My friend Shirley has been surprising us lately. She has been my friend since college; as far as we know, her taste in music is mainly contemporary pop with a smattering of old songs and Broadway showtunes. However, she ‘discovered’ the band The Calling last year, and since then, she has been surprising me a lot when she would blurt out stuff like, “uy, alam ko yang song na yan, Velvet Revolver yan”. I took her to a gig a few months ago, and she floored us when she commented about the sound (when our other friend, Ann, wouldn’t even care, she’s just there to watch and drink) and how that particular band sounded different when they still have 5 members (in short, stuff only I in our crowd would normally notice).

Monday, May 23, ’round 10am, I got a text from her asking if I know the UK band Rooster and if I know that they are having a free gig that night at Temple in Gbelt 2. Apparently, she likes them. Now, I do know that there’s a band called Rooster and that they are in town for a gig, but that was mainly because I saw a poster at one of the malls and my first reaction was, “why the hell would anyone name their band ‘Rooster’?” The tag “hottest band” or something like that caught my attention, too. For a “hot band”, hottest pa nga, I don’t have any idea who they are. Then again, I’ve been kinda out of touch with bands lately, so… Anyway, another reason why the poster caught my eye is that whenever I hear the word ‘rooster’ or anything related to ‘poultry’, I immediately think of Full House (if you’ve seen this drama, you’d understand what I’m saying).

Long story short, Shirley asked me to go with her and check this band out. I thought, what the hell, Shirley normally doesn’t ask me to go to gigs, so might as well go. As long as I don’t have to pay entrance, I’m fine.

We arrived at Temple at around 9:30pm not expecting much, as we are already late (they said the show’s gonna start at 9pm). Temple Bar is a small club, so I’m already anticipating a packed room by the time we get there. After all, we’re gonna watch the ‘hottest band’ these days, right? Uh, not really. We got there very late and we didn’t even have to squeeze in. We were even able to get a good view of the stage, although we weren’t out in front. Some girls already beat us to the spot. And I don’t mean ladies, I mean GIRLS. Teenaged girls. Save for the Sony-BMG people and the tech guys, I’m surrounded by digital-camera touting kids. I’m not surprised, actually. I texted Therese to ask if she knows anything about the Rooster gig, and she said she saw them at Glorietta the day before (not that she likes them or anything, but Therese is just like that, she’ll check out bands just to see if they’re good or not) and she described them as a “boylet band”. Hence, the presence of cutesy colegialas in the crowd is not really shocking. I’m more surprised that there’s actually a good number of guys in the crowd, too. I’m just not sure if they are Rooster fans or they came with the girls (or are fans of Myx VJ Iya Villania).

So anyway, the roadies were still setting up when we arrived. Gosh, they took soooo damn long to set up. I don’t know if it’s because they are perfectionists or the gear simply sucked (my guess: BOTH). Suddenly, the roadie started setting up an acoustic guitar and Shirley blurted out, “uy, Takamine!” I’m like, “huh?” Shirley: “Takamine, yung gitara nya.” Me: “Uh, okay. What do you mean, he named his guitar ‘Takamine’?” Shirley: “hindi, brand ng gitara yun”. I literally picked my jaw from the floor. Gosh, that was embarassing. I’m the one who’s always in the company of guitarists, and I have no idea what Takamine is. Sheesh. I do know that the other guitar they were setting up was a Gibson Les Paul, though.

Thirty minutes after, and they are still setting up. I was getting a bit bored, so I paid my attention to the piped-in music that Temple decided to play while waiting. At that time, the song was Incubus’ “Drive”. Hey, isn’t this the Rooster promo tour? Shouldn’t they be playing something by ROOSTER? Suddenly, they played something that made my ears perk up. It’s… IRON MAIDEN!!! What the heck is this club?!?!

FINALLY, after 10 years of waiting, here comes VJ Iya to introduce the band. “One of the greatest bands to come from the UK…!” WHAT?!?! Is she on drugs or something? Actually, Rooster isn’t bad… but they’re not good either. They’re a generic boylet band. The bass player is cute, though… until he smiled and he looked dorky. Oh well. Shirley: “the vocalist looks like someone…” Me: “he’s a cross between Mick Jagger and Leif Garrett.” Yes, I am OLD. I can’t see the guitarist and the drummer coz the people in front of me were too tall (the guitarist was sitting down most of the time). For their second song, they played something entitled “Staring At The Sun”, which prompted me to sing U2’s “Staring At The Sun”, but nope, that’s not what they played (thank God!). Then the vocalist introduced the next song: “any of you ladies know Blackstreet?” Me: “Blackstreet?!?! what, you’re gonna play something by Blackstreet???” Vocalist who looks like Mick Jagger/Leif Garrett: “we’re gonna do a song called “No Diggity”! Me: “shyte! No Diggity? Sige nga, impress me!” So they played a funky-fied version of the Blackstreet original, with me singing along, and then I realized something which made me burst out laughing in the middle of the song. Uh, am I the only one here who knows “No Diggity”?!?! Am I THAT old? Hey, it’s not as if No Diggity was not a staple among showband circles; as a matter of fact, it was murdered pretty badly by some of them. And it was released sometime 1997 or something, so it hasn’t been that long. So it’s not as if I’m THAT old… the rest of the crowd were just THAT young. (But then again, Shirley, who’s my age, doesn’t know the song either. I told Rommie this story - and Rommie is older than I am - and she, too, doesn’t know the song. Fine, fine, I’m a closet hip hopper then. Yes, I’m a poseur. So sue me.)

All in all, they played 5 songs, which means the waiting before the performance was longer than the actual performance. I kinda enjoyed it, though, thanks to “No Diggity” (hmm… must download that song). My only regret was not bringing my camera. The lights were spectacular - pink lights on blonde hair is awesome, I tell yah. Camera phones do not give justice to it.

Some pics:

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