I agreed to meet up with some friends at the UP Fair last night, but I somehow lost them between getting off at the Educ Building and the entrance. Trust me, mobile phones are useless. And you really can't hear your phone ringing when Karl Roy is screaming his tonsils off onstage, right? I gave up looking for them and luckily ran into some people from my old block and some friends from Quill who also couldn't find their friends in the huge crowd.

Sometime after 2am, a hiphop group came onstage to do their rendition of (ugh!) Jabongga. Now here's an example of things with limited shelf-life. It's just so hideously 90s. Most of the people probably disliked them, and didn't mind saying so. They sat around, took a respite from all that jumping around and napped or sang at the videoke booth. Somebody requested the "Stupid!" song, but the duo resorted to doing a version of an E-heads classic. When they finally got off the stage, the bald guy emcee asked the crowd "Did you like them?"

"No!!!!"

Never have I seen a crowd so expressive of their dislike, to the accompaniment of mineral water bottles on a projectile. And since it was 2am, the later performers did one song per set to accomodate everyone. Waited around for the Makiling Ensemble, Sandwich, Brownbeat Allstars, The Radioactive Sago Project. I pity the girl who was trying to climb the wall for more than half an hour and was hurled with jeers and "Ayoko ng Baboy!" ringing in her ears. Then the Eraserheads came on. Loud whoops. You would think Magasin and Alapaap are the official anthems of the Philippines. Which I don't mind. Infinitely better than Jabongga.

Hullo Cel! [Watch this girl perform on the CWC thingie on February 22 at the Tanghalang Hermogenes Ylagan, Faculty Center, UP Diliman. She's going to front for Cynthia Alexander.]