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Was Get Music Indie-Go Worth It?

eeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhtwasitwasallrite.jpg

I went to Get Music Indie-Go because I was lucky enough to get my hands on some VIP tickets. Don’t ask how. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not proud of myself. 

ANYWAY. 

Billboard PH recently wrote about it and goddamn did they tip-toe around the motherfucker. It was so obvious that not a lot of good things happened that night because under the “Highs” section, all they could say was (essentially) “There’s aircon,” “Jensen and Reese were cool,” “there was food,” and “it happened at MOA Arena.” They couldn’t say anything offensive under “Lows,” so all they said was “It was expensive,” “It started late,” and “There was a lot of trash afterwards.” 

I feel bad for them for not being able to just say outright that the thing was a flop. There were probably around fifteen to twenty people in the upper and lower box areas, and just half of both VIP A and B were filled. They should’ve just rented out SM Skydome or the Samsung Hall at SM Aura to save them the embarrassment. It was so sad, that when I woke up the following morning, I thought really hard whether I wanted to write about this or not. I held it off for a few days because I got depressed every time I started thinking about it. I thought I would never write about it, ever. Then today I listened to some Steve Lacy, Pouya, and the new Death Grips, and that got my mood up real quick. Now I’m ready to shit on this again.

First of all, it wasn’t bad. It was just plain disappointing. They’re justification for doing it at MOA Arena was that they were going to do things they can’t do at bars. Aside from MilesExperience, this was a lie. Every band did exactly what they do at bars. While Jensen and the Flips and SUD did have back up singers, I don’t think that’s something you can’t do at bars. Sure, there’s the fact that there are better acoustics at MOA Arena compared to Route 196, but that was already expected. I arrived late, so the first artist I got to see was Reese Lansangan. I’m bummed that I didn’t get to see NINNO (the only guy I wanted to see anyway) and Conscious and the Goodness, but judging from the stuff I’ve read, they didn’t do anything mind-blowing either. I missed She’s Only Sixteen too, and thank God I did. 

And there’s also all the screens they used, which infuriated me because they didn’t even put it to good use. Initially I thought they were going to do some Kanye West-type shit, but they ended up just splicing together their music videos and random screensavers. Check out a photo from Jensen and the Flips’ set:

Reese’s

The visuals didn’t complement the music to make an immersive experience. They serve no other purpose than as something to stare at. The only artist that actually tried in terms of visuals was somedaydream. He paired his trippy electronic music with some equally trippy visuals that I can only describe as “like walking around in campus while stoned with 3D glasses on.”

Surprisingly, he was my favourite artist that night. 

Every now and then, he also used these vague, trying-to-be-profound mouth-farts that looked like t-shirt designs from H&M.

Photo from H&M

It’s funny how both coincidentally look like cheap rip offs of two different Joy Division albums. 

In the smoking area, I overheard one audience member saying somedaydream’s set was “too artsy for him.” I don’t want to generalise, but that reveals the kind of people this “indie music” festival attracted. An artist actually tries to do something different, and it’s already “too artsy” for the poor audience member. 

As expected, pop punk band All Time Low  A Day To Remember Simple Plan An Honest Mistake stuck out like a sore thumb. They’re my second favourite artist from that night, though, because their music is incredibly fun live and they’re funny as hell too. In between songs, they spent their time cracking jokes and looking for groupies. I don’t think they even knew what the show was about. In the middle of the set, they invited Dee Cruz Eunice Jorge Hayley Williams Juliann Savard of Save Me Hollywood and uhh yeah I guess that was cool. 

There’s also the “college acts,” and I don’t want to go into that because none of them were memorable. I think one of them sounded like 6cyclemind (which is never a good thing) and another sounded like Paramore. it’s annoying that there are still bands that are stuck in Paramore Hell circa Riot! I mean, even Paramore has gotten over Paramore and has moved on to ripping off The Strokes. I heard Mrs. Fin auditioned for this thing, and I cannot believe that these hacks were accepted and not them.  

Through out the night, the bands kept promising that there was going to be a “huge surprise.” The surprise turned out to be MilesExperience having a choir, a cellist (Coeli San Luis), and the UST Yellow Jackets Drumline on stage during their set. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see this set, and I would be glad to be corrected by any fans out there with footage when I say that that looks like a clusterfuck trying so desperately to pass off as a huge surprise. When i told this to my sister, who’s both a UST student and a huge MilesExperience fan, all she could say was, “What? Why??” If you’ve heard MilesExperience’s music, you’d know that it isn’t something that would go well with a choir or a drum line. A cello makes sense, but a drum line and a choir?? I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the real surprise of the night was when Gabby Alipe played “Soul Searching” for the first time in two years. It was a much bigger surprise because it meant something, and not just a bunch of random things put together to look big and important. 

I went to the show with TWCD contributor Hayden Kho’s Non-Celebrity Sex Buddy. While we were waiting for our Uber, she said “I’m starting to get why this is such a big deal to the bands now. Think about it: the last time a Filipino band got to play in MOA Arena, it was the Eraserheads.” That analogy’s inaccurate because you simply can’t compare E-heads to a band like Sud, Jensen, Miles, or Reese - and no, not even Gabby Alipe. But, yes, I got her point. At the tail end of Reese’s set, Reese was at a loss for words thanking her fans. And during Sud’s set, Ballecer could hardly move out of nervousness. Despite the broken promises and the overall disappointment, the show was actually pretty heartwarming, and I felt great for being there. And I’m actually glad that the artists, albeit undeserving, got to play the gig of their dreams. The next time another one of these things comes up, I’ll be lining up for a ticket and as long as its free because I am not giving my money to something that is so not worth paying for, I’ll be there.