Hitting the road, with gizmos

The perks of the rock star life are well-documented and frequently overstated. The adrenaline rush of performing before several thousand screaming fans who want to be you. Meeting and getting to know many interesting people, some of whom are very attractive. Access to all sorts of stimulating stuff which you tell yourself you can enjoy in moderation. The money’s not bad, either, and you get to travel.

Less frequently documented are the aggravations of the rock star life.

Hearing problems. People never leaving you alone, unless they’re leaving you alone forever. Creative droughts. In-fighting. Bad eating habits that compound pre existing health conditions, leading to rumors of your own death. Don’t forget dealing with assorted clichés. Worse, being regarded as a cliché.

And then there’s The Waiting. Waiting in airports. Waiting for the van to transport band, instruments, crew to gigs and hotels. Waiting in dressing rooms. Waiting in recording studios. Waiting for each other. Waiting to go home.

There are various ways of dealing with The Waiting, many of which have been made into movies. In this case, the band has chosen a shockingly wholesome and productive approach.

Gadgets.

When Pupil went on tour this year, they were accompanied by two essential new gizmos. The first was vocalist Ely Buendia’s Leica D-Lux 4. Ely loves that camera. He would commit unspeakable perversions with it if he could.

“Everybody shoots,” Ely says. “That’s been the undeclared motto of the tour. At first I wouldn’t let anyone near my camera, I was like, get your own!  But I realized I wanted to be in the pictures as well as take them.”

The Leica was augmented by “this very cool tripod I bought at NAIA 3. It resembles an alien ship from War of the Worlds. It can wrap itself around anything so you can take photos of your heroic deeds and sell them to the Daily Bugle.”

The second gadget was drummer Wendell Garcia’s portable EGG iPod speaker. Wendell loves that mini-speaker. He also would commit unspeakable perversions with it if he could. The EGG led to Airport Dancing.

If you spend a lot of time flying, Airport Dancing is just what you need to break the monotony of waiting. Plug the speaker into your personal music player. Put on Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough (Never your band’s own material. That would be tacky.)

Dance.

You don’t even have to be a good dancer. In fact the more uncoordinated you are, the more fun everyone has. The point is to loosen up and fight the boredom. Get as many people in the waiting lounge to join you. We’re in the Philippines, how hard can that be?

On one trip, Pupil found themselves in the airport waiting lounge with the entire Purefoods basketball team. Airport Dancing broke out in the lounge and continued through the tubes.

The end product of months of shooting and dancing is a book called Against The Light. Published by SETA Books, it’s a very personal chronicle of being on the road around the Philippines. You know that terrible cliché, “The band as you’ve never seen them before”? In this case it is true.

The photographs taken by the band, the crew, manager Day Cabuhat, and friends, chronicle the adventures of Pupil all over the country. You wait, eat, sleep, walk, wait, play, sing, wait, drink, read, listen, wait, and ruminate with the band. Have I mentioned the waiting?

Designed by bassist Dok (Andrew) Sergio, Against The Light includes essays by guitarist Yan Yuzon and Ely on the road experience. Here’s Yan revealing the secret choreography of luggage: “Several flights down the tour, a very intricate choreography with the bags begins to materialize. They stack up in neat sequence from baggage claim on two carts. They load up Tetris-style in back of the van or under the seats. They eventually end up in their proper rooms with their proper masters, and reveal the Ziplocs of toiletries, tangles of phone, laptop and camera cables, and the chill-out set: shorts, shirt, ready for the nap. If our bags talked while we napped, they’d probably talk like old friends. But I’m sure they don’t.”

Ely describes a place they spend an inordinate amount of time in:

“Dressing rooms usually come in two varieties: with chairs, or with tables and chairs.  They’re like the depressurizing chambers in spaceships — you need to be in them but not longer than you have to. If you’re stuck in one of the varieties I just mentioned and the band before you decides to set up camp onstage, it can be a soul-sucking experience.”

The strange thing about soul-sucking experiences is that when you look back on them, you realize they were fun. Against The Light hits the stores in November.

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