The Eraserheads reunion and five takeaways from ‘Combo on the Run’
Like many Pinoys who came of age in the ’90s, my wife Elaine and I consider Eraserheads’ songs as part of the soundtrack of our lives. “With a Smile” endures as a personal favorite. “Shake Yer Head” continues to be my wife’s. When jamming with my siblings on our battered Lumanog though, “Pare Ko” is our old reliable, but when the time came to teach my kids how to strum the guitar, “Ang Huling El Bimbo” was obligatory. So you would understand why we caught a screening of the “Eraserheads: Combo on the Run” over the weekend.
Happily, we left the cinema with much more than what the trailer promised—five takeaways to be precise.
As every Eheads fan knows, the title of the Eheads’ debut album was a nod to the influence of Voltes V in their growing-up years—the ultra electromagnetic top being one of the go-to weapons of the iconic anime robot. Ely Buendia and Marcus Adoro chose to show it by doing the fist bump with both of them wearing that Voltes V ring. Here is a question neither Google nor ChatGPT can’t answer: Where exactly can we buy one?
Being the only lead guitarist of the Eheads for much of his career, Adoro’s admission of being rusty stunned us. It’s one thing to say that one has some catching up to do because it’s been years since he last played with the band. It’s another thing to allow the docu director, Diane Ventura, to film him being coached by Buendia as he shifted to chords he appeared to almost miss. Whether staged or for real, it’s a good reminder for those of us who are aspiring to master a skill set or are already good at it.
If “Metro” is not loud enough to underline where Buendia stood during the 2022 elections, his half-joking remark during an interview that the Eheads would reunite “‘pag tumakbo si Leni” made it indubitable. Reunite they did, but as the historian Xiao Chua noted, it was to contribute what they could to national healing. I didn’t quite appreciate their reunion concert in this light until this documentary.
In a recent podcast, author Simon Sinek shared that it is not what others do, but the meaning we ascribe to what they do that upsets us. Case in point was how Buddy Zabala, Raimund Marasigan, and Adoro took Buendia’s text message that it was time to graduate at a time when they were raising families. Just as instructive was how Buendia took the Saguijo set while he was at the Heart Center. One wonders if their resentment would have lasted for decades if the Eheads were women. Me thinks, this is one reason why women live longer. They talk things out when they are mad. We men bottle it up inside or drink up.
Buendia’s confession of getting upset by some misguided fans heckling him during his post-Eheads stints called to mind Thich Nhat Hanh’s insight that without mud, there can be no lotus. While it was saddening to note that a lot of suffering accompanied their post-Eheads years, one need only open Spotify to realize that their untimely disbandment allowed each Ehead to flourish individually.
Buendia proved to be the most prolific given his projects with Apartel, The Oktaves, and Pupil, but Marasigan has not done badly either with Sandwich, Pedicab, and Cambio. The same is true of Zabala, who took bass duties for The Dawn, Hilera, and Moonstar88. Adoro, on the other hand, put up Markus Highway and ventured into visual arts.
Marasigan’s experience of working nine to five to make ends meet along with Zabala’s reminiscence about his parents’ advice to get a real job as backup brought to mind the reality that many aspiring Pinoy musicians contend with.
There are still more Eheads stories to tell now that the Eheads have announced that they are here to stay.
Von Katindoy,
vonkatindoy@gmail.com
