Fete de la Musique: A festival for the soul

MANILA:

The shimmering glass and concrete jungle that is Manila’s posh Makati district reverberated with sound as over a 100 bands from the city congregated for the Fete de Musique around the Bonifacio Global City. A popular tradition gleaned from France, the Fete is now an annual event in the Philippines and aims to get as many different ‘sounds’ from Manila as possible to showcase the dynamic and vibrant music scene that the city sports.

The Bonifacio Global City is a quintessentially cosmopolitan neighbourhood where cafes, restaurants and bars offering world cuisines are located. In keeping with this vast palate of tastes, each establishment hosted musicians who played a particular genre of music ranging from jazz, rock, pop, percussion and original Filipino music, more popularly referred to as OPM. While some venues hosting the bands required a 200 pesos cover charge, many acts were free and in fact invited the audience to participate.

The concept of getting all these genres together at a time when tourists frequent the Philippines most worked brilliantly as a showcase of modern Filipino pop culture that is as original, exciting and pulsating as any other music scene around the world. Also by roping in restaurants to host the event, and holding live concerts of sorts all over the Bonifacio region, the event garnered an interest and aided in getting business from foreign avenues to these establishments. This two pronged approach was ingenious, proving how well developed the Filipino palate is for both food and the arts.

A local band that made a potent impact on audiences was Kandangyan, a famous band in the Philippines that performed something akin to folk rock. Despite sporting an intensely rock look with bare chests graffitied with tattoos, their music was the most sublime and moving.  A young Filipino student, Jocyl, was in raptures at their performance and enthused, “It just gets to you, gets to your soul.” Although their songs were in Tagalog, foreign audience members, like American Kathryn, found the performance to be riveting in how controlled and measured their delivery was.  “This is the power of music,” she beamed. “You don’t need to understand the language to know what it’s trying to communicate.”

Bryan, an American Filipino who’s recently moved back to Manila feels very strongly about the thriving music scene here. “I think OPM is awesome and have just begun to take an active interest now. There’s a lot of talent and skill here which is very impressive,” says Bryan of the purely local talent as he narrates how much he enjoys this all girl rock band General Loona. “They aren’t the conventional girl band doing girly stuff but more rock based and very experienced in their instruments and put up really good music in English and Tagalog.”

Interestingly though, there is a lot of foreign presence in the music scene, a testimony to which was an upcoming French singer Julien Drolon shooting the cover of his first single “Phil so Good” on the spot. “The Philippines has always been a melting pot and collaboration feel to the music here,” he rightfully identifies. The music scene presents a unique point of convergence for the local and foreign population, to see music literally and physically unite people of diverse orientations together. Yet, one cannot help but feel that perhaps foreigners, like Drolon, use Manila as a launching pad to gain the kind of fame and prominence that they may not be able to achieve in their own country. A marriage of convenience that can sometimes be rather amusing as could be seen with Drolon’s attempt to sing a Tagalog song that had the audience in splits as he theatrically romanced a woman in the audience.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2011.