Final countdown

MANILA, Philippines - It’s hard to make it in the music industry when you’re starting out. Unless you have the hands of Jimi Hendrix and have your skills recorded on camera, you have to put your music out there and grab every opportunity to reach new listeners. You can  sign up for Soundcloud, Bandcamp or YouTube and hope for at least 50 listens. But alas, the Internet is a vast, infinite space and you might just get lost in the tracks of online celebrities like Miranda Sings and Kina Grannis.

The guys behind Wanderland Music and Arts Festival took the pulse of the new music hopefuls and called for another round of Wanderband, a music competition looking for the freshest bands in the scene today. Indie folk band The Ransom Collective finished first last year and got to play at Wanderland 2014 alongside The Drums, Architecture in Helsinki and Lucy Rose, among others.    

This Saturday, Jan. 31 at 4 p.m., the top five bands competing in this year’s Wanderband will battle it out at Green Sun Hotel in Makati. Catch indie pop band The Strange Creatures, folk band Fools and w Foes, indie jazz/new wave band Ivan Theory, alternative indie band Dearest and alternative folk band Austin live as they play one cover song and one original song. The winner will play in Wanderland 2015 with Kid Cudi, Hale and other local and international acts that will be announced soon.

Drop by Green Sun tomorrow, support the band of your choice and memorize at least one of their original songs by heart. So when the winners become YouTube celebrities one day, you can proudly say that you liked them way before they were famous.         — Maine Manalansan

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Follow Wanderland Festival on Twitter: @wanderlandfest for updates on Wanderband and Wanderland Music & Arts Festival. Like their page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderlandfest.