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The debonair duo
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To those who don’t know Japandroids yet โ nope, they are not Japanese androids. They are way cooler than that.
They are composed of Brian King (on guitar) and David Prowse (on drums) and they hail from Vancouver. If you listen to them for the first time, you would never think that they are just a two-piece band.
However, hearing them won’t seal the deal โ you have to see them play live and stun yourself.
And I was not mistaken. That evening, Japandroids made a lot of non-stop noise for almost two hours. They were mind-blowing!
Everyone stayed put on their places even when Flying Ipis was done playing.
Brian and David went on stage to set up their gears. (Yup, they set up their own stuff!)
They were down-to-earth and they took advantage of the room’s size โ they frequently conversed with the audience, who, in return, constantly shrieked in excitement whenever the two mentioned how thrilled they were to play in Manila for the first time.
One of the perks of having only two men in a band is that concert stages are more than spacious enough for them to do whatever the hell they want.
Brian, who wore his usual black pants and white shirt ensemble, was armed with his Telecaster Special. He energetically went wild across the stage, to and fro and back again.
David totally killed his own corner as Brian occasionally jammed right on top his bass drum.
Mosh pits and crowd surfing
Seriously, when was the last time that you attended a gig and saw people do mosh pits?
If you’re a frequenter of a local gig production called Attraction! Reaction! like us, you’ll probably know how it feels like to get literally pushed around and stepped on while wholeheartedly shouting the lyrics of the song playing live.
During the Japandroids gig, everyone in front, both male and female species, was slam-dancing like crazy! So crazy that after a couple of songs, we had to retreat from that hot spot and move upstairs so we can take more photographs.
(Kidding, that was just an excuse to beat our “I’m too old for this sh*t” syndrome, ha-ha.)
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At one point, a bunch of hardcore fan girls went all-the-way nuts and they invaded the stage! It was funny because I knew some of them (not dropping names/photos, though).
Brian acknowledged Joff for bringing them here to the Philippines. A few rounds of applause and cheers after that, crowd surf #1 happened.
Remember the thing I told you about how everyone was wearing jackets? Well, that only lasted half-way through the show because everyone was sweaty towards the end.
In the middle of their last song, Brian unstrapped his guitar and crowd surf #2 happened. Here’s a million dollar photo series that immortalizes that glorious moment.
WHEN IN MANILA would like to thank and congratulate Kindassault for a gig well done! Until the next rock show!
All photos in this article was taken by Bijan Gorospe. See also our previous concert coverage featuring The xx in Manila.
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Japandroids in Manila: Burning Down the House