The 'rakenrol' years

I’ve been going to gigs all over the city since 2005. Dancing up a storm, moshing with some scary dudes, singing my lungs out, drinking too much, and probably doing permanent damage to my hearing. It’s always a trip.

There’s something memorable about every gig you go to. It’s the Payatas Screamo Society calling you “ate” at the Summer Slam. It’s a funny or meaningful part of a band’s spiel that just sticks with you. It’s a really out of this world, totally unexpected cover (like the time metal band COG played VST and Company’s Ipagpatawad Mo at Big Sky Mind, what the hell?!). It’s the first time Raimund Marasigan gives you and your friends his mic during Pedicab’s set and lets you sing backup. (And the second time. And the third. Thanks, man!) It’s the first time Kuya Peter waives your door charge at Guijo. It’s a really strange conversation over beers. It’s when a band you love plays a song you request (we used to yell “DOTFB!” as obnoxiously as we could at Dicta License, and they always used to cave). It’s the crowd at Meiday. It’s seeing the Eraserheads for the very first time. Hell, it could be the cockroach that crawled over your foot while you were watching someone play in Cubao X — whatever it is, it’s something.

Child’s play: Atari Kim giving dad, Raimund Marasigan, a makeover.

Sometimes, those little memories are all I have left of a favorite band, a regular haunt. Many of the bars we frequented no longer exist. A good number of the bands have broken up (and some of them, maybe not too amicably). NU107 is gone. For someone who is emotionally invested in this scene, the changes can be a little disconcerting, maybe a little scary — and always saddening. But it’s a given that the bands will come and go. Rakenrol, though, is forever.