The After After-Party

While you were having fun at the Megastrip stage, I was stuck at the Podium with--crap, what were those bands? I'd like not to speak ill of those who were gracious enough to accept our invitation to play at the MTV Ink anniversary party, but being at the "for the sponsors" party with the "for the sponsors" bands (i.e., the show bands, the acoustic acts, and our foreign-act headliner, Bellefire), I had to console myself with lots of whiskey.

As it turns out, the bits in the script that I wrote had to be excised, because Ate Glow had a personal emergency and left Marc Abaya with solo hosting duties on the Megastrip. He did rather well, I thought, and after a slow start (Pasig Day, just our luck our party had to be on a non-working holiday) he got the crowd going. Patty Laurel, hosting the Podium event, was such trooper, too: this is the second time we've worked with her, and I've yet to meet a more professional, more gracious events host.

I'll skip over the various nightmares that went on backstage, since they're far too painful to relive--let's just tip our hats to Conch, Caitlin, and Denise, who took the brunt of it so that we could all have a good time--and let's just say that I'm glad that it's all over. Whew. Now on to the business of actually running and producing the magazine.

Saturday night, I went with Conch to a thank-you dinner with guys from Warner Music and MTV, along with various friends, hangers-on...and Bellefire! I got to sit next to Ciara, the youngest of the lot, and their manager Kirsty. And oh, they're so unbelievably nice. It almost kills me that their music doesn't do much for me, either, because they're just so lovely and enthusiastic and sincere. They'd just come from taping shout-outs (well, whatever the technical term is for when people get in front of the cameras and yell, "Hi! This is ! And you're watching MTV Pilipinas!"), and they were jacked up from that experience.

Well, at least I don't hate their music as much as I do 6cyclemind's. Yes, I hear they're also great people to work with and talk to, but something about their music just turns me off, and something about their video actually repulses me. Bellefire, I don't have anything against their music--their voices are good, their originals are pleasant enough, and their choices of covers are tasteful--but they haven't done anything great so far. Maybe it has something to do with age; maybe they just have to live some more to get that edge to their music.

I hope they make it, though, like I wish 6cyclemind would, too. Good luck! I like it when good guys finish first. I mean, they don't all have to be Billy Corgan-like prima donna geniuses, do they?