"Youuuuu Pilipino?"

P, the missus' long-time best-friend, was working in Singapore back then when she rode a taxi to work. She had an amusing conversation with the driver, which went something like:

Driver: "Youuuu sound like from Pilipins. Youuuuu Pilipino?"
P: Yes.
Driver: "Waaah all you Pilipinos very good in singing. Can you sing me a song?"

Of course P didn't sing. She could have replied "I'm an exception" but of course, she didn't.

Yup we're well-known in this region for our singing abilities. Even S, my Indian officemate who's also a drummer of a popular local-band, says that Filipino-bands are the best when it comes to playing in the night-circuit. Most of the hotels and bars here have Filipino bands.

Last night I had the chance of listening to 3 Filipino bands in KL. Me and my ex-colleagues from a former company went to HardRock after a sumptuous dinner. The band was called Deviate. I had a feeling they were Filipino from the onset since the accent of the vocalist was not local. They kicked-off with "I Don't Wanna Be Lonely No More" by Rob Thomas then "She Will Be Loved" by Maroon-5.

G then got a piece of paper from the waiter and wrote his request. Actually, his requestS. I guess he believes in the saying "more entries, more chances of winning."

The paper then reached the vocalist, who was a stubby fellow with a short goatee and semi-spike hair. He then called our names and, the Pinoy that we are, we waved and "Hooo-ed" loudly.

"You Pilipino?" he asked.

We gave a nod.

"Eh kaya pala nag-gagandahang lalake eh!" was his reply.

Definitely, Filipino.

The problem with HardRock was that the room-acoustics were designed more for listening to the band and not for kwentuhan. So imagine all 5 of us in one table 1m x 0.5m trying to hear what the guy next to you was saying.

So we moved to the lounge at Concorde-Hotel. There were 3 bands alternating (6 sets each! whew!) 2 of which were Filipino. The crowd was mostly Caucasian foreigners with their GROs in tow, most of whom were Filipinas.

The lounge-bands pleased the 60%-Filipino audience by singing Lupa, Pangako Sayo (G was invited to sing onstage with the Malaysian gay-vocalist and I've got pics to prove it, hehe), Bakit Ngayon Ka Lang (M also sang onstage with the female vocalist, too bad he sucked on the high-notes ---possibly earning Simon Cowell's vocabulary of "No's."), Spagetthi (Yeah unfortunately for non-jolog fans like me it has reached KL), and of course, the Freddie Aguilar classic Anak. Note that Anak was performed by the Malaysian band and they got the rhythm and lyrics correctly.

It was a fun night (morning) so I got home at 2:30am. Needless to say that my body is wanting for lack of sleep so I'll be dropping to bed when I get home. The missus is coming back from Singapore at 9:30pm so I hope to wake up before that time.

Hopefully I wake up. Hehe.