One festival to rule them all

The Red Hot Chili Peppers had left the stage, but the audience did not want to leave. The band had just performed a 16-song set that started with Can’t Stop and hit a crescendo with By the Way — but the thousands of people that filled the 100-plus-hectare venue of the 7107 International Music Festival wanted more.

“That can’t be the end!” said a woman beside me, as the crowd around us broke into chants and applause. She was stating the obvious, of course. Surely, the Chili Peppers were coming back for an encore. It’s part of the rock concert script — band exits stage, crowd begs for more, band returns. But this didn’t matter. When the lights turned back on and bassist Flea walked on stage in a headstand, the woman jumped up and down, people raised their hands and screamed, and this audience felt like the most special audience in the world.

What followed was a four-song encore that started with an off-the-cuff jam between drummer Chad Smith and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, and ended with frontman Anthony Kiedis leading the crowd in singing Give it Away. At this point, the crowd was ecstatic. This was the Chili Peppers’ first performance in the country in the band’ 31-year existence, and their 90-minute set more than made up for lost time.

It  was a fitting end to the 7107, the international music festival that took place last weekend in Clark, Pampanga. 55 acts from the Philippines and overseas performed over the course of the two-day event — an event that, in its lead-up, attracted as much controversy as it did anticipation, but in execution, hit all the right notes.

OVERWHELMING

I arrived the day before the Peppers played, on a scorching Saturday afternoon. After claiming my festival pass (a bracelet equipped with an RFID chip), I entered the venue, overwhelmed by the size of the location. Nearly twice the size of Luneta Park, the concert grounds had two stages — a giant main stage, where the Red Hot Chili Peppers played, and a smaller stage, on which many local acts performed. Both had the bells and whistles of a world-class production: LED screens, areal drones and craned cameras broadcasting live video feeds, clear, booming sound systems. But the main stage was designed to look like the sun from the Philippine flag, while the second stage was adorned with the horns of a carabao. The pitch was clear: this was a global festival with a Filipino heart.

Walking around the venue was an assault on the senses. Sounds from the two stages mixed as I went back and forth between them — rock overpowering post-rock; hip-hop combining with electronic dance music (EDM). The smell in the air carried a mix of alcohol and cigarettes, food and the fresh Clark breeze, and the unmistakable scent of marijuana. And the sights — young, pretty teenagers wore crop tops and short shorts as they roamed the grounds. They mixed with metal heads and skinheads, hipsters and parents, men in office attire, a healthy mix of foreigners, and a man in a full-body green suit.

LOOKING SMART

Now, I came as a guest of Smart Communications, the main sponsor of the festival. Smart was one of the few companies that came on board the fledgling festival, and they did not hold back in their support.

In preparation for 7107, Smart gave away hundreds of VIP tickets to subscribers of its music streaming app, Spinnr. Spinnr gives users legal access to a library of over three million songs. For reasonable prices, users can stream and download their favorite tracks, create playlists, and discover new music. Smart also launched a promo called Street Smart, which, for as low as P10 a day, helped users get to Clark by giving them access to transportation apps such as Waze, Easy Taxi, RaincheckPH, Interaksyon.com, NLEX Assist, and the bus reservation service Pinoy Travel.

At the festival grounds, Smart put up an air-conditioned tent for its subscribers, which featured a live feed of the performances on the main stage. It was here that I hid from the oppressive heat of the first afternoon, checking tweets about the controversy surrounding the event (“Was Janet Lim-Napoles money funding this?” people asked; the organizers have flat-out said no. “Is it true that once you get into the venue, you’re forced to stay for the rest of the day?”; yes, this was indeed a rule.) But as the sun began to set that day, the performances on both stages began to get louder, and the crowd began to grow thicker, it became evident — this weekend, the only thing that mattered was the music.

FOREIGN ACTS

The main draws of the festival were big foreign musicians such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, American DJ Kaskade, Aussie pop rock act Empire of the Sun, and Grammy-nominated American rapper Kendrick Lamar.

Kaskade capped day one of the music fest with track after track of his EDM hits. His thick bass lines, heart-pumping beats, and the visual display on the LED screens got the crowd dancing in ecstasy.

On the second day, Empire of the Sun put on a psychedelic show that involved dancers, costume changes, fog, lasers, and rainbow colors. But it was Kendrick Lamar that got fans amped with songs like P & P and Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe. The high in the air wasn’t lost on Lamar, either — “You remind me of the West Coast,” he said of Filipinos’ laidback vibe. “When I got off the plane, I saw a lot of smoke. You like to smoke a lot, too, don’t you?” he asked to a cheer from the crowd.

LOCAL HEROES

For me, though, it was the local bands that really shined. From the first day, with DJ Nix Damn P, and bands like Musical O, Techy Romantics, and Taken By Cars, to the second day, with Cheats, She’s Only Sixteen, Pulso, and Encounters With A Yeti — 7107 was a testament to the deep pool of talent in the Philippines. It became emotional whenever the audience — a decidedly middle-class audience (the steep ticket prices made sure it was) — showed OPM the love it deserves.

When Up Dharma Down took the stage before a throng of people singing along to their songs, waving their hands to Oo and Indak, vocalist Armi Millare put her hands on her face and confessed she was nervous. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. She blushed when a group of fans in front row shouted that they love her.

When the Itchyworms ended their set on the main stage with an extended version of Beer, they had the crowd in the palm of their hands. The song began with its familiar opening stems, then segued into the Parokya Ni Edgar lyric, “Tama na yan, inuman na!” and the audience went wild. Frontman Jugs Jugueta was so amped by the response that he descended from the stage, and looking every bit the rock star, walked into the crowd surrounded by body guards,  and reached out to shake people’s hands. “Shet, ang saya!” he shouted when he got back on stage.

On Sunday, Radioactive Sago Project played to a similar crowd on the second stage, with the band causing a mini moshpit. When frontman Lourd de Veyra joked that the concert was meant for the release of Janet Lim-Napoles, the crowd went into hysterics.

KJWAN STEALS SHOW

It was Kjwan’s performance on the festival’s first night, however, that stole the show. Vocalist Marc Abaya was pissed that there seemed to be a division among the performers, with foreign acts dominating the main stage, and local acts being relegated to the smaller stage — and he made sure everyone knew it. Abaya started their set by thanking the audience for their support, and then went on to drop a series of f-bombs to the crowd’s delight.

“They said we’re not allowed to drink on stage. F*** that!” Abaya said. Later, a fan tossed him a can of beer. Abaya ripped it open, and poured the drink all over his face. “That’s better,” he said with a smile, as the audience howled in support.

Kjwan played a powerful set that started with their 2007 hit Invitation, spanned their discography, and ended with an eargasm of a performance of Lihim, supported by young rockers Audry Dionisio of General Luna and Enzo Marcos of Severo. When the song ended, the crowd was left chanting for more.

POST-MORTEM

So, this was 7107: An international music festival that was distinctly Filipino. Apart from a few kinks, it was well-organized — a feat achieved by virtue of the organizers hiring the logistics team behind the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, one of the most popular music events in the world. It was also brave — it took balls to mount an event the scale of which the country hasn’t seen before.

And despite the controversy surrounding the event, and the uncertainty of the organizer’s business model (I certainly hope they at least broke even), the music festival produced a net positive for the country: We had global acts going local, and local acts going international. 7107 was a venue that made rock stars feel like rock stars; finally, an event that Pinoy musicians can aspire for.

As I walked away from the main stage on Sunday night, I saw a young boy sitting alone on the grass, holding an audio recorder up to his mouth. He was singing. I am sure as hell he dreams of being on a 7107 stage one day.

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There are mentions of drug use in this article, but I must say that I never personally saw anyone puffing a joint or swallowing a capsule at 7107. But this is beside the point. There are reports that a handful of people were arrested at the event for drug possession. For this, I congratulate the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency for using the public’s resources to catch a bunch of teenagers smoking weed at a concert. I cannot imagine any bigger criminals we should be hunting down.

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Tweet the author @PepeDiokno.