You were dancing to music you couldn’t understand at all, but isn’t that what music should be able to do? You were there with a boy you barely knew now, but whose life seemed intertwined with yours. He says this is the real fete de la musique, and you smile. Here? In this park? It’s practically empty.
Cue memory number 1: crowds at El Pueblo in Ortigas, to the sound of music overlapping with each other, sweat sweat sweat the name of the game, knowing who’s with the band the rule not the exception. This may be free you think, but there sure ain’t a lot of freedom here.
Bastions Park, in Geneve, Switzerland, seemed to be all about freedom. It wasn’t cordoned off in any way, and without streamers announcing the event or tarpaulins with sponsors and advertisements, it was farthest from your sense of what a commercial event should look like. Make thatcommercialized event. Because as it turns out, elsewhere in the world, closer to France where the fete de la musique began, freedoms are about the lack of capitalist intent.
read up at the music + culture spanking site of Pulse.ph!
sorry but your comparison is hilarious. geneva has what, 500,000 people tops against metro manila’s 12,000,000 and you’re going to complain about cordons? it’s absolutely necessary given that there is literally no public space built to accommodate the volume that fete draws; that alone should be obvious from the fact that they have to split the event into like a million different venues. drop 12,000,000 people around parque de bastions and you’d have cordons there too.
if you want to wax poetic about freedom, let’s talk about monetary freedom. most bands here get zero money from gigging. events like meiday ran at losses with the difference made up out of pocket by the organizers themselves. what viable financial options are there for not-massive groups without sponsors? would you prefer a sponsor-free event that you had to pay a possibly considerable sum for, a paid event which might never even coalesce because the organizers wouldn’t have the cash on hand to for things like equipment rental, or the clout to get streets shut down? please, sponsors are a viable option. you’re better off bemoaning the lack of government funding for local music than the sponsors. it’s not perfect, but a trade-off is better than nothing at all.
been living in manila for four years and lived in geneva for five FYI.