Live in Manila!

Win tickets to the Trance Alliance launch party featuring DJ John Fleming and Digital Blonde!

2008-11-21T23:11:00.004+08:00

Blogger Jayvee Fernandez is giving away 10 tickets over at his blog, A Bugged Life, for the Trance Alliance launch party over at A-Venue next Saturday, November 29. Trance Alliance is the joint dance events promotion project of Domini Primero of Driven Manila and Stephen Ku of World Wide Womb. Their launch party will feature DJ John “00” Fleming and Digital Blonde. To have a chance at winning one of those free tickets, just comment on Jayvee's post answering the question: “What do you love most about Manila’s clubbing scene?”. Jayvee will randomly pick 10 lucky winners from among the comments. Good luck!

Read this ClickTheCity.com article if you want more information about the event and the performing DJs. Or view the following YouTube promotional video:

Christopher Cross and Workshy live at the Araneta Coliseum

2008-11-16T18:55:00.006+08:00

Christopher Cross, the man who gave us the 80s hit song "Sailing", is coming to Manila this November 29 for a one-night concert at the Araneta Center. Not many people know this trivia but "Sailing", and the eponymous album that it came from, Christopher Cross, gave him a grand slam at the 1981 Grammy Awards. He got all of the four "Big Awards": Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year; a feat that has yet to be equaled. (Norah Jones came close in 2003 by winning three of the four big awards, but while her song "Don't Know Why" also won the Song of the Year award, she didn't write that song and so she wasn't credited with that award.)

Among the other hit songs by Christopher Cross is the famous "Think of Laura", which was revived as the tribute song "Think of Aaliyah" by Boyz II Men. Another well-known song of Cross' is "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)", from the soundtrack of the movie Arthur. That latter song gave Cross both an Oscar and a Golden Globe award for the best original song used in a film. And that means that Christopher Cross is one of the elite few to have won a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Golden Globe.

Joining Christopher Cross for his concert in Manila is Chrysta Jones of Workshy, a duet band described as "somewhere in between Matt Bianco and Swing Out Sister—with a little Burt Bacharach thrown in". The official plug by Ovation Productions, the event's handler, mentions "Workshy featuring Chrysta Jones", but I think it's just Jones who's coming and not with her partner Michael McDermott.

November 29, 2008, Saturday, 8 p.m.
Araneta Coliseum

Organizer: Ovation Productions (contact page)
Tickets: TicketNet

Confirmed: Sepultura will guest at the 10th Muziklaban finals!

2008-11-12T23:38:00.002+08:00

I just got official word from someone involved with San Miguel's events that Sepultura is indeed coming to the Red Horse Muziklaban. So if you're an old-school headbanger, mark your calendars for November 29 so that you can head on over to the Marikina Sports Complex to attend the 10th year final night of the Muziklaban rock band competition.

And if my word and my source's word is still not enough for you, check out this announcement from the official Sepultura website. :-)

World’s #1 DJ, Armin van Buuren, comes back to Manila

2008-11-08T17:21:00.002+08:00

Trance music enthusiasts are sure to converge at the Manila World Trade Center this November 21, Friday as the world’s #1 DJ (as certified by DJMag) Armin van Buuren is set to bring Metro Manila again through an epic trance journey. This dance party is part of Armin’s worldwide tour to promote his new DJ mix compilation, A State of Trance 2008. He has a weekly radio show with the same name and his yearly compilations are meant to highlight the best trance music for the year. Joining him is Blake Jarrell, who I know as the one who did an extremely wicked trance remix of Linkin Park’s “Shadow of the Day”.

I’ve bought A State of Trance 2007 and have started listening to his radio show a few months ago and I can definitely say that Armin IMO has better taste in trance music than either Paul van Dyk or Tiësto, the two DJs Armin has dethroned from the #1 spot. (Tiësto was #1 from 2002 to 2004 and which PvD took over from 2005 to 2006.) While I have bought a lot of PvD’s CDs, I prefer him as a trance music producer instead of as a DJ and Armin gets my nod as my favorite trance DJ. So I guess it’s high time that Armin got the top spot in 2007 and 2008!

The last time I went to a Trance DJ party was to Tiësto’s set way back in 2006 at the PICC Forum. I managed to get a free ticket from a good friend whose brother was one of the opening DJs before Tiësto’s set. It was a great! I had fun dancing to the anthemic trance selection till the wee hours of the morning.

I wish I could go to Armin’s set, but due to various circumstances, I’ll just have to content myself with buying his CD. :-P

More information can be found in this ClickTheCity.com article.

November 21, 2008, Friday
Manila World Trade Center

Organizer: Bigfish Manila

Sepultura to guest in Red Horse's Muziklaban?

2008-11-03T23:23:00.008+08:00

From the blog/Plurk grapevine we hear word that 90s death/thrash metal band Sepultura (Wikipedia article) from Brazil will be guest performing at the finals night of Red Horse's Muziklaban band competition. If this pushes through, expect to see them on November 29 at the Marikina Sports Complex. Of course, being a hard-core rock concert, expect plenty of roughhousing and other general mosh pit behavior at the Musiklaban finals, should you dare to go there. Hehehe.

According to a reply by a certain unnamed person on another unnamed person's plurk, the contract signing for the guest appearance occurred earlier today. This person has also "seen the rider and program sequence", so this is not a rumor and hopefully the gig will continue to push through on November 29. Also check out this blog post, from Azrael Coladilla, a Sepultura fan. He'll definitely post updates on his blog regarding any developments in case you wish to follow this lead.

Third Eye Blind to open San Miguel's Oktoberfest 120

2008-09-04T23:42:00.000+08:00

Wow! San Miguel Beer is going all-out with this year's Oktoberfest by having it start earlier and running it for 120 days. The first Oktoberfest night will start this Friday, September 5 at Ortigas Center and will feature the American rock group Third Eye Blind. 3EB grew to tremendous popularity in the late 90s with such Top 10 hits like "Jumper", "How's It Going to Be", and their most popular song, "Semi-Charmed Life". There will also be simultaneous parties in Cebu (Lapu-Lapu), Davao, Iloilo, Olongapo, and Sta. Rosa.

According to Juned of Dilis Media there are three types of tickets for three sections that you can avail of to get into the Ortigas party:

General Admission (Longest Bar) Ticket (P120)
inclusive of 2 San Miguel Pale Pilsens
Special Oktoberfest Marquee Ticket (P300)
inclusive of 3 San Miguel Oktoberfest Beers & food
Gold Ticket (P1,500)
inclusive of 2 San Miguel Pale Pilsens at General Admission Section and 3 San Miguel Oktoberfest Beers & food at the Special Oktoberfest Marquee Section

Of the three tickets, only the Gold Ticket will get you to see the Third Eye Blind perform up close and personal. Other bands will be performing at other stages in the other sections of the Ortigas party. But I guess, you can still get to hear (though probably not see) Third Eye Blind even if you don't get the Gold Ticket. Unless of course they cordon off the whole area. :-p

Boys Like Girls at Ayala Malls

2008-09-03T12:15:00.001+08:00

One good thing I like about Ayala Malls is that they provide great concerts for free at their malls. Like back in May, I stumbled into an ongoing concert by Vanessa Carlton at Alabang Town Center. But because the concerts are free, and because Ayala Malls are not ideal places to hold large concerts, don't expect Ayala to bring to the Philippines big-name acts like Beyoncé or Maroon 5. But hey, the foreign acts that Ayala Malls bring to Manila are no less worthy of of your ear.

Well this September, Ayala Malls is bringing to the Philippines Boys Like Girls, an American rock band based in Boston, Massachusetts. Boys Like Girls is actually quite new, having been formed in 2005 and having released to date only one album (the eponymous Boys Like Girls) and three singles: "The Great Escape", "Hero/Heroine", and "Thunder". The band is not quite well known among Filipinos and I think it is only Jam 88.3 that actively plays their songs. I've heard the last two singles on the air already, as well as well as an acoustic cover of Frou Frou's "Let Go" that was released in iTunes last year. I personally count "Hero/Heroine" and "Let Go" among my favorite tracks from Boys Like Girls.

Boys Like Girls will grace three of Ayala's malls this first week of September. The schedule is shown below and remember: this is all for free!

Alabang Town Center
Activity Center
September 3, Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.
TriNoma
Activity Center
September 5, Friday at 7:00 p.m.
Glorietta
Activity Center
September 6, Saturday at 5:00 p.m.

And here are links to other pages about the event:

September starts rocking with Avril Lavigne

2008-09-02T10:50:00.000+08:00

July and August of 2008 had a lot of foreign artists do concerts in the Philippines with the likes of Simple Plan, Daughtry, Lifehouse, and even 80s British pop sensation Rick Astley. Yet September will not be any less exciting especially as it starts rocking with a huge concert by Canadian singer and songwriter Avril Lavigne at the Araneta Coliseum this Wednesday, September 3, to promote her third and latest album The Best Damn Thing (and the concert is part of her worldwide The Best Damn Tour).

If you're eyeing to get tickets, it's probably too late since I'm guessing the sellable tickets would have been sold out by now. If you're lucky you can probably snag some of the last-minute tickets that will be given away by partner radio stations for their on-air promos. (Or hope that you know any employee who works at Araneta Center since they often get complimentary tickets, according to my officemate whose sister has a boyfriend who is one of the said Araneta Center employees. Hehehe.)

Avril Lavigne first came to the Philippines on March 31, 2005 as part of her Bonez Tour which promoted her sophomore album Under My Skin. During that concert held at Fort Bonifacio, the opening act was Simple Plan (it's probably a coincidence that Simple Plan had their own solo concert last August 4, 2008, a month before Avril's second concert here). Anyway, my older sister gave my younger sister a ticket to that concert as a birthday gift since she's a huge Avril fan. I happened to be at the Bonifacio Stop-over eating dinner at Chowking that night and I got to hear part of the concert, though the sound was of course lousy at that distance.

Shown below is the setlist of the Araneta concert according to Wikipedia, though basing on her previous concerts in the tour, the setlist is not set in stone. Many of the songs come from the album (marked below with asterisks) including all of the album's four singles, especially the ultra-popular "Girlfriend". Other songs include hits from her previous two albums. It's amusing to note that Avril is including a cover of Toni Basil's "Mickey", to which "Girlfriend" has often been compared with.

"Girlfriend"*
"I Can Do Better"*
"Complicated"
"My Happy Ending"
"I'm With You"
"I Always Get What I Want"
"When You're Gone"*
"Innocence"*
"Don't Tell Me"
"Hot"*
"Losing Grip"
"Bad Reputation"
"Everything Back But You"*
"Runaway"*
"Hey Mickey"
"The Best Damn Thing"*
"I Don't Have to Try"*
"He Wasn't"
"Girlfriend (Dr. Luke Remix)"*
"Sk8er Boi"

Here are other links about the Avril Lavigne and the concert:

Welcome to Live in Manila!

2008-09-01T23:43:00.002+08:00

Maroon 5 concert photo by Tishybaby

Live in Manila! is blog dedicated to foreign music acts performing in Manila, Philippines. We scour the web for stories, news, rumors, information, photos, and videos about concerts and foreign artists.

Why a blog only for foreign artists? Well, a lot of people have noticed that there's an increase in the number of foreign acts having tour stops in Manila. It's best that there's a central website to collect such information. Another reason is that there's already plenty of local websites that tackle OPM and music in general, but none that deals exclusively with non-Pinoy music acts. Thus, Live in Manila! is born.