GIG REVIEW: San Miguel Oktoberfest Opening Night, "Is That Beer in my Hair?"

There are gigs that are so cool that you will remember them for the rest of your life them and talk about on boring sundays. Then there ar gigs you just wanna forget.

October 1 sparks the San Miguel Oktoberfest, yet another corporate ploy to entice the beer loving filipino public to consume the one herbal beverage that actually causes more harm than good. Beer.
I'm not a beer drinker myself, so please excuse my blunt remark. Why was I here? I was here for two things. One, to end the streak of monotonous living I am currently experiencing that has been driving me to the brink of going peanuts, and two, for a more localized entry for this blog. I bet you are all sick of my google-search entries and film reviews by now. Time for some real crap.

GETTING THERE

Anyways, to say that there was a lot of people was an understatement. Unusually, I have seen more people in a concert venue than this but somehow, things were more congested more unsettling, more chaotic here. The organizers simply made various tactical mistakes.

TACTICAL MISTAKES

1. They didn't put "entry" and "exit" signs. (Well, punks are not good with signs, anyway)

2. There weren't any visible lines in the entrance gate. (no lines = chaos)

3. They put the friggin' beer booths along the way to the stage.(the people getting their cups filled vs. people getting into the stage in one space)

4.Finally, they didn't protect the plants (poor santan bushes, sob!)


SPLASH

Once I got inside along with a lot of elbowing into the crowd composed mostly of metalheads and punk posers I found myself a sweet spot right beside the big monitor. I couldn't help but notice the mixture of subcultures in the throbbing mob. There are the Rn'B clubsters, the masa crowd, the antisocials, the rich kids with the tag along yayas. I could hardly believe that this event was able to attract such a diverse crowd. The punks were doing their pogo dancing and moshing The RnB chicks strutting their stuff and the idiots just splashing their cups of beers to the crowd.

There was a beer drinking contest with the winner ending up puking 2 big glasses of san mig in front of Dom Ochoa, the event's emcee. I got drenched with beer in my hair and clothes 30 minutes into this gig. No one was spared from this storm of golden lager. Even Jay R the performer during the most distressing point of the show wasn't spared of the beer shower and the middle finger. Host Dominic Ochoa had to stop performances midway just to warn the maddening crowd to chill or else go home, to which they replied with "Peeeeeaaassshhhh!" and a v sign. They completely ignore the warning after a few seconds and go make a ruckus again, replacing their v signs with the finger.

Jay R getiing his fill of BS for the night. Notice the hand with the middle finger.

The bands were... well they sucked! For some reason, the bass players cant hear the rest of the band and end up doing their own thing out of sync with the rest of the band. A one point, the Monitors (speakers) began to fail and we couldn't hear anything at all except the drums. Mobs are really not verry happy when these things happen.

Ever seen a moshpit? Ever seen a moshpit from the inside?

The night of decadence goes on with more beer tossing and scaffolding climbing. I was behind a couple of clubber girls who acted all demure early on but after a few beers started to act like real b*%^hes and started to throw their beer into the punk crowd. I was right behind these chicks when punkheads started turning their eyes our direction. "Mapapalaban ako yata nito". It's a Good thing that the girls' drunken charm won over the punks' nihilism and just gave them the "peeeeeaaassshh" sign.
The gig was full of strategical errors that started from the promotional stage that went all the way to its tragic end.

STRATEGIC MISTAKES:

1. They hired bands of different genres. Rock, Rn'B, HipHop. This caused the culturally diversed mob inside the Usually quiet and quaint Metrowalk.

2.They got Dominic Ochoa to host. Hey, I like the guy. But its like putting Hero Angeles in a cell full of Death Row convicts. Recall the "jologs" incident with Diether Ocampo in the NU107 Rock Awards?

3. The venue was small and full of those artsy landscaping things that never saw the light of day after the gig.

4.Bad sound System. Period.


This gig as they say, had a goal. They had a goal of creating a new world record for...I don't know. The largest beer toast! I dont know what they exactly called it. But it failed miserably considering that at the stroke of midnight nobody had beer in their hands anymore, it was all in their hair.


THE BEST PART

I decided to go home early. I left the stage area at around 12:30am and decided to go to the office to get some sleep. Asif the night didn't suck enough. It rained. No. It poured.
Did I mention that there was no shade anywhere, Just a bunch of small tents fit enough to keep a hundred kegs of beer in different places in the Metrowalk?
Everybody was drenched. I mean dripping. The punks tore off parts of the tents and took the Oktoberfest banners and used them as makeshift umbrellas and walked home. No Bamboo today. No Sick Cycle Mind. Just ulan.
I took a pic of the drenched partygirls and conos, it was just too funny to miss. But my phone died out on me. Drats!

Over all the kickoff of the Oktoberfest was like an old man on a respirator. A sorry sad disorganized mess hooked up to a machine.