Last Saturday, I was at B-Side at The Collective for the awarding of UP Cineaste’s Haute Auteur 2012 with my friend Jonard, a research assistant for the Genetics laboratory of UST. Now on its third year, the festival’s goal is to pay tribute to cinema’s roots, proof of which is the homage to Nora Aunor and other cinematic greats in its entries. It had a week-long screening at Shangri-La Plaza Mall, with an accompanying print sale from artists like Manix Abrera, CJ de Silva, Apol Sta. Maria, Kasey Albano, Benjie Marasigan, and two artists I greatly admire: Rob Cham and Carina Santos (who recently followed me on Twitter and I still can’t get over).
At the ceremony, the finalists’ entries were screened again, with a band live-scoring the film. Honestly, my main reason for attending was to see the Techy Romantics, a local electronica band that I discovered a few months ago. They’re actually the only local group that I obsess over because their sound is mad awesome. Plus vocalist Camyl Besinga’s voice is incredibly hypnotic. They played around midnight, when most of the Haute Auteur attendees left, but when they started their set, B-Side started to get packed and everyone was dancing. It was easy to tell that they were the crowd favorite because they got the loudest cheers and they were the only group that were demanded an encore. They relented and performed 7 Years, a beautiful song from Touch. I was just dancing and smiling the whole time, it was insane.
Besides Techy, I only knew Encounters of a Yeti, but I discovered great music from other bands. I particularly liked The Walkie Talkies, a sister duo that covered The Spice Girls’ Stop, Regina Spektor’s Us and a mash-up of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep and Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy. I can’t find them on Facebook but the taller sister had this amazing voice that I want to listen to all night. Surprisingly, I also liked The Wilderness. Their music was a little hardcore for me, but I found myself dancing along, even though I’m not a fan (at all) of heavy, noisy, and wild rock.
On top of that surprise is seeing my friend Lee perform. Apparently, his band Better In Bed is one of the performers. He was one of the more popular ones and girls kept shouting his name. I liked his last song, Galaxies, and I now have it on my iPod. Before leaving the stage, he announced with a raised eyebrow that he wasn’t straight, then left. Ever so badass.
