The Final Set -a walk down memory lane

we all grew up listening to a certain style of music.  since my age of becoming was spent mostly in liberal manila, i was exposed to the music of the masa.

yesterday, we headed to MOA for a continuation of our Fort experience last year which was disappointingly cut short.

we had to meet someone in the manila area right before lunch so we decided to just head to MOA after and assume our mall rat roles as we waited for the concert.

Team Manila at MOA

our first agenda was to go to Team Manila to see if they still had concert shirts available

Team Manila at MOA

this store is filled with wonderful makabayan articles from enviro bags to cool pouches and notebooks as well as great looking proudly pinoy shirts. fortunately they still had stock.

we headed out of the store not knowing that raimund would be passing by for some last minute stage wear after a couple of hours!

one of hubby’s office mate was one of the lucky ones who was at the store when he came in and got his shirt signed (oohhh, i see mula from ebay profits around the corner! hehehe!)

finally the gates were opened around 3pm and we headed to the venue.

this time, the concert was held on the parking lot of MOA way opposite of SMX. The crowd was thin at 4pm but a crowd none the less was camped out under the scorching sun just to get as close to the stage as their tickets could bring them.

the less fanatics, like us, decided to seek shadier, more comfortable grounds that would hopefully still give us a good vantage point. we passed the time taking photos, checking out the goodies being sold by (surprisingly) Fridays, Fish & Co., Italianis and good old Mc Donalds.

as the minutes passed, the crowd grew in number until our safe and comfortable space was little by little getting as crowded.

the crowd was getting a bit impatient as the concert time (8pm) arrived and passed and the staging of a couple of MTV VJs announcing sponsors stirred the already edgy crowd to bit of rowdiness.  these VJs were a little young and we were wondering if they really knew what they were talking about.  apparently not because one of them made a mistake on one of the more popular song title of the band (bad move by MTV, if i could say so)

after more boos and get out of stage shouts from the crowd, finally the screen showed excerpts of the band’s past and then a colorful alphabet being said backwards Z…Y…X…until E and then the stage lights come on *horaay*

(check out other photos from azrael, a lucky blogger *im so envious!!!*)

their first song was magasin which is one of my favorite song! so i was thrilled! but my excitement was a little dampened because the sound system was not working so well for the first few songs. you could hear ely sing and raimund’s drums but you could hardly hear the guitars very well at first. sayang!

you could tell they were a bit more subdued compared to the Reunion concert and during the first set, the other band members took turns on vocals giving their unique versions of the songs we all knew so well. my favorite part was when markus sang “huwag mo nang itanong” in raggae! it was really cool!

they started out with the songs of the newer albums in the first set, and because i have long lost touch with the makamasa music since i left UPM, i was not so well versed with the lyrics of most of the songs.

the second set was acoustic versions of their songs and was aptly started with pare ko and ended with overdrive.  even spolarium was given a beatles’ strawberry fields twist.

most of the time ely was sitting especially for the second set and as if afraid the hype would tire the lead vocals again, even the crowd was more subdued this time around. erwin of INQ was right, it was as if the crowd was in some kind of a trance!

after ending the second set, ely said good night and the crowd of course begged for more. (hahaha! what a cliche!)  he came back singing super proxy and then alapaap.

a tribute to Francis M was then made as kaleidescope world was sung. something i guess the crowd expected.  after the unfortunate passing of the pinoy rapper.

then finally, their award winning song, ang huling el bimbo was played as a finale (or so we thought!).  whenever i hear this song, i am transported back to the time i was lounging in NH and a friend of mine said the Eheads have come out with a new album and he raved about this song, telling me the story of the lyrics. those were the days…

i was a bit disappointed because they set fireworks towards the back of the crowd so that the concert goers could not make up their minds whether to look at the lovely fireworks or at the last few minutes of the band on stage. but maybe the display was really more for the band and not really the crowd…

and so the audience begun to exit the concert grounds, us along with them, and as we got about a couple of meters from the gate, an encore was announced! grrrr!!! the crowd went wild and because a lot of fans were already outside near the open VIP gate, they rushed in, hoards of them *the lucky ducks!* and maybe around 100 were able to get in before security realized what was happening and barricaded the gates. it was too dangerous to try to get back inside, for fear of a stampede with the surprise encore so we just stood outside the gates listening. ely seemed to be more himself now, more at ease and making funnies of the last 3 songs. the joke was on us!

over all the Final Set was wonderful, but i thought the reunion concert at the fort had more potential for a good “last concert”. the crowd was more hyped then, maybe because the band sang more songs people could sing along to for the first set, and the production seemed to be a little better. but thats just me thinking…

now with tired muscles, i start the day slowly. i guess sometimes walking down memory lane is not exactly a walk in the park

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