JUNE 24, 2016 - FRIDAY JAM UPDATE

After the smoke had cleared a week after the epic 36th anniversary celebration, we moved on promptly back to our regular weekend Friday Jam vibe. As expected, the noice and euphoria brought on by the past epic event had wavered with just a respectable number of guys showing up for the jam last night. Majority who came were just the house band regulars. Nonetheless, it was all good. At the onset it seemed like it was shaping up to be another musicians night. And it eventually did.

Cebu Pacific flyboy and guitarist Loren Orendain made up for last week's absence, while overcoming sleepless nights and fatigue, was the very first to show up. Armed with just his acoustic guitar, he quickly set up and played in solitary even before the band was complete hoping to play while his energy was still very much intact. Percussionist revelation Vincent Garrucho was an earlybird himself after a decision to abort his previous commitment and instead head straight for the music room to avoid the horrendous traffic. Aspiring musician Mark Longos followed suit as well. When bassist Rick Trinidad arrived minutes later, we were officially a band. Incidentally, i ended up playing drums the whole night.

Much later in the evening vocalist Monchie Henares, guitarist/ keyboardist Tinnie Esguerra, rhythm guitarist Joaco Marco and bassist Dennis Espiritu finally arrives to add to the roster. When keyboardist Kiko Montecillo caught up with the rest of us at past 3am, we were back in business. As always a pleasure to jam with, Kiko again proved to be the perfect link. He was once again the man of the hour. He was piano man personified. Excellent addition to the house band indeed. God job Kiko!

Apart from the actual jam, last night was a good time for the band to re-evaluate and develop a more proper and cohesive system to further improve the quality of our playing. We decided on experimenting on toning down a bit on the volume and "work the room", so to speak, to a more audible friendly level and concentrate more on dynamics, as it should be, instead of the usual carefree attitude of playing. It was good and refreshing to see that we were showing some semblance of progress. We are still on the working process, however. But we hope to keep on working on it more in the coming days. All we need is cooperation among the players.

And so, 36 years and another week of music and friendship had finally concluded. Another night another blessing. Thanks and praise God!

Till the next time.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE! GOD BLESS US ALL!