MANILA, Philippines—Some 3,000 college kids trooped to the PhilSports Arena in Pasig recently to witness the crowning of the 2008 Nescafe Soundskool battle of the bands grand champion.

Soundskool is an annual search for the best unsigned college band in the country. This year, more than 1,000 bands from 400 schools across the country joined the contest.

At the end of the four-hour show, Letter Day Story from Southeast Asian College Manila was proclaimed winner— pocketing P250,000 in cash, plus a record deal with Sony BMG. The band also won for its school P150,000 worth of music equipment.

Lobbing a melodic cocktail of punk-laced pop, Letter Day Story had enough balance of goofy sloppiness and feigned aggression in its original composition to earn the judges’ nod.

Band mentor

Band mentor Spongecola must have shared its quirky sense of timing and big bold hooks with the winning band. On paper, Spongecola’s storming balladry would be the antithesis of Letter Day’s herky-jerky pop-rock. Onstage, the slide from blustery blues to lean power pop sounded fresh and on the money.

But everyone seemed to be a winner that night. The young audience was treated to extravagant entertainment, starting with an elaborate stage design and lighting worthy of a Gary V gig.

Guest bands Parokya ni Edgar, Kamikazee, et al, rocked the house with enough noise and frenzy, as in a New Year’s Eve party. The other competing upstarts played their hearts out that, in another place and time, would have earned the top spot for each of them.

There was Keyk, a four-man outfit from St. Mary’s College in Davao, which offered an electro original number immersed in the arrhythmic backbeat of Gang of Four and sautéed with the sweet and sour croon of Raimund Marasigan. Before performing its composition, Keyk jammed with Sandwich in a battle for lung power and instrumental dominance in “Prognosticator” and “Betamax.”

Wolf whistles

Maracore from Lyceum Institute of Technology Laguna wants to be the Pinoy Paramore, a popular American pop-rock group. Mara, the band’s pretty lead singer, delivered the kind of vocal sass and come-on demanded by the genre to blunt the edge of her group’s new wave affectation. She worked the stage quite well and the sight of her shapely body moving to the beat earned wolf whistles from the crowd.

Project from Jose Rizal University is into heavy funk and soul, with a wiz on guitar for the rock quota. Imagine P.O.T with Wally Gonzalez on fretboard and that’s the core of the band. Add a keyboard player and Project could be a formidable club showband. They need a funkier name to get there, though.

Skalivur borrowed its fashion sense from the wardrobe of Guns and Roses and its ilk. Yet when it started to skank, the five-man band from Eastern Visayas State University compressed ’60s cumbachero right through ’80s London ska in three minutes. The sax undertow was cool enough to raise goose pimples, but it was the wriggling and swaying of the group that got everybody stomping merrily along.

The surprises did not end with the wannabe rockers. Some of the mentors seemed to have reinvented themselves for a night.

Cueshe, that humongous exponent of blah rock ballads, retrofit its hit “Stay” into a lean and howling rock and roller a la Queen’s “Crazy Thing Called Love.” The vocalist even shook his hips like Elvis and contorted himself before the fadeout.

Acoustic icons Moonstar 88 could’ve been an anomaly in a rock concert setting, but the brisk guitar strums, pounding drums and electric guitar leads at the bridge gave its smarmy love songs a rough edge.

Jr. Kilat put the fear back among pop fans in the audience. Dressed like a lost commando chief, Kilat rapped his signature song “M-16” rat-ta-tat style — like the mere mention of the gun would have live bullets racing to your brain. His back-up group shifted from straight reggae to dub, lending an air of anxiety and dread to end three quarters of the evening’s performances.

The brazen Kamikazee capped the proceedings with its kick-ass, metal-based sound and a riot of colorful language to boot.