Fete de la Musique 2013 had some touches of the familiar. The main stage looked roughly the same as last year, but it was now at the other end of the A-Venue parking lot, not on Makati Avenue as last year.
The same team (B-Side Productions) was involved with this one. And some of the acts from last year, most notably the Brazilian-style drum ensemble Brigada, were back on the main stage. But there were some notable changes too.
For example, for the first time since 2008, Manila’s largest indie label Terno Recordings organized one of the stages at the Collective courtyard on Malugay St. in Makati, and their flagship act, Up Dharma Down, appeared on the main stage at around midnight. For another, the main stage’s location ensured that the party lasted all night.
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The annual musical affair, also known as World Music Day, was first celebrated in France in 1982, and takes place on or around June 21 to mark the Summer Solstice. This is one of the legacies of French Minister of Culture Jack Lang, who first had the festival staged in Paris.
The first Fete de la Musique in Manila was staged in the mid-1990s and has since grown by leaps and bounds. But the free music event was not without its fits and starts.
In 2004, the Cagayan de Oro-based post-metal band Nuncy Spungen was about to go on when a stage in Eastwood in Quezon City collapsed. And it has moved from place to place over the years; Malate has hosted many an early staging, and in the late 2000s it was staged in the Ortigas area, with an occasional trip back to Manila proper and to the then newly-opened Mall of Asia.
In 2011, the Fete was held at the Fort, where all but two of the venues controversially charged cover for what was supposed to be a free event. From 2012, Makati agreed to host Fete, in the major tourist district surrounding Makati and Kalayaan avenues.
This was one of the last places where Cynthia Alexander played in a well-publicized series of send-off gigs.
In the last few years, especially since the Westin Philippine Plaza Hotel was bought by the French hotel group Sofitel, a parallel event has taken place at the bay-side hotel, and Cebu has had its own Fete de la Musique event since 2008.
Since 2011, B-Side Productions, run by the same people who own the Collective’s music venue of the same name, has run the Fete for its co-presenters, Alliance Francaise and the French Embassy.
“Discussions about Fete 2013 started immediately after the last event,” said Giselle Tomimbang of B-Side Productions in an email interview with Coconuts Manila. She noted that it was due to the election period that the venue was only finalized three weeks before the event.
This also led to a tight deadline to find sponsors and media partners, she said. “Bad weather is also a scare as the French Spring [a French Embassy-sponsored cultural festival under which the Fete is included] is actually in the Philippines’ rainy season,” she said.
However, “all [those] on board all worked together and still made it an amazing day and night, despite all the challenges. We were also extremely blessed to have had very good weather again.”
This year saw Saguijo join the line-up of Fete venues in Makati, hosting the pop/rock stage, and the electronica stage moving from Time to Buddha Bar.
Online music magazine Radio Republic came on board as a media partner, and took care of interviewing musicians at the main stage and keeping people updated on developments throughout the venues.
The organizers are proud to say that the audience response has been so far overwhelmingly positive. “The audience was very warm, participative and interactive; showing their appreciation unabashedly, which only helped the artists give more of themselves as they performed,” Tomimbang said.
“It was a beautiful exchange of energy.”
And they are convinced that this event would draw more people to explore live music throughout the rest of the year. “Aside from bringing people together and celebrating the living legends of the Filipino music scene, we believe Fete is also an opportunity for bringing newer up and coming artists to audiences that may not have seen or heard them before,”Tomimbang said.
“We also hope experiencing the power of live music encourages aspiring musicians to pursue their own artistic journeys, whether recreationally or professionally,” she added.
It may be that next year will involve more time to get things planned, and perhaps guarantee yet another year of interesting performances on the main stage and off. But Fete has definitely become a tradition in Manila’s music scene, and even in an age where people are making bold statements on the future of Filipino music, such traditions aim to keep some hope alive about it.
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Ren Aguila is a contributing writer to Coconuts Manila and also contributes occasionally to other online portals on music, arts, and culture.
Stef Calimlim (photographs) is a music fan who loves to document her favorite bands (especially Up Dharma Down) in still and moving images. She contributes to pindiemusic.com, and this is her first photo assignment with Coconuts Manila.
