I arrived at The Collective at nine thirty in the evening, and the streets were crowded with cars as people spilled from the venue into the streets. The place was absolutely jampacked! It was not hard for me to find Dax Carnay though, as he was onstage right that moment, hosting while Mei Bastes took a little break.
I arrived two bands before The Discoball played and that gave us the chance to hang out first, get some drinks, do a bit of small talk, and observe the different kinds of people in the crowd. The crowd was awesome! You could see the musicians, artists, yuppies, “little black men”, rastas, Filipinos, foreigners clustered together here and there.
I was so tempted to walk around and take photos of this very very interesting mix of people but I was running out of batteries.
Check out the people in the background! What a great crowd.
Soon enough, I heard The Discoball doing sound check in the background and I rushed off towards the stage to take photos. They had a guest percussionist, Rio Domingo.
Bheng Densing – vocals and guitars
Sidney Luzentales – guitars
Dan Ramon P. Geromo – bass
Jeff Azarcon – drums
I decided I needed to be on the other side of the stage too to take more photos but lost my way getting there. I went inside B-Side where there were also bands performing, and while I was there, decided to take a random shot as well. The Strangeness was playing at this moment.
I found my way back through a thick crowd and thicker smoke coming from the barbecue grills.
After they were done with their set, we met downstage and hung out at the backest back part of the courtyard of The Collective.
Dax and I had to go to some friends’ party so we had to leave early, leaving the hosting to Mei Bastes for the rest of the night. It was Slapshock who was playing when we left. I had really wanted to stay for Wilabaliw but we really had to go. Maybe next time. : )