Pulp Summer Slam, May 5, 2018 – Amoranto Stadium, Quezon City, Philippines
The Pulp Summer Slam in the Philippines brings together people from nearly every island of the tropical country for one long, drunken party which lasts until daybreak the next morning. 2018 marked the 18th year of the festival at Amoranto Stadium in Quezon City, Manila, Philippines.
I was living in China at the time, and had to leave the country every few months to recharge my visa. As none of the bands playing Pulp would come to China, I felt this was the perfect opportunity to visit Manila as well as see the biggest metal festival in the Philippines.
Unlike the pampered bands who had private vans and escorts to help them get to the stadium from the airport, I and the other foreign Pulp attendees who arrived in Manila were left to fend for ourselves. The venue wasn’t easy to find, but luckily, I had met a Filipino friend online before coming who accompanied me to the festival.
After taking the subway quite a ways and a cramped jeepney for 20 minutes (I’m too tall, so couldn’t even see out the window), we finally arrived at a stop near the venue after asking the driver specifically where we had to get off and followed whoever was dressed in black or corpse paint to the arena. There was then a two-block line-up to get in, with kids selling individual cigarettes to longhairs in Cradle of Filth shirts for six pesos a smoke (cigarettes were banned from the stadium).
The price for the ticket was really fair – 777 pesos, which was equivalent to $20 Canadian (Pulp would raise the price for the next, which was Slayer’s final performance in the Philippines). I would have had to pay more than that to see one band back home. That day at Pulp, there were four headlining acts – Behemoth, At the Gates, Cradle of Filth, and Death Angel, with 16 bands altogether playing throughout the day and night.
I arrived at 3:00 pm, though the concert began at around the slated time of one. I regretfully missed the opening Dutdutan segment (a Philippines tattoo exhibit, as far as I understand) and the Taiwanese bands on the bill, which included Flesh Juicer, Burning Island and Bloody Tyrant.
Upon entering the grounds, after the pat down (I was thankful they didn’t take away my sunscreen), everyone received a free skull bandana to block the dust from the circle pits and a free beer. As the festival had been going on for years, there were many die-hards and veterans in the stadium, bringing in and already waving their designated regional flags, like any European event.
The first few bands I did witness were quite “core” in approach – Secrets, Attila, Crystal Lake and Crown the Empire. It was interesting to me to see Japan’s Crystal Lake in a live setting. They are certainly one of the standout bands in the electro/metalcore genre, along with Crossfaith. The crowd, who I could tell weren’t privy to trends and preferred their metal a little heavier, weren’t as seriously into some of these acts as the bands liked to pretend they were and the vocalists trying to get people to “jump” or force them to start a circle pit when they didn’t want to was a little embarrassing.
Beer was cheap – three cups of watered-down Tsingtao from China (which people would joke about for years to come) for 100 pesos. At that price, people were already lying around at least half-buzzed with full beer cup cathedrals built on the lawn before 6:00 pm.
I found some other foreigners at the venue including a fellow who flew in from Australia wearing a Ruins shirt (a black metal band from Australia). He felt that the lineup at Pulp was well worth the short trip, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
The sun was starting to go down when Jinjer took the stage – their singer Tatiana Shmaylyuk was wearing a weather-suitable Yin Yang shirt. The band had the crowd moving and gyrating – the males salivating at the vixen on stage, vying for her attention when she came down the catwalk which separated the front VIP section from the peons.
The festival only had one big stage, so after each band there was about a 15-minute break for soundcheck. This was ample time to take a piss, grab three more beer from the vendor, or try to bum a smoke from someone who snuck some into their socks.
Death Angel took the stage next and the circle pits this time were in earnest. It was their fourth time playing the festival so they had built quite the rapport with the audience. Their vocalist, Mark Osegueda, looked like a spitting image of one Broken Matt Hardy. I decided to finally get into the pit for this set, but was soon in panic mode, as I felt that my phone had fell out of my pocket. A smiling Filipino handed it to me a minute later and a wave of relief washed over me. No more moshing for me.
Cradle of Filth, making their second appearance at the festival, were greeted with a very positive response, as about 10% of the concert patrons were wearing one of their shirts. Dani himself wore a skeleton getup. The set introduced the first instances of fire pyrotechnics, and added to the balmy weather, presented a very hellish atmosphere.
At the Gates had the worst slot of the evening, as much of the audience was spent after the double team effort of Death Angel and Cradle of Filth, so were standing still or resting for their set as to save their energy for Behemoth.
The show would go on until late into the evening, at least 5:00 am. I was told that it ran on “Filipino time,” meaning that the bands would play at least two hours after their estimated time. The headliners, Behemoth, started their set at around midnight when they were supposed to begin at 10:40 pm.
When they did finally get onstage, Behemoth arrived with fire and fury, playing a set which included a few Demigod classics and a brand-new song – the mid-tempo “Wolves ov Siberia.” If a Catholic church was within walking distance to the show, I am certain it would have tried to douse its own outer walls in holy water in fear of being burnt by this unholy spectacle.
Once Behemoth left the stage, the lawn was emptied and most of the attendees went for the exit: it was late and they didn’t care to see what came next, Nervecell from Dubai (who had played the festival before) and the local acts (Skychurch, Valley of Chrome and Typecast) they had seen hundreds of times.
Passed out concert goers were strewn around the lawns with piles of garbage around them as Nervecell took the stage and played a ferocious set of brutal death metal to the few people awake enough or not drunk enough to stand up front. After they finished up, I decided that I was also too tired and headed for the exit – I had to catch the plane early the next day.
