Their cup runneth over
Cup of Joe and the Araneta Coliseum didn’t exactly get off to the best start. In 2019, the then-budding pop rock group made the pilgrimage from Baguio to the hallowed venue to perform at the MOR Pinoy Music Awards. A trophy was up for grabs.
And while they did win—Best Regional Song for “Nag-iisang Muli,” an amazing achievement—their performance, or rather what happened before they took the stage, was anything but.
The band, as lead vocalist Gian Bernardino puts it, was just a bunch of teenagers who somehow found themselves at the Big Dome. They had no team, nor did they have their own equipment. They had to borrow gear from Moira Dela Torre and set it up themselves. Ben&Ben was playing right after them, and the last thing the audience would see before the next act was the band struggling to hear each other onstage. Gian’s voice cracking at a high note was the cherry on top of the bedlam.
“‘Di maganda ang naging first experience namin doon. Na-disappoint namin ang sarili namin,” he tells Lifestyle Inquirer.
From cafés to the Big Dome
They still wince at the memory of that night, and if anyone had told them then that they would pack the Big Dome several times over within a year, they probably would have laughed. And maybe they still would… except that was exactly what happened in 2025.
After the first night of their three-night “Stardust” concert last October—eight months after their two-night “Silakbo” shows—Gian and fellow members Gab Fernandez (lead guitar), Rapha Ridao (lead vocals), CJ Fernandez (rhythm guitar), and Xen Gareza (keyboards) hung around backstage. They huddled around the venue’s Wall of Fame, watching intently as a photo of their band was being placed in a section that includes other music icons such as Taylor Swift and Engelbert Humperdinck.
“We just took a moment. Huminto kami habang dinidikit ang picture namin sa tabi ng mga legends. Sobrang emotional lang,” Gian recalls. “We didn’t expect that six years later, we would be one of the OPM stars out there. That’s special for me.”
With that run, Cup of Joe became the first Filipino band to sell out Araneta Coliseum five times in a single year. And the magnitude of that achievement seems all the greater when you look back at how they got started.
“Imagine, we started playing in cafés, then schools, then bar gigs,” muses Xen. “And then we found ourselves shouting, ‘What’s up, Araneta!’”
Beyond numbers
That Cup of Joe was one of the biggest—if not the biggest—Filipino music acts of 2025 is indisputable. The numbers don’t lie.
Their hit single, “Multo,” spent a record-breaking 27 weeks on the Billboard Philippines Hot 100 and became the first Filipino band to break into the Billboard Global 200, peaking at No. 80. On Spotify—where they have logged more than two billion streams—they pulled off a streaming hat-trick, finishing 2025 as the No. 1 Most Streamed Local Artist and Most Streamed Local Group, with “Multo” as the Most Streamed Local Song.
Commercial success was matched by industry recognition. Beyond the numbers, the band racked up major awards, including Song of the Year at the Awit Awards; Album of the Year and Song of the Year at the Filipino Music Awards; and Group of the Year and Rock/Alternative Song of the Year at the Wish Music Awards.
But enough of the number dump. While statistics underline how extraordinary their year was, numbers are just numbers. Looking back, it’s the little moments—like that Wall of Fame reveal—that actually make it all feel real.
In January last year, as midnight struck and their debut album “Silakbo” was about to drop, the boys pulled over on the road after a gig and waited for it to go live. “Para kaming mga baliw sa gilid ng kalsada,” CJ recalls, laughing. “We had no idea how far or how many people the album would reach, but we were just so happy. ‘Magkaka-album na kami!’ we yelled. It was a special moment.”
It’s also in these unassuming pockets that the band finds its grounding. By now, the members are used to having a team with them that takes care of their technical needs, but on their first show in Los Angeles last year, they were—even just for a few hours—those young, wide-eyed dreamers once again.
“In that show, we had to do our setup, so parang nakakatuwa,” Gab says. “Naaalala ko noong high school, kami lang ang nagbubuhat, kami lang ang magkakasama at inaasahan ng isa’t isa. It was very nostalgic.”
Still the same faces
Indeed, many things have changed. While their faces barely registered before, they now require security at their shows (a fan once managed to sneak into their van—an experience both amusing and unnerving). Gian now has his own place. CJ has a new bike and plenty of savings. Gab bought a car. Xen has two new keyboards—the red one, “if you know what I mean” (hint: a Nord). And Rapha is just thrilled to have a PlayStation 5.
But still, many things have stayed the same. They take public transportation—jeepneys, heck, even moto taxis. And when they look at each other, it’s not stars they see, but the same familiar faces they have known since their days at Saint Louis University Laboratory High School in Baguio—“walang maayos na gupit at walang facial wash.”
“I look at them, and I see my friends,” Rapha says.
“Nakikita ko pa rin ‘yung mga batang nangangarap sa classroom, mga ‘di inaakalang makaarating sa ganitong point,” Gian adds. “We always look back kung paano kami nagsimula.”
So surreal
It’s a “fever dream” they still haven’t woken up from—a reality that still hasn’t sunk in. So thinking about what else they hope to achieve almost feels surreal, especially when they haven’t even had time to digest the success that, as they all agree, just snuck up on them while they were enjoying the ride.
For now, it’s all gratitude, humility, and continuity. “We’re super grateful na nangarap kami and that we slowly achieved our dreams and climbed up the ladder that we once thought ‘di namin kayang akyatin,” Rapha says.
“During gigs, we would randomly joke about na, ‘Dati ganito lang tayo.’ That’s why every stage, every performance we do, we still give it our all as if it’s our first time performing,” CJ adds. “And that feeling is incredibly humbling.”
Clearly, their cup is overflowing—but they’re not about to let themselves drown.
