me & my musical event firsts

(I am re-blogging here a post from a former blog of mine. Enjoy!)

I attended my very first genuine music party at third year high school. This was sometime in 1986 or 1987. The music party, which was named “Requiem”, was a biggish new wave-gothic rock affair at St. Scholastica’s College, Manila. My high school was spent entirely at Malate Catholic School, Manila, which is a bit close by yet not quite.

Meanwhile, sometime in 1987 or 1988, come my fourth year of high school, I went on to my first non-school music party. It was a music event by the “Social Distortion” DJs, and it got held at the Folk Arts Theater near the Bay Area of Pasay City.

Also on my high school fourth year, I would take part in my very first genuine music concert. It was a mini festival of several rock (mainly new wave and gothic rock) bands headlined by “The Dawn”. The rock festival was organized in SM City at Quezon City, which was kind of really far from where I resided and attended school then.

Now then, while going to the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, during my first or second year of college, I would go to my earliest international music concert. It was a “Duran Duran” concert that was assembled at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Malate, City of Manila.

Among my favorite Metro Manila music events that I was a part of would be a “Pearl Jam” concert at the Folk Arts Theater, a couple of “Metallica” concerts at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City, the huge so-called “Freedom Party” with DJs at the Dome Arena (perhaps now the SM Mall of Asia Arena) in Manila Bay (in 1999, I think), and the UP Diliman Lantern Parade “Maskipaps” 1989 Sunken Garden afterparty at which my schoolmates “Eraserheads” played.

And in 2000, a time when I was already working as an advertising senior writer, I took part in my very first music concert outside of the Philippines. While on a month-long trip to Belgium (and France) on that year, I attended a “Radiohead” concert at Werchter Park in September 11.

Prior to going home, I likewise came to one music fest on the same month, the Leffingeleuren on the 16th. (I went there a month late for the better-known Pukkelpop fest.)

Six years later, on 18 September 2006, I sat in on my most known musical, having been a bit into theater since kindergarten. I was there on one night of “Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular” at The Venetian while on a two-week working vacation jaunt in Las Vegas, USA, via Portland. (My first ever musical, if I recall correctly, was attending a ballet concierto of the opera "Aida" at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, featuring Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, sometime in grade school.)