The uneraseable Ely

An officemate sent this article written by Reggie Gulle for ABS-CBN online, days after the former Eraserheads band’s much-awaited and abruptly-stopped reunion concert. The concert had to come to a close midway because main vocalist Ely Buendia was rushed to the hospital because of chest pains. He had had a heart attack in 2007 and underwent angioplasty twice.
The group had been preparing for this concert, as their fans are very eager to see them again together years after they’ve disbanded. My intelligent guess is that they’ve chosen this year to come together again onstage because it is the 100th anniversary of the University of the Philippines. I think three of the former band members are from UP Diliman. Two of them I remember to be my dorm mates.
Two days before the concert, Ely’s mother died, causing him emotional distress, on top of the physical stress he is already going through for the concert. So, on the big night, the weak body gave in.

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Haay, ang dorm mate ko sa Kalayaan Residence Hall, kahit kelan.....

.....sa umpisa pa lang, kumanta sa harap, boses baka, pinagtawanan. "Mag-gitara ka nalang!" ang kantiyaw namin. Noon pa lang, naging laman na sya ng usap-usapan....
.....pero nasaan na ang original ka-bandmates niya noon, ni hindi kilala sa music scene (di ko na nga matandaan mga pangalan, except for a guy named Earl na coño, dahil hinipuan niya ang friend ko na anak ng governor ng Zambales at sinapak siya sa mukha hahaha!)....

....sa bandang yon, si Ely lang ang sumikat ng todo at ang mga nakasama niya sa E-heads na dorm mates rin namin ay hindi naman dating nakikisawsaw sa kantahan. Nasa background lang sila....

.....balita para sa aming nakasama niya sa Kalayaan nung mabuntis niya ang girlfriend, dahil matagal na naming hinintay ito, sa dami ba naman ng kanyang kababaihan....

....balitang-balita rin ang paraan ng pag-alis niya sa E-heads na ikinagalit ng ibang band members....

....lalong balita nung atakihin siya sa puso....at ni isa sa dati niyang ka-miyembro walang dumalaw (tsk tsk!)

....nagkagulo nung mabalitaan ng fans (including me) na may reunion concert sila....na binalot ng kontrobersiya dahil isa sa mga major sponsors ay isang tobacco company na pinagbabawal mag-sponsor ng any concert base sa bagong phil laws....

....at pati ang reunion concert, record-breaking sa paghinto....

Hindi na nawala sa balita at balitaktakan si Ely at ang E-heads. Makakabalik pa kaya siya sa normal na pagbabanda, o iyon na ang kanyang huling el bimbo? Basahin nalang natin ito.

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Unerasable: Life and love in the eternal circus of rocking youth
An on-the-scene report and reflection on our collective near-death-experience -- and hey, Ely Buendia is still alive

By REGGIE GULLE
Special to abs-cbnNEWS. com

You've probably heard of the sobering news by now: Ely Buendia of the Eraserheads was rushed to hospital in the middle of the band's highly anticipated reunion concert, and what was supposed to be Pinoy Rock's event of the decade had to be stopped halfway through in front of audiences who were shown the exits with rather abrupt finality.

That this unexpected turn was a bitter disappointment to some quarters of the crowd would be quite an understatement; yes, the event organizers did outwardly announce that Buendia's life was in danger even while fans were salivating for the concluding portion of the show, but this was totally lost on some inflamed youths, who shouted vitriolic epithets to the effect that Ely Buendia should pay the ultimate price for forsaking his duty to the concert goers and should just...well, expire would be the kindest word for it.

I should know—I was there, standing beside this cruel-looking gang of punters, hearing what they must have been thinking was the ultimate expression of rebellious indignation. And while they might not have represented the majority, they were also clearly not alone.

Sure, it could be said that such a reaction reflects a callous and selfish, even scandalous indifference that an Eraserheads fan should never indulge in.

After all, hasn't it already been circulating among the legions of Pinoy Rock aficionados that Buendia has already had a brush with an anomalous life-threatening condition before? Why betray him, then, whatever latitude you could afford to give?

The very fact that the band could muster the resources and the motivation to reunite several years after what seemed to be an irreversible break-up and put together a program onstage can already be argued as the most positive result one could ask for.

Besides, the concert actually did happen despite being dogged by some controversies that seemed to conspire together to prevent it from taking off the ground in the first place.

Including, it should be mentioned, the very recent death of Buendia's mother. All the more reason to justify the statement that he was plagued by unkind amounts of “emotional stress” during the performance itself.
And so, immediately after the first half of the concert, Buendia felt a heaviness under his chest, which was a red flag against carrying on with the show, and the most sensible thing to do was to immediately haul him off to the doctors before his own medical history would have a chance to repeat itself.

And yet, one could easily sense the brooding disquiet of the crowds as they gradually shuffled out the exits. I wasn't in the paid area of the Fort Bonifacio Open Field, mind you ( I was content to sit it out beyond the fenced-in patrons area enjoying the company of scores of other wretched souls like me, having decided like them that, hey, I could hear the concert even from this far anyways, even without paying for the privilege, ha ha! ), but it was evident among the scrunched up faces of those leaving the concert area that fate had pulled on them a malicious and completely uncalled for sleight of hand, a massive criminal swindle, so to speak.

It was a bummer of bummers, all right, and the more vocal youths were not remiss at voicing out what they thought of it. Someone had to put the blame on something, anything, right? Even if, unfortunately, it was a person on the wrong end of the stick.

Because, in retrospect, the concert had come very, very close to fulfilling its promise -- a harking back, no, a reliving of what the Eraserheads essentially was. Ah yes, a palpable throwback to the 90's, when the rock band exercised a magic which was, for all that it mattered, simply phenomenal.

E-heads sa tanghali, sa gabi at umaga...

Back then, the Internet was in infancy, and yes, there were more beepers compared to cellphones, more cassette tapes than CDs, more videotapes than DVDs, and the hackney chatrooms weren't as sleek and as glossy as Yahoo Messenger.

Text messaging was a novelty as luxurious as, well, waterbeds, and there was absolutely no Friendster. But there were a lot of other things to do, too, perhaps because students (who became the first rabid core of Eraserheads fanatics ) could already squeeze into a 50 pesos per day allowance so many forms of entertainment within the week.

Movie tickets were way cheaper at that time, for one, and rock bands performing in universities and campuses were the staple diversions after the drudgery of schoolwork, instead of the internet cafes of today.

It was 1993, and the Philippines was enjoying the beginning of an economic upswing that the general population not only heard about but actually felt, no matter that the resurgence was a bit muted. MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice had come and gone, and Metallica was inspiring a slew of Pinoys out to prove that little brown rockers could also deliver their own brand of musical mayhem.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, four school chums, who looked and dressed as unassumingly as the typical college-boys in tee-shirts and jeans and sneakers casually hanging out in front of dormitories after class, had a stroke of inspiration and put together an LP of their original compositions. It was titled, rather in come-what-hither fashion, "Ultraelectromagneti cpop”, and credited as being presented by “The Eraserheads”.

It was trendy in those days for Pinoy rock bands to take their cue from more current Western influences, and so they tended to sound so much like the “alternative rock” bands from the Atlantic . What was different about the sound of the Eraserheads was that it somehow had a grounding in musical forms that other Pinoy bands hadn't explored as frequently.

Most noticeable about their first album was how the band didn't attempt to sound as angry or blistering as punk or thrash metal ( which Metallica allegedly first popularized ), nor did they try to ride along the remnants of the “New Wave” sound ( reduced to the generic term “alternative rock” ).

Instead, they managed to produce a distinctive amalgamation of bouncy rhythms and deceivingly simple arrangements which drove the Pinoy folk-rock-and- pop sensibility up a few hard-driving notches, together with upbeat smatterings of reggae, ska, and for the most part--yes, that unmistakeable Beatles-like energy.

It was a departure from what other Pinoy rock bands were doing, but it was subtle, to be sure, and yet also unique enough to become immensely popular, radio-friendly, and surprisingly anthemic. “Pare Ko”, the first hugely successful single from that album, could very well epitomize the almost unexpected infectiousness of the band's musical appeal.

While the song could never be classified as “alternative rock” since it sounds in no way like others of that ilk ( it is fast and energetic but not searingly so ), neither is it as passionately vocalized as the “grunge” of Pearl Jam or Soundgarden ( which, by the way, is ultimately rooted in blues music ).

Since then

In fact, “Pare Ko” sounds more like a pack of Pinoy drunkards trying to wake themselves up into a rowdy gusto by loudly singing whatever fast melody they could conjure to make them happy. The song is tongue-in-cheek, it never took itself too seriously despite its theme of betrayed love, it sounded Pinoy, and it was rock and roll.

After that album became one of the best-selling Pinoy rock albums of all time, the rest, as they say, is history. Seven albums and a multitude of awards later, it seemed that the Eraserheads were on a rocket ride which could never come down.

And when it finally did, the fans appear to have forgotten when, how or where. Yes, the band broke up in 2002, and as of this writing that would be six years ago, yet their songs still enjoy a considerable amount of airplay, and the ever-ubiquitous videoke singers out in the streets and inside smoky bars continue belting out tunes such as “Alapaap”, “Overdrive”, “Ligaya”, and that thoroughly overkilled ditty “Ang Huling El Bimbo”.

In a way, the Eraserheads have still endured inspite of the members having all gone their separate ways, and no matter how many other Pinoy rock bands have attempted to take over their mantle. And what better evidence of this than the massive attendance at their reunion concert?

I confess that I have never been a rabid fan of the Eraserheads, but I also have to say that I could mention no other Pinoy rock act which could muster the sheer patronage which Ely Buendia, Marcus Adoro, Buddy Zabala, and Raymund Marasigan still demonstrate, even after six years of not performing together.
And so they take to the stage once again, and in their trademark style of being spare in their live sets, only a brief introduction is made before they bring on the music. “Alapaap” opened their set, and I could instantly see the electrified reaction of the crowds.

They were truly transported back when you could never get through the day without at least hearing two Eraserheads tunes. The four guys onstage are maestros of the straight-up, no-frills performance, with hardly any let-up from one song to the next, and very little conversations with the crowd ( and with each other, in this case, with reasons only reserved to themselves )..

Into their fifth song, “Fruitcake”, people were still lined up at the box-office, never mind the same admission price despite missing out on whatever the early birds had.
I sat on a curbside and jived along to the rhythms, feeling relieved that there was no rain, losing myself every once in a while to the familiarity of hearing the band perform live again, which I last had the chance of experiencing more than a decade ago.

Then Buendia made a cursory introduction of the song “Toyang”, and the first few bars brought both those inside and outside the cordoned area off their feet, jiggling their hips and singing enthusiastically along.

Hearing that old tune from them once again, I begin to notice how better they sounded this time around, in stark contrast to their former performances during their heyday, when they were often faulted for not sounding as technically excellent onstage compared to their recorded sound. I credit them for taking the time to practice well for this appearance.

“Toyang” was such a surge of energy for most of the audience that during the succeeding songs, Buendia had to ask them “Okey lang ba kayo diyan?” once or twice because the enthusiasm appeared to peter out somewhat.

But there was no denying the women's screams when the band proceeded to sing “Kailan” (a cheesy ode to love ), as well as the more raucous audience reactions into their other hits “Kaliwete”, “With A Smile”, “Shake Your Head”, and “Huwag mo Nang Itanong”.

Curtain

In total, they got to about 15 songs when the now infamous mid-show break came around, was timed for 20 minutes, and then suddenly dissolved into a cancellation of the second set.

During that 15-song stretch, I could not help but be astonished at how the audience reacted identically, given that some of them weren't even born when some of these selfsame songs were first aired on radio.

I saw cosmopolitan yuppies in their early-to-late thirties singing along to the lyrics simultaneous with the 12 and up crowd, whose fashion sense veered more to the “emo” set and the other varieties of more contemporary rock styles. It just shows how the Eraserheads' appeal has in this indefinable manner crossed generations, and speaks of an element in their sound which truly gives credence to the term “Pinoy Rock”.

Because, in sum, the Eraserheads' sound, far beyond the others I get to hear from most other local bands, is quite essentially the spirit of the Pinoy. Buendia's schoolboy vocals draw in Pinoys from all walks of life because it sounds so much like everyone of us that we don't hesitate to sing along, and there's no need to rattle off machinegunning syllables like gangsta rappers or sound like Afro-American blues singers or caterwaul like Axl Rose.

The instrumentations from Adoro, Zabala, and Marasigan aren't as intimidating as those of other rock bands we often listen to, and many of us are also regaled to try out what they do ourselves. Their very accessibility, their easygoing demeanor, and ultimately, the predominance of effortless mirth in their sound particularly encapsulate what most Pinoys crave for, in the end. And as I said, for us Pinoys this is still rock and roll, now matter how old you are, whether you may be rich or poor, and it's excellent.

Which is exactly why, even now, it may be a reunion for the band, but it could well be what Pinoys have been sorely missing for so long, too. Especially in these trying times--the country being ridden with all sorts of crises, economic and otherwise-- when that same upsurge of easygoing mirth seems to have disappeared all of a sudden, and left a sort of vacuum inside most of us.

It was only regrettable that the audiences who were expecting to rise above this mood, perhaps during the second set of the performance ( since the first set had already been leading up to a crescendo ), was presented with a downbeat result.

Sorry, but that's the way the world turns, no one to really blame here. Even those whose frustration took on more alarming ways of expression. No doubt, this concert will be judged in time as another indelible memory to be associated with the Eraserheads, who I am convinced will still remain unerasable after all is said and done.

As we Pinoys like say to ourselves in consolation, there might always be a next time. There might. Meanwhile we can always remind ourselves that, yeah, they try to tell us we're too young, but don't worry, we'll go into overdrive, and when they try to feed you with all that dog food that they make you just shake your head and walk away, there's a fruitcake for everybody, t--g i-a pare ko, huling el bimbo, oo, pero laging may ligaya, sa tanghali, sa gabi, at umaga.