The "Lazy Strings" Story

Wednesday night when my long time friend Don texted me to play guitars for the band. After 4 years we will be reunited to play for a band, we will join a battle of the bands for the theme song of Manila Ocean Park. Ramon, our guitar player in highschool, will now play the drums and Don, the vocals, will play the acoustic guitar, and I will play the electric. 9 a.m. the following day we arrived at Janmiel's house, a talented guy who will play the keyboards and composed the song. He will be the new addition or perhaps we are the addition to their long time band-Ramon and Janmiel are long time friends. And, I almost forgot, the bassist-Nash a really talented bassist, he was quite at first and he was late but I felt the skill flowing all around him just waiting to come out. Unfortunately, we were practicing for a theme song not a heavy metals kickass song. After 4 years the 3 of us were united again to play for a band, and this could be the last.

As I said, the bassist was late so we have no time to practice any longer so Janmiel decided to focus on Nash. After eating our meal we practiced altogether it was amazing, two talented people playing with us, it was the best feeling. Around 2 p.m. we rushed because Janmiel's car was color coded and we might end up begging for the license. On the way, we joked a lot about things that could happen, it was one of the best experience I've been through. Inside the car I made up the band name-Lazy Strings, I came up with the name because we formed the band less than a day, I was lazy at first to come and again the bassist was late,that's why i came up with "Lazy" and "Strings" refers to the instruments. Along the Quiapo the expected happened-a police took a sight of the car's plate number, we were caught red handed. After some moments of explanation we were on the road again barely knowing the direction, I have gone to Manila Ocean Park but I'm not familiar of the place. Fortunately, after some discussions and risky turns we found the place where we will explode our musical extremities or in layman's term, the battle of the bands venue. We entered the place and found the area where the sound was coming from. At first, we were wondering why the bands were playing loud tones knowing that the battle was supposed to be a "Manila Ocean Park theme song contest", I was smiling secretly every time I think that the bands made a mistake or maybe. We signed the application form, we were number 29 the last in the list, we thought it was ok because when it's our turn it will be a lesser pressure so we decided to just relax and catch a view of the Manila Bay.

Nash, our talented bassist, has a problem with his nerves. He had panic attacks before because of the pressure the nursing board review had brought him. He was quietly watching every band that would come up the stage while I'm secretly eliminating them one by one according to the rules, it was making me think that our band might get to the finals. We were joking about the possibility that Nash might get panic attack at that very moment but I saw his medicines and convinced myself that nothing will go wrong.

After almost 4 hours of wait, it's our band's turn to rock the house. After some sincere prayers we hit the stage with excitement and with only few watching us. We were ready to explode when we found about that some of our instruments won't work. The cables were awful, the keyboards were not working and the technical assistants were barely doing something. Janmiel decided to play without the keyboard because of the absence of the adaptor but I didn't agree. 15 minutes that supposed to be 5 minutes of sound check, Janmiel got off the stage and found an adaptor hiding behind the idle technicians, at last we will be able to play. We have played the song despite the instruments not sounding properly, we gave our best despite the technical problems. After our act we have realized our mistakes and just laugh about it, it was one of the happiest moment of my life.

We went home and after a couple of losing the direction again we were able to find the right road. We didn't know if we will pass or not but we were happy. How I wish we will jam together again, I have to buy an electric guitar as soon as possible so that I could practice and jam with them. I will try the best I can do to be good at playing the guitar like how they play there instruments, and in that time I will be more than happy to join their band.