Rock concert
What does it matter? Should he or should he not say something good about Risa Hontiveros, Jun Magsaysay and Bam Aquino? Will that have any affect at all on the outcome of their bid to become senator? He is sure there will be some school of thought that will say it does and still another school of thought to say quite the opposite.
He likes Risa. He believes she deserves to be senator if only for the concerted drive to unseat her. Of her and for this, nobody can say: She has done nothing at all. And Bam Aquino rocks or sings rock, at least. What more is there?
But the rain is falling on him this night when he brought his kids to a rock concert at Fuente Osmeña. And he has not been to a rock concert since he was their age. More or less. His closest friends will smile at that one. They will tell themselves, his daughter is only 13. He’s only dreaming.
But when the rain fell, he thought of leaving or going home. As his kids and their friends looked to him with questioning eyes he felt immediately the need to give them a good example of good behavior related to the attendance of rock concerts. Two things we should all learn about rock concerts: First, it pays to be late. Second, it always gets better when it rains. And so they stayed. Got soaking wet dancing, more like bouncing up and down, over muddy earth.
Is there a science behind it? Do they turn up the volume when the rain starts to fall?
Sugar Free was playing when it started. They kept the energy up. They never gave up on the audience. Which was a good thing for the organizers of this show.
Quite a bit of politicking came before the night segued to Parokya ni Edgar. The usual hits. Enjoyable. Nothing much that was new for me. Or so I thought. But my kids had their first time. At the end of all these he will be able to say to them: Oh, finally, you’re now real rockers! Real hippies! And yes, politics and politicians come and go. Rock is forever. So it seems.
However did rock came into the language of Philippine politics? It has been there a long time. At least, since the late stages of martial law. Some will say it was always there. One remembers right away an old friend, Joey Ayala. How can we understand his songs really unless we place it in the context of the revolution? And what about Freddie Aquilar, Jim Paredes and Asin? Hard to imagine EDSA without them, their image, their music echo-ing away over FM radio.
One must never forget it is change which rock contains. Revolution is between and betwixt its soul. Which is the main reason it is still as ever and always will be the realm of young people. Only they can decide where it goes. And they always decide from the standpoint of confusion, the not-knowing, the who-cares, the noise, up volume, up tempo.
Which is just as well. Change is only the end result of freedom. And what better form of freedom is there but the freedom to scream, to stay, to listen, to dance, to rock. And how could such a freedom ever sit well with good old fashioned traditional Philippine politics. Hard to imagine. And yet, there it is.
And above all these, rock measures and remembers not only the relative age of things and their histories. It measures also how liberal we have all become. Or, should I have spelled that with a capital L?
