Third Installment
Saturday night we returned again to the usual haunt – Café Sa Guijo. I do love this place – it has such a great vibe and fantastic music. Philippinos love ballads, in the vein of Whitney Houston or Celine Dion. Their absolute favourite singer, a national treasure, is this girl called Nina, who sings songs with names like “Love Moves in Mysterious Ways”, (which the other AYADs sing to irritate me as they know how much I dislike it - this song haunts me - I hear it in the lifts, in cabs, in jeepneys, in shops -I think it is following me...), “This is the First Time, I’m Going to Say I Love You”, and my personal favourite, “I Will Love You, Until They Take My Heart Away”, which just weirds me out. How do you take someone’s heart away? Where would you put it? Into a transplant recipient – and would they then love that person too? Sorry – the music bugs me so I probably spend too much time being irritated and coming up with annoying rhetorical questions about it!! It’s probably quite a comforting sentiment – to be loved until that person’s heart is taken away (having visions of a particularly disturbing Buffy episode now, where the baddies were doing precisely that!). Okay – I’m done with that now…
My point is how much I love Sa Guijo. It has a real variety of indie music and some of the bands that play there are starting to become popular. Which is always exciting to see. This Saturday they were having a tribute night to a bloke called Wolffman (that’s not his real name – I believe his real name might be Wilfred but the internet is down and I can’t check – but it is almost the law here that you have a nickname. Almost nobody is called by their given name). Wolffman was very active in developing Sa Guijo and was the lead singer of a band – Woffgang. He died of an aneurysm two weeks ago, after playing a gig at Sa Guijo, at age 29. So lots of really good bands came together to do a tribute show and they were running powerpoints of him and stuff – they even had T-shirts and posters, it was very impressive.
All the bands were doing shout outs and talking about how much he meant to them etc. There were, of course, many toasts and salutes to their fallen comrade in strings/microphones etc. The most moving thing for me though, was when his parents (WolffDad and WolffMom) got up on the stage (well – designated area of floor – there is no stage!!!) to pay tribute to their son. I had no idea who he was but got a bit teary watching these two speak. They were wonderful, talking about how much this meant to them and how they didn’t realise how popular he was. His Mum was wearing a T-shirt that Wolffman wore a lot and his Dad was wearing his signature T-shirt with Wolffman on it. I just kept looking at them and thinking about how they had lost their son two weeks ago and were standing here and paying tribute and encouraging other people in their mourning and how much I admired these two people. They also said they were going to establish a foundation in his name to support independent music in the Philippines, which I thought was a brilliant legacy. I am not sure why they struck me so much – I think they were just normal people and I thought it was so cool that they had come to a bar/club (along with his two sisters) to join in as his contemporaries paid tribute in their own way. Their grief must have been immeasurable but they were there, giving a speech and being very cool and I just thought they were awesome. So it was a great night musically, but also moving in a way I never expected.
It was also a lot of fun because Lynette, our new In Country Manager, came out to Sa Guijo with us. Lynette is very, very cool and about four and a half feet tall (I am not kidding) so says she feels a little nervous around us as we are all so much taller than her (I am one of the shorter AYADs!) It was so much fun to have here there to play with us – and boy can she party!
Okay – I am going to post some piccies from the weekend as well, so you can have a look. I have lots of photos that I want to post up here – time is always the killer as it is actually a bit time consuming to post them. But I will try to get some more up this week!
Toodles
My point is how much I love Sa Guijo. It has a real variety of indie music and some of the bands that play there are starting to become popular. Which is always exciting to see. This Saturday they were having a tribute night to a bloke called Wolffman (that’s not his real name – I believe his real name might be Wilfred but the internet is down and I can’t check – but it is almost the law here that you have a nickname. Almost nobody is called by their given name). Wolffman was very active in developing Sa Guijo and was the lead singer of a band – Woffgang. He died of an aneurysm two weeks ago, after playing a gig at Sa Guijo, at age 29. So lots of really good bands came together to do a tribute show and they were running powerpoints of him and stuff – they even had T-shirts and posters, it was very impressive.
All the bands were doing shout outs and talking about how much he meant to them etc. There were, of course, many toasts and salutes to their fallen comrade in strings/microphones etc. The most moving thing for me though, was when his parents (WolffDad and WolffMom) got up on the stage (well – designated area of floor – there is no stage!!!) to pay tribute to their son. I had no idea who he was but got a bit teary watching these two speak. They were wonderful, talking about how much this meant to them and how they didn’t realise how popular he was. His Mum was wearing a T-shirt that Wolffman wore a lot and his Dad was wearing his signature T-shirt with Wolffman on it. I just kept looking at them and thinking about how they had lost their son two weeks ago and were standing here and paying tribute and encouraging other people in their mourning and how much I admired these two people. They also said they were going to establish a foundation in his name to support independent music in the Philippines, which I thought was a brilliant legacy. I am not sure why they struck me so much – I think they were just normal people and I thought it was so cool that they had come to a bar/club (along with his two sisters) to join in as his contemporaries paid tribute in their own way. Their grief must have been immeasurable but they were there, giving a speech and being very cool and I just thought they were awesome. So it was a great night musically, but also moving in a way I never expected.
It was also a lot of fun because Lynette, our new In Country Manager, came out to Sa Guijo with us. Lynette is very, very cool and about four and a half feet tall (I am not kidding) so says she feels a little nervous around us as we are all so much taller than her (I am one of the shorter AYADs!) It was so much fun to have here there to play with us – and boy can she party!
Okay – I am going to post some piccies from the weekend as well, so you can have a look. I have lots of photos that I want to post up here – time is always the killer as it is actually a bit time consuming to post them. But I will try to get some more up this week!
Toodles
Kate
posted by Kate | 3:48 pm
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