While I did originally plan to visit the Acoustic, Spoken Word, and Bedroom Beats stages, the latter two venues were kinda full once I got there.
So the focus of my Fete experience this year is with the Acoustic Stage at A Space. Random thought, was the venue called A Space because the building used to hold the Makati office of Aboitiz? lol.
Anyway, A Space was already packed by the time I got there at around 3pm. Aia De Leon (former lead singer of Imago) was the one playing by that time. I couldn't see the stage at that point, but her voice sounded familiar. It wasn't until she sang Sundo as her last song that things clicked.
She was followed by Ang Bandang Shirley. They really didn't catch my attention to be honest, but they seemed like a crowd favorite. Maybe part of it was that I couldn't really hear their lyrics well enough?
Next up were Reese Lansangan & Jensen Gomez.
At this point, I was already leaning on the entrance/exit door to the stage area so I managed to get glimpses of their performance.
The duo are probably the most memorable in terms of interacting with the crowd. Kakatuwa yung banatan nila. haha. Hoping to hear more of their original stuff as a duo. ☺
Spotify song: Maybe
After the two was the band named Ben&Ben. My position at this moment was at the right side of the stage as seen in the first pic above. Sadly, I wasn't able to record a video of their performance.
I loved their entire set, especially Ride Home.
Leanne & Naara took the stage after Ben&Ben. They're vocally great and their style reminds me of Sitti, but they're not really the type of artist I'd regularly listen to or follow.
The crowd was thinning out at this point so I managed to move to the front of the stage. It was just in time for Rivermaya and Basti Artadi.
They're missing one member as he was out of the country at the time. They played Elesi followed by 3 new songs for a new album they're planning to release within the year. Interesting songs - looking forward to hearing the non-acoustic versions lalo na yung Manila.
Shout out dun sa audience na nakakuha nung shaker. Swak sa lahat
ng kanta. haha.
The Last Goodbye was the only song I could recall from his album. They seem to have a ton of projects in the works and one of them, if I got it correctly, seems to be a country centric album. Its great that they're still releasing new stuff. Kakatuwa na they ended their set covering REM's It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).
Overall, the experience was worth it. Fete's a great venue to discover new music and learn firsthand updates from artists. Cheers to a successful event that is still ongoing. I'm 70% sure at this point that I'll be returning to the Acoustic Stage next year, schedule permitting. I loved the atmosphere despite ventilation related struggles during the early sets.
