Hotdog (with everything on it)

They served us pasta in sweet spaghetti sauce. With hotdogs. I spent many minutes pondering whether this referred to the band taking the stage — Hotdog — who we had gathered to see at the Dusit Thani that night, or if the hotel was just cheap.

In any case, Hotdog had reenlisted their ranks to perform for a Filipino crowd that was clearly in the thrall of nostalgia for good times. Oddly, Hotdog’s mass popularity came in an era when things in the Philippines were not really the very best. The era of disco, specifically. Martial law in full effect. Economic slump. Bad shaggy haircuts. Flare pants.

That didn’t seem to matter. Therese and I were crowded around a table of prosperous-looking fans, and there were about 70 such tables in the ballroom — not to mention the rows of people in the “cheaper seats” occupying the center (who were not served pasta with chunks of hotdogs and a “pruit flatter”). These people, it was clear, had all “made it.” They ran businesses, raised families, were in banking, or government; they’d stuck it out in the Philippines through good times and bad. They were “adults.” Yet they were listening to 30-year-old parodies of The Village People’s Macho Man and songs about pan de sal.

Lesson: Never underestimate the power of escapism.

There is a reason, say, that Americans in the middle of a deep, worrisome economic slump and waves of joblessness tend to watch stuff like Game of Thrones. Escape. Why 3D is so relentlessly pushed by Hollywood upon movie audiences. Escape. Why Kim Kardashian’s butt is of national (and international) interest. Again: escape.

The Hotdog Band is back in vogue.

Arguably, people a generation from now, in the unforeseen future, might feel nostalgic about our pop culture today, a time of economic uncertainty (though, also arguably, Filipinos manage to always stay a bit below the radar of the worst economic crises and, thus, avoid mass hand-wringing and malaise). And what does that Pinoy power of resilience rest upon? Escape.

Hotdog — formed by Dennis and Rene Garcia in 1972 — still sport the mullets, though not the flare pants. They still have the chops, and watching the 16 members fill the stage (including two bassists, two guitarists, two drummers, two keyboardists and eight backup singers), my wife Therese remarked that they were “like the Broken Social Scene of their day.” Or maybe Parlaiment-Funkadelic without the Afros and silver lamé costumes.

It’s hard for an American to get completely immersed in the Hotdog experience, not just because most of their songs are in Tagalog, but because those songs seem to have been stamped on the brains — and booties — of most Filipino fans. It’s more than just a band impersonating a jukebox for a night; I looked at the faces in the crowd — a crowd that could somehow incorporate the disparate likes of Bongbong Marcos, Bong Daza, Mons and Erwin Romulo, all under one happy tent — and saw rapt expressions, snapshots of ecstasy as men and women in their 40s and 50s got to their feet during a rousing closing medley to wave their arms and shake their hips (just barely, though; don’t want to strain yourself) and aim their cell phone cameras. They were, almost literally, transported: to another time, to another place, when these songs played on the radio and things might not have been the best in the country, but they were young, and perhaps not exactly free, but at least felt that they were inside.

Therese mentioned that Hotdog paved the way for the Eraserheads, and I saw what she meant: humorous lyrics, speaking about real things in down-to-earth language, rather than the sophisticated and serious leanings of the previous generation — the Frank Sinatra croonings, the Astrud Gilberto sambas. You know: grownup music. Instead, this was disco-pop with jazzy changes, not quite at the level of Steely Dan, but able to move audiences in ways that The Dan’s dark charms and cynical humor never could. Hotdog played love songs, too, and seemed to have one for every occasion — loving from afar (Pers Lab); dreaming of a loved one (Panaginip); getting even with a past crush who never knew you existed (Beh, Buti Nga); making up, even after all the fights (Kasi Naman). Hotdog truly wrote the book of love for Filipinos, again and again.

With a new album coming out (they played one number from it, appropriately titled Rewind), the band has been doing a series of reunion shows. An earlier concert at Dusit Thani had attracted President Aquino and Mar Roxas, among others. For nostalgic politicians, Hotdog apparently has become the hottest ticket in town. This was the band’s second night taking over the hotel, and so they paraded out the guests — a cellist who played along with their Miss Universe theme song from ’74 (Ikaw ang Miss Universe ng Buhay Ko), a few numbers with the omnipresent RJ Jacinto (he had played our STAR anniversary party just the day before), guitar in hand. A Beatles medley ensued, curiously featuring only songs associated with Beatle Paul; plus a vocalist showcase featuring each of their imported powerhouse singers from Canada, Australia and the UK. Through it all, Dennis and Rene remained the rock-solid center behind the worship of good times.

But it was the medley at the end that seemed to turn the room into a human time capsule. Of course, I can’t name the songs they played (cut me some slack), but 90 percent of the people in the audience knew the words like they knew their school ID numbers, or remember their “first time.” Intimately, in other words. The Betamax images projected on the side screens added to the time travel effect: open-collar shirts, chains, flares and disco-feathered hairstyles, all flickering by on partially-erased videotape, the way we like our memories: worn with age, but still magnetic somehow.