Head Turner

(written the night before the Heads' historic reunion in August 2008)

Now it can be told. The Eraserheads are re-uniting!

Forget the most influential band in Philippine history. They are the most influential in my life.

Some say that you can measure a band's influence when you can remember where you were when you first heard their signature songs. It would be an understatement to say that this band's songs punctuated my teenage years.

When I first heard "Alapaap," I was in my friend's room as we attempted to do our own recording of our own songs. Needless to say I was blown away. No band before them attempted such ambitious song in every way-- is it about freedom or drugs?

Their albums were a staple Christmas gift by all my friends as the band released an album every December. Millions of memories intertwine with every song and every album. Girls. Heartbreak. Jamming. School escapades. Snippets of daily life.

And through the years, the band also went through their struggles being together. Success went to their heads (pardon the pun) and each one believed they can do better, bigger outside the band.

They were dead wrong.

None of the members' other bands and their incarnations come close to touching the speckles of dirt the Eraserheads stood on. The Eraserheads were shit playing live, yes. But as songwriters they were peerless. The songs they concocted simply tugged the strings of the Filipino everyman. They were storytellers par excellence.

This event was deemed impossible due to the fallout of the members of the band. When you get to be as big as Jesus (to borrow from John Lennon as he described his Beatles), egos are bound to clash. At a whopping P2 Mil each to play for one night, apparently money is a great ego massager. Fuck, if I had 50 gazillion dollars, I'd pay them to play in the most important events in my life. From birthday to wedding anniversary to my wake and burial.

So yeah, the guys suck it up to play one night. And images start sliding down memory lane for the few who remember.

And yeah, I remember.

This is after all the band who defined my teenage thru tweenage years. The band who inspired me to take a stab at poetry. Songwriting. Strum a guitar. Wear a converse all-star. Strut jeans until it fades--the older looking the better. Sport a moptop. Re-discover the Beatles. Wax philosophical about lines like "field trip sa may pagawaan ng lapis, mabagal at walang kahulugan." Attempted code-breaking (try reading through Bogchi Hokbu and you'll know what I mean).

So for one fleeting night, these guys will be back in one building, playing the soundtrack of my life. And I will be here watching--light years away.