The vibe at Orange & Lemons’ ‘Now & Then’ was acquainted fairly than fiery, akin to a bigger-than-usual eyeball or a reasonably modest con, not a mammoth rock present
MANILA, Philippines – Watching Orange & Lemons play a live performance marking a quarter-century of music was heartening. It meant some issues can climate the vacillating tides of vogue and opinion. It meant you may persist with your weapons, irrespective of how single-minded your weapons are.
It meant you may make each a dwelling and a killing whereas miming lads from a small island whose glory, Invoice Bryson wrote, is in its being “intimate and small-scale, and on the similar time packed to bursting with incident and curiosity.”
Bryson was after all referencing Britain in that passage from Notes from a Small Island, however these very descriptors — an intimacy countered with “incident and curiosity” — may as nicely have been describing Orange & Lemons’ devoted converging on the Metrotent final October 18.
The vibe at Now & Then was acquainted fairly than fiery, akin to a bigger-than-usual eyeball or a reasonably modest con, not a mammoth rock present.
In different phrases, it was a small group as an alternative of a haphazard assemblage of names and faces, and that group’s statesmen — singer-songwriter Clem Castro, brothers JM and Ace del Mundo (on bass and drums, respectively), and relative newcomer Jared Nerona (I say “relative” as a result of he’s already clocked in seven years of lively post-reformation keyboard obligation) — have been in high type.
The mounting by co-presenters Gabi Na Naman Productions was tasteful, casting the band in a enjoyable, informal gentle, fairly than a holier-than-thou one. The set design was neo-retro: a hybrid of collage cut-outs, nature mood-setters, and High of the Pops Warholisms. The fashions have been principally trendy mod, and the three or 4 units that the band performed have been bookended by interview movies.
My main takeaway from these movies is the band’s self-awareness relating to particular artistic eras. Their 2003 debut Love within the Land of Rubber Footwear and Soiled Ice Cream was their cred badge; their 2005 follow-up Strike While the Iron is Sizzling their ticket to the large leagues; and the 2007 swan tune Moonlane Gardens their masterpiece; their Sgt. Pepper.
I’m head over heels with 2022’s sensible, sensible La Bulaqueña, their first file post-rebirth — additionally their first all-Filipino launch, in addition to their first sustained stab at conventional kinds just like the kundiman —however possibly I ought to dedicate one other essay on that altogether.
In any case, the choice to segmentize the present into album-specific units was courageous. The band knew they have been enjoying to their congregation, not least-common-denominator sorts who’d pay to listen to the Pinoy Large Brother theme on repeat. Additionally, albums are a dying breed, so this present being designed round them is defiant and ballsy.
The Love within the Land set was a totally charged onslaught, and it put the boys’ chops on full show. It’s frankly shocking how they will rock out with tunes like these; in spite of everything, jangle fests like “A Starting of One thing Fantastic” and “Simply Like a Splendid Love Music” are neither headbangers nor dance triggers. However snarkier numbers like “Armageddon is Coming to City” and “Hey, Please” are a reminder that, 20 years prior, the sight and sound of Orange & Lemons reside was an arresting (and irresistible) proposition.
Curiously, the by-album development didn’t persist with chronology: after opening with their debut, Castro and firm performed the trad-but-rad La Bulaqueña, which (and I’ve stated this in earlier tales) was a resolute about-face in tone and timbre.
Regardless of having been pegged as devoted Anglophiles for many of their existence, the band (and on their comeback launch nonetheless) churned out a decidedly Pinoy challenge that spoke to their Bulacan countryside roots, in addition to to the historical past of Castro’s household as rondalla gamers and educators.
The title observe is infectious in a captivating, old-timey approach that’s not pressured or cosplay-ish, and the deep cuts — the Manila Sound-dowsed “Yakapin Natin ang Gabi,” the transformative “Hindi Ko Sukat Akalain” — are only a pleasure to soak up, stuffed with melodic and emotional complexity.
When it got here time for the Strike part, the boys’ vitality was palpable. The album has a few of their best-known materials, in spite of everything, they usually anchor their common reveals on its crowd-drawing capabilities. “Hanggang Kailan” is a rattling high-quality karaoke staple, and its ridiculous mass enchantment doesn’t take something away from its sublimity. “Heaven Is aware of (This Angel Has Flown),” as Castro famous in a spiel, by some means caught second wind over TikTok, securing the Gen Z vote for high sing-along second.
And let’s not even break up hairs over Moonlane Gardens. It’s their most creatively formidable challenge by far, and shutting with songs from it’s rattling heroic. The title observe alone, together with “Ang Katulad Mong Walang Katulad,” is well worth the worth of admission.
However above all, there’s the musicality. A band tenaciously dedicated to a set of musical tropes — reverb-and-chorus indie; Beatle jangle; Macca-style strolling bass work; wonderful Johnny Marr arpeggios — shouldn’t be this diversified and multifaceted, however they’re.
After withstanding essential shifts like shedding a lead singer; severing hyperlinks from labels each indie and main; surviving an authorship scandal; and being compelled to rerecord their debut, it’s fairly clear that the Orange & Lemons guys are lengthy haulers with the work ethic of saints and the derring-do of devils.
The truth that this present is flanked by tight in-between bookings — with not a lot ink spilled as to how busy they’re, or how a lot they love doing this – you simply know music and efficiency aren’t simply esoteric issues to Orange & Lemons. Of their maturity, you understand they’ve began appreciating it as exhausting labor, too. – Rappler.com
