Eraserheads forever!

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The band that we so loved since gradeschool is back in the headlines.

When I first heard the buzz about an Eraserheads reunion concert, I was thrilled. It shook the Pinoy Rock scene when front man (and my ultimate crush) Ely Buendia announced that he was leaving the band, many years ago. The remaining three members, Raimund, Marcus, and Buddy, decided to continue and even enlisted a new vocalist – a girl. That was shortlived though, because the Eraserheads would never be the same without Ely.

Then the news died down, I never really knew whether there was going to be one or not. Two days ago, I was shocked to learn that the concert was slated for Saturday, August 30. Shoot. I won’t see them. The most awaited reunion concert, and I was not going to witness it.

So I was sulking last night. And it didn’t help that Alfred couldn’t care less. He’s not a big E-heads fan, you see. He would go see Sandwich play (which former E-head Raimund now fronts) but he couldn’t care less about the band that started it all. He even had the gall to tell me that it was fortunate that I had missed it because the concert was cut short.

My first reaction was, where’s your humanity dude? We’re talking about a person who possibly had a heart attack! And not just some person either – it’s Ely Buendia for pete’s sake! It is alarming news, specially because he had already undergone a heart operation just last year.

When I heard about what happened (that was also the first thing my mom and dad told me when I woke up this morning), I felt all the more that I should have been there with the other 60,000 fans. I don’t care if they didn’t finish the concert, the thought that it could really have been the last time I’d see them play together…

Anyhoo. Ely’s at the Philippine Heart Center, but is already in a stable condition. His fans are all praying for his fast recovery. His mom died on the 28th, but the true rock icon that he is, the show must go on. Imagine the stress that he was under. But the people who were at the concert say that the band still performed well together, and they don’t feel that they were shortchanged. They got 15 songs anyway! That’s not too bad at all.

Hopefully they’d give in to the fans and perform again when Ely is fully recovered. I’d definitely won’t miss it.


This is the cover of their very first album. We have that, along with the many albums they released years later. I don’t have the last few ones they released though. Either my preferences changed, or they did.

I remember hearing Pare Ko the first time on the radio. I was with my family, in the car, on a trip to Laguna probably, or maybe to Duty Free. My brother was tuned in to  the Alternative Music station – was it LA? I forgot the frequency. I was in gradeschool then.

The next song I heard was Ligaya. From those two songs, I was a fan.

And of course, how could I forget, when I asked my kuya to teach me how to play the guitar, he taught me to play Pare Ko. I stopped him on his way out. He indulged me. Gave me the three /four chords necessary to play the song, and then left me to practice. By the time he came home that night, I had mastered it 🙂

When Eraserheads broke through to be Pop-Rock idols, many bands came after them. In my opinion, they started the era of the bands in Philippine music.

They played at our school fair in high school. I remembered listening to their latest album over and over just before the night of the concert so I could sing along with them. They were always crowd favorites at the UP Fair, year in year out.

Anyway, enough E-heads thoughts. I’m sure many other Pinoy bloggers have already shared their own memories of this four-man band.

On blog news – I installed the WordPress Threaded Comments plugin. I love it. But there’s still something wrong with it and I’m hoping the plugin author would be able to help me out. Oh well.