'Wild swans' delight new wave fans

CEBU, Philippines - Cebuano new wave enthusiasts wasted no time in snatching up limited edition copies of the Wild Swans’ latest album "The Coldest Winter for a Hundred Years," even if it came at a steep price of one thousand bucks! The album is currently sold only in the United States and the United Kingdom, so the post-punk band’s fans took the chance of purchasing the real deal from the Swans themselves.

The 16-track album is said to be Wild Swans founder and frontman Paul Simpson’s nostalgic love letter to his hometown of Liverpool in England.

For the rest who’ve waited years to simply see these Liverpool icons perform again, they were content enough on having their fan memorabilia including cassette tapes, vinyl records and CDs signed during a meet-and-greet of the band.

The Wild Swans recently breezed into town for a concert followed by another gig in Manila.

Paul narrated how the six of them had quite the culture shock upon landing on Philippine soil, not only because of all the vehicles that blared their horns nonstop (a no-no in England as they incessantly conked their car horns only in an emergency, says Paul), but they apparently arrived in the middle of a Manila typhoon.

After a guest stint at GMA7 noontime show "Eat Bulaga" to promote their concerts, the laidback crew was happy to fly to a sunnier Cebu and enjoy what night life we had to offer.

The guys were genuinely surprised that they indeed enjoyed a cult following in our country, and is still famous among 80s fans after all these years. Speaking for the group, Paul said: "It’s surreal. I didn’t believe it before. It’s only recently I realized it’s true. We went to the supermarket and there was a security guard singing one of our songs!"

Asked how their band name came about, Paul narrated that band names in the early 80’s were often hard. He came across a fairytale, Hans Christian Andersen's "Wild Swans" and decided right there and then not to complicate matters and adopt the phrase as their band name.

Formed by Paul in 1980 shortly after he left another band named Teardrop Explodes, the Wild Swans are known for their hit song Revolutionary Spirit, their first full-length album Bringing Home The Ashes and other songs like Bible Dreams, Young Manhood, Melting Blue Delicious, Chocolate Bubblegum, and Vanilla Melange.

There were numerous membership changes through the years, with the band disintegrating a number of times after Paul’s efforts (acknowledged as the creative force that keeps them together) to revive the group with new music. Each time they fell apart, Paul strongly felt he was not ready for it to be over and that he had not yet done what he had set out to accomplish.

At present, the Wild Swans line-up is composed of Paul, Ricky Rene Maymi, Les Pattinson, Mike Mooney, Stuart Mann and Richard Turvey.

"We never really reached our peak, so I hope now is our time to get appreciated," Paul said. Judging from the reception of their whirlwind visit, these Swans can continue to expect loads of appreciation from their unwavering Pinoy fans. (FREEMAN)