ERASERHEADS CONCERT ERASED. The much-awaited Eraserheads reunion concert was cut short when vocalist Ely Buendia was rushed to the hospital after singing the first 15 songs of the concert's first set. Buendia reportedly collapsed backstage during their 20-minute break and was taken to the Makati Medical Center where he was later declared to be in a stable condition. The Eraserheads opened with hits "Alapaap" and "Ligaya," complete with fireworks, driving the crowd wild and nostalgic. Videos taken by INQUIRER.net production specialist Janie Christine Octia and INQUIRER.net assistant editor Erika Tapalla at the open field of The Fort.
MANILA -- For one brief moment, it looked like anyone who mattered in the local entertainment industry was there -- movie and TV stars, rock and pop musicians, radio station owners, deejays, record label bosses, concert promoters and, more importantly, hordes of music fans who reportedly made a dash to buy tickets to the one-off reunion concert of the Eraserheads on Saturday night at the Fort Bonifacio Open Field in Taguig City.
Organizers placed the crowd at more than 20,000 -- with another 5,000 onlookers left to fend for themselves outside the venue’s makeshift walls.
The concert which started at around 8:30 p.m., stopped suddenly several minutes after the 10 p.m. intermission. The band’s front man, Ely Buendia, had reportedly suffered from “extreme exhaustion” and was taken to the Makati Medical Center.
The Eraserheads, whose four members have not played together since splitting up in 2002, had just finished performing 15 songs and had taken a break during the second half of a 30-song set when Buendia fell ill.
“I went to Ely’s room backstage to discuss something about the second set … When I saw him, he was lying down, his eyes closed like he was sleeping,” recounted Buddy Zabala, the band’s bassist. “Yun pala, exhausted na siya talaga (It turns out he was extremely exhausted).”
In January 2007, Buendia suffered a heart attack while performing in a post-Christmas show in Laguna with his band, Pupil.
He was rushed to the Asian Hospital and Medical Center in Alabang, Muntinlupa, where doctors performed angioplasty -- a medical procedure to restore blood flow through a narrowed or blocked artery in the heart.
A few days later, Buendia underwent a second angioplasty at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City.
Buendia, 37, is widely known as the chief songwriter, lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the Eraserheads, the country’s most popular and influential rock band of the 1990s.
At the concert on Saturday, he looked remarkably slim and was said to have been maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle. But events of the past few days took another heavy toll on his body. On Wednesday, his mother, Lizette Basiño Buendia, died after a lingering illness due to stomach trouble following surgery at Las Piñas Doctors Hospital.
Sound check for the Eraserheads concert reportedly went on till 3 a.m. of Saturday.
“Ely was extremely exhausted when he was rushed to Makati Med. Late last night (Saturday), he was transferred to the Philippine Heart Center where he is still under observation,” said Ronald Esguerra, director for marketing at MTV Philippines which mounted the concert.
(At press time, Buendia was in a stable condition, according to a text message from his family.)
Nobody anticipated that the concert would end so abruptly, although Buendia was visibly tired just before the intermission. Not a few people noticed how he slowly bowed his head close to his guitar while he sat down on a platform onstage, apparently trying to catch his breath.
Earlier, the crowd’s enthusiasm buoyed up the band’s spirits, as it played an all-hits repertoire from its various best-selling albums.
At the start, while singing “Alapaap,” a song about free will and exploring higher consciousness, Buendia’s voice quivered and sounded tentative. In some numbers, lead guitarist Marcus Adoro’s solos tended to skip with anxiety. And throughout the show’s first half, there were glaring gaps and virtually no signs of intimate interaction between band members.
But nobody was disappointed enough to mind; they were all too busy singing and dancing along to the music -- songs arranged with infectious pop and rock influences that were well-written and which spoke directly to a youth generation that appreciated the band’s hip but earnest views on love and college life.
At one point, in a song called “Hey Jay,” whose lyrics expressed sympathy for homosexuals, a young woman was caught by video cameras enraptured by the mid-tempo music, nodding her head with eyes closed.
In another instance, people near the stage were moving their bodies back and forth while singing the lyrics out loud. The sight elicited a remark from an amused young father who was watching the show with his wife and two children: “Parang charismatic prayer rally ’to ah (This is like a charismatic prayer rally)!”
About 30 minutes into the intermission, the damper came in the form of an announcement by Buendia’s younger sister Lally, flanked onstage by Zabala, Adoro and drummer Raimund Marasigan: “Thank you everyone for supporting the reunion of the Eraserheads. We, however, regret to inform you that due to my brother’s poor health … because of the emotional and physical stress that he has been experiencing, we apologize for cutting the concert short. My brother had to be rushed to the hospital for medical attention … ”
There was a moment of silence as everyone prayed for Buendia.
It was an anticlimactic ending to an event that almost never was. From the onset, news of the concert -- originally organized by Philip Morris to promote its cigarette brand Marlboro -- drew criticism and controversy.
Though announced on the Internet as a free show, it was not entirely open to the public because one had to go through a complicated online registration process in which minors and nonsmokers were discouraged from participating.
Worse, the Department of Health stepped in by holding a press conference. Undersecretary Alexander Padilla warned: If Philip Morris pushes through with the concert, it will be violating Republic Act No. 9211 or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003, which prohibits cigar companies from sponsoring sports, cultural and artistic events of individual or team athletes, artists and performers.
Five days before the show, Philip Morris withdrew its participation, forcing Sony BMG, the Eraserheads’ former record label, to ask for help from major concert promoters.
“Rudy Tee of Sony BMG brought this project to us … we wanted to save the concert,” said Francis Lumen, president of MTV Philippines who tapped a little-known affiliate, Radiohead Media Solutions, to take over in mounting the production.
It then became a ticket-selling concert to defray costs of buying the rights from Philip Morris, rumored to have paid a hefty sum in talent fees to each member of the Eraserheads.
Ten minutes before showtime, organizers knew they had pulled off one of the most well-attended concerts of the year -- but one which left the crowd hanging and wondering how Buendia could save his heart from further damage.
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