APRIL 28, 2017 - FRIDAY JAM UPDATE & PHOTOS

It was a hot and humid Friday night starting off a 4-day long weekend due to the ASEAN Summit conference hosted in Manila and then Labor Day on Monday. Some of the music room regulars took advantage of the long break and left for the province but some just opted to stay put in Manila. Because of this, i was actually uncertain on how the turnout of musicians would be and who will eventually show up. But one thing for sure, whatever the outcome, the much anticipated Friday jam will definitely go on unscathed.

I had decided to prepare a bit earlier than usual and was all set and ready for action minutes before 8pm. It was indeed timely as childhood friends from Nichols Air Base unexpectedly arrived. It was great to see Red and Portia Aquino and their daughter Caroline back in the music room. The Macao based couple are in town and just flew in from Boracay where they took a well deserved respite since Sunday. Minutes later, Julius and Sharon de Leon made an appearance as well. As always a thrill and exciting to see good old friends back in room.

We did have a respectable number of musicians who made it to the jam. Among them were bassist Rick Trinidad, guitarists Nitoy Adriano, Anton Atengco and Joaco Marco, keyboardists Tinnie Esguerra and Kiko Montecillo, percussionists Vincent Garrucho and Dante Bosch and vocalist Michael Puyat. Balik-music room pioneer and vocalist Tony Tirol also joined in and made an accounting of himself, as well, to complete the cast.

With no official drummer around, I had no choice but to take over the chore practically all night. It was only before closing time that i had my chance to play bass. In fact I was too preoccupied that i had no chance to take videos. I had to prod some guests to do so on a few random occasions while i was busy jamming on stage. And even so, the videos shot were already at past 4am. Even the photos i took do not give justice in revealing the crowd who actually made it to the gathering. My apologies please.

For starters, we played a few catchy instrumental tunes as a trio featuring Anton on guitar, Rick on bass and myself on drums. It is always a thrill and a pleasure to jam with the great Anton. But then, just as the other musicians joined in, the jam dragged and became a bit gawky as we lost our momentum altogether while spending more time learning and going through songs over and over. It was no fun at all. In my peripheral vision, i even saw Nitoy almost falling asleep while waiting to play. Already impatient, he just laid aside his guitar and walked lazily off stage. Honestly, I was also about to myself…hahaha! To make a long story short, we eventually fell short of entertaining. It was just one of those days. Surely we can do better next time...C'est la vie.

Thank God for the Catman. Better late than never, it was keyboard lord Kiko, who finally saved the day for us. At this time some of the jammers had already left. As usual, Kiko’s wide array of tunes livened up the crowd and subsequently the jam in general, as well. At this point Rick has had his fill and switched places with me so that I could play bass while he in turn played drums. However, after a few tunes he vacated his post. Good thing, Vincent and Dante were still on board on percussions while Michael “Mr. Showman” Puyat took over the vocal chores. This went on for a few more productive hours.

Finally, at exactly 5am it was time to pack up. The room was finally empty and the gates locked at exactly 5:20am. All’s well that ends well! Praise be to God!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE! GOD BLESS US ALL!