Sifting through the Pepe Smith Rockfest debacle

Sifting through the Pepe Smith Rockfest debacle

by rick olivares

I arrived at the Amoranto Stadium, site of the Pepe Smith Rockfest around 5pm in the afternoon. I didn’t want to be bathed under the scorching sun so I opted to go late in the afternoon when the sun was setting. Much to my surprise there were less than 25 people outside the barrier. There were more inside the barrier (a mix of media and band members with a front row seat). By the time I left around 11:30pm, there were – and I counted the people outside the barrier – some 50 folks.

As a music fan who frequently goes to concerts and gigs and buys albums left and right, the performances were great. You have to give credit to the artists who performed because they still gave it their all despite the small number of people in attendance.

As a journalist, I thought the turnout was distressing. I immediately felt for the organizers.

It was surprising that for the sheer number of bands and superstars present that few people watched (I am told that a little over a hundred paying patrons made their way in). Was the pre-show publicity wanting? I can’t say.

I immediately thought back to the Pinoy Bands Superblast Concert of last year at the Cuneta Astrodome. While they had a bigger audience and organizers say ticket sales were very good, there were no-shows and well, large tracts of empty spaces in the venue. But attendance was much better than the Pepe Smith Rockfest. Way better.

There too was the GenWe concert at the UP Sunken Gardens earlier this year. I arrived around 5pm and stayed also until about 12 midnight. That show offered free entrance and as school was still in at UP, there was a captive audience. Yet at most, I’d say that were under a thousand people inside the concert area.

Are live shows dead? Not at all. But it is telling when foreign artists such as Coldplay and Katy Perry come over, the venues are packed. Other international acts such as Dream Theater and Slayer played to good crowds and the patrons forked over the cash for tickets and merch. If anything, it is telling that local artists don’t get much. But that isn’t true for all. The Pulp shows continue to do very well I am told. During the Urban Bandits’ reunion show of two years ago, the B-Side Collective was full to bursting with 500-plus paying patrons (eventually there were close to 700 people in such a small venue). And that is still pretty good because tickets were sold.

The follow up show, Eighties Enough, drew fewer folks at the same venue, but it should be noted that the weather that evening was terrible. With a part of the show area with no roof, it wasn’t fun for the other patrons to get wet so some opted to stay outside the performance area. For sure, some didn’t go there to watch but to hang out. And if you ask me, that’s another problem, you have these hangers-on or groupies who hope to get in for free and not pay for tickets! Nevertheless, the organizers still did well enough not to operate for a loss.

How will the scene grow when you have people unwilling to pay for tickets or even albums? I recall one popular artist asked multiple times by “fans” when will their vinyl release be available for free on Spotify? For the most part, there are few full-time musicians. Most need day jobs just to make ends meet. I do recall talking to a drummer for a popular band who said during their heyday, they all quit their day jobs because the money was very good. But that was then, is it still true today?

Times have certainly changed. As a kid, I went to the Loyola Jam, a huge concert held at the Ateneo de Manila grounds (around the time of the Juan Dela Cruz Band’s release of their last album Kahit Anong Mangyari in 1981) and featured Maria Cafra, Sampaguita, and many others. The venue was packed. I attended some of those concerts at the Ultra and the Araneta Coliseum featuring bands like the Dawn, Identity Crisis and others and they too drew huge crowds.

As for album sales, remember when the standard for local album sales was 20,000 for gold and 40,000 for platinum? Now, its half or even less than that.

Times have also changed because aside from downloads and streaming and changes in buying as well as listening habits, before there were fewer of events. So you can say that they were sort of like the only game in town and people packed them.

Yet in this day and age of the internet, streaming, and a multitude of events being staged, people have more choices for entertainment. What also recording artists also fail to understand is that the internet has made it harder to be noticed. There is just so much information out there that is now impossible to see everything.

Case in point, during the Pepe Smith Rockfest, Buddy Zabala, the former Eraserheads and the Dawn bassist who is now with Hilera saw me wearing a shirt of Canadian punk rockers, Metz, who performed the night before at Mow’s. “They were here?” he asked me. He didn’t know. Talking to the Darwin Soneja of Sleeping Boy Collective, the organizers of many an underground show, he said, “Obviously, social media isn’t enough.”

When Sleeping Boy Collective brought over Boston-based post-hardcore band, The Saddest Landscape, I missed the show. I didn’t know. And that’s me who always keeps a look out for these shows.

It is no longer enough that one has a music video and a launch. You need to sustain everything. As the old advertising adage is even more true than ever – out of sight; out of mind.

The Rockfest debacle also brings to the surface several nagging issues.

One other is the payment or lack thereof of the artists. While the organizer of the Pepe Smith Rockfest has finally surfaced after coming out of hiding to say he will pay the artists, it should be known that not all the artists were offered a talent fee. Only some.

And this begs the question, why is it this way? And to think that the local music scene is alive and well. There are more gigging places than ever. There are more bands putting out their own product nowadays.

During last year’s Fete dela Musique, some of the bands also raised the issue of non-fees. If you go around many of the different clubs and bars that offer live music, most bands aren’t even paid. You’re lucky if you’re a superstar artist (and there are only few) with a resume that is as long as Edsa because you know you will get something. But most do not.

The bars make money. Am not sure about the organizers. For sure some do and some don’t.

During a recent show at Centris, there were a number of bands present performing at the launch of this product but no one was paid. Not even for their food.

A longtime musician who has made Singapore his home in the last two decades (performing and teaching kids how to play the guitar), wondered about coming back to the Philippines. A few of his friends strongly advised against it. “You aren’t going to make the money you are making in Singapore over here,” cautioned one.

And there’s the matter of physical sales from albums. Some bands do well. I was there for the album launch of Ang Bandang Shirley’s third offering, Favorite. Easily, they sold over 500 compact discs; maybe even more. And at P500 a pop, that’s pretty good. Or is it?

In many an article for abs-cbnnews.com, we have written about many indie and underground artists going abroad for record deals. They sell more product abroad as opposed to domestically.

During the recent Sandwich 20^th Anniversary concert at the Metro Tent, there was a huge crowd that came to watch and pay good money to see this awesome band. And the SVIP crowd that paid P1,500 also got a seven-inch vinyl record. Post-show, many others wanted to get the record as well.

There aren’t concrete answers or even sure fire solutions to all the concerns sweeping through the local music scene. For sure the problems that plagued Pepe Smith Rockfest will be something any big future concert promoter (as well as the bands themselves) will have to think about.

Hopefully, this will be a turning point for the better.