Think of Patrick Fugit in Almost Famous, and that's probably the best way to summarize my out of town experience with Moonstar88...only I'm Kate Hudson. Bwahahaha!

The band was invited to perform at the town fiesta of Candon City, a coastal province in Ilocos Sur, where apparently, the Singson's rule. It was an agonizing seven-hour drive from Manila, but it was worth having in exchange for breathing fresh provincial air.

On the way to Ilocoslovakia (bongga talaga tong term na to Maysh :P), Popo, the band's drummer was having this intimate conversation with Allan, one of Backbeat's road manager. It's just amazing how they can skip topics from music, to Popo's depressing lovelife, to the oddest of things like kulam, barang, and this ancient tribe that Allan once encountered. Apparently, the tribe had a princess, a woman who is not allowed to see sunlight until she's of the right age or something like that. Minutes later, everybody went silent, until Allan started snoring. I put on Maysh's earphones, listened to dreampop, and stared at the moon and the light's circular reflections on the van's windows.

The ride was literally a pain in the butt. We eventually arrived at the place where we're going to stay, a beachfront motel, apparently the best in the city but doesn't measure up to the standards of being the best, but everything didn't matter when I saw the sea with such calmness and serenity. Tangina, astig, may dagat! Yes, dear, ignorance is the effect of too much urbanization.

So after resting, I decided to walk along the beach alone while making chika to my friends back in Manila. Salamat po sa Sun 24/7 at di masyadong congested ang Ilocos network. Shit, man, tunog palang ng dagat, masaya na ko sobra, walking barefoot on the sand is even better. Sometimes, these are simple joys that we ignore, and it's sometimes nice to stop for a moment and take time to appreciate them.

And it was also certainly nice to chat with the Moonstar88 boys while they're wet and half-naked. Bwahahahaha! Funny how these boys don't know any thing about homosexuality, which, I believe is a good thing for their respective partners. It's nice to show them some enlightenment. No, bitch, not that kind of enlightenment. Hahahaha.

Incidentally, there was this Bikini Open thing that was to be held that night at that same resort. I dragged Maysh to go with me. She walked out after seeing a display of abnormally humongous breasts. One thing that I've realized, seeing men strut their stuff while wearing skimpy underwear becomes boring when they exceed a certain number. For me, I just needed 5 of them to make me barf. There were cute ones, particularly the ones from Baguio. And one guy was even making eye contact with me backstage. Sayang, kulang sa panahon. :)

After having dinner at the Mayor's house and a longish wait back at the resort, the band eventually took the stage at the town central. The band rendered a fairly good performance despite the sound system being sucky, and the locals going up on stage to and deliberately sticking their camera phones at Maysh's face while she was singing. It was pretty scary as a matter of fact and while I was so engrossed watching them, somebody tapped my back and asked me, "Girlfriend mo ba yung vocalist?". Haggard!

And then after an hour, it was time for us to go. The drive back to Manila was pretty quiet, well, except for Allan's snoring. The trip back to Manila made me think of one Jessica Zafra's lessons: "When dealing with rockstars, it's advisable to treat the music and the person as different entities" and I mean this in a good way. It may be a privilege to be with these guys backstage, hear their unreleased songs, and goof around with them but the nicest thing I was able to experience is to know the people behind the music.

I slept most of the time during the ride back to Manila. At around 9am, the horrible traffic along Edsa turned my city mode switch back on. Hello, work! Hello, haggardness! Welcome back to the urban jungle.