni took over the platform and wooed everyone with their own brand of charming makata pop. It's no surprise why they are one of the crowd darlings today.

Following them is the snythpop duo Mandaue Night, which reminds me of a mixture of BP Valenzuela and Brisom in terms of musicality, with nostaligic-teeny beepy bop romance anthems and serenades embodying them. This certainly sustained the crowd's pace for the evening, especially when the young wanderers called The Ransom Collective hit the stage and did a somewhat backwards set of their own.

And after a series of indie-folks and synth pop, Tiger Pussy from Cebu rocked Summer Noise and has sent a number of people into moshpit sessions – even for just a quarter. Tom's Story came afterwards and has kept everyone in their stands with their signature post and math rock. Thailand's X0809 closed the show, but with relatively few in the stands. Nevertheless, an intimate kind of electropop to slow things down can be a right move.

All in all, Summer Noise has been designed as a complete package. It isn't poised as a single-staged music festival for nothing. I agree with Scout for lauding TRIN's effort to curate a program that has practically made goers glued from start to finish. The Flying Lugaw might have a differed perspective but I seconded them for stating how some of the non-contrarian forms of music were strategically placed and has made everyone indulged into it in such a way where music comes as a subtle approach to addressing issues at the music world.

Definitely this one's for the books. 

Author: slickmaster | © 2018 The SlickMaster's Files