When Razorback got the news that we were to open for
Metallica in 1993 we were thrilled sh*tless! Patrick Pulumbarit had something to do with that and he went on to become the manager of Wolfgang at one point and many other big bands including Greyhoundz. That was like a dream come true us, opening for a major international act, and also being Metallica fans. Aside from fronting for an awesome band, we were going to play in front of more than 20,000 of our kababayans so we prepared some pinoy rock classics to kick out the jams. No, we had no originals that we’d play regularly yet at that time.
We arrive at the venue, the Ultra football field, with some friends in tow and were given our patches to stick onto ourselves. We were hanging around the bleachers, having beers in the afternoon, and listening to the roadies sound check the equipment. T*ng Ina! It was loud and clear from where we were perched.
After a bit we decide to go down to the stage and see what’s up and when we got there, this humungous biker looking guy with a big beard, glasses and a parrot tattoo on his calf comes up to our friend with the cameras and says, “Where are you going with that, little lady?” and Katz says, “Uh…I’m with the band.” The guy goes, “The band huh? And who might you be?” So we try to cheerfully say “We’re Razorback. We’re the opening act.” He then says, “So where are your patches???” and I pull mine out and say “Here!” So he gets loud and says, “Well put ‘em on!” And put ‘em on we did…right away. Hehe.
We later learned his name was Bob and he was the coolest roadie out there. He was head roadie at that. Apparently he had been around the world with some of the biggest acts in rock and roll. Months later, when we got the opening slot for Bon Jovi at the Rizal baseball stadium, we were sitting in the bleachers having a few and checking out the scene while they were setting up the stage and we spot this huge guy on the stage and I noticed he had a tattoo on his calf so I say “Isn’t that Bob? It is!!!” and we start running to the stage screaming “Bob! Bob! Hey man!” and he looks at us with that face that says, “Oh no…not you again.” He greeted us warmly and we did promise to be good boys and not be in anybody’s way. He ended up on the cover of the tabloids, in the middle of the stage with a huge 2*4 threatening anyone who came near, which featured the riot that went on since Bon Jovi cut their set short cause of the heavy rains. I think Tirso brought him a copy the next night which made him chuckle at the notoriety.
So back to Ultra…
I think we were all so nervous of what was to go down that night that we all had our baon of toma and whatnot but we saw that they had a couple of huge coolers of beer for Metallica too and we would grab some from there every so often.
Finally we were told that it was time and so they told us to go set up. Once we set foot onstage, the throngs of people just roared and it made all my hair stand on end. I was sh*tting bricks but was giddy as well. When we nodded to say we were set, they shut the lights in the entire arena. Damn! Whew! “Here we go!” I thought. I did the opening drum lines of “Nadapa sa Arina” by the Juan Dela Cruz Band…blag-dug, blog-dug, blug blugudud, bang! All the lights went up and the thousands were going nuts! Wow, what can I say…it was magic! All of us in Razorback were just staring at each other in disbelief while playing the material on auto-pilot. We had such a blast! We kept saying afterwards that this was what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives.
Having finished our short set, I ran off to the car with my other kumpare Jay Ortega to calm my nerves. We were parked down in back of the stage. When we got back, we joined our bro’s and grabbed more beer from the coolers then just went into the throng of people, just walking back and forth in the middle sections of the audience. People kept shouting at us “Razorback! Galing!” and they’d give us some of their booze and pass us their joints. My wife tells me that this was the first time she had ever seen me in person. She was still very young and she was with her older sister in the crowd.
Later, when Jason Newstead was doing his bass solo, Jay and I went backstage again to partake of the band beer. We grabbed the last 2 cans of San Miguel Beer and were watching the show from the back. Lars came off the drum kit and went straight to the coolers and was digging in there then he stood straight up and screamed “Where the f*ck’s the beer?!?!”
Jay and I put the last 2 cans we were holding under our shirts and marched back to the car for more smokes while Lars fumed. Mwahaha!
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We finished Metallica’s beer! Someone was sent to go get more.
Rioting broke out where the middle sections were throwing their monoblock chairs into the expensive ticket sections. Fights broke out. The bleachers were doing the “wave”. Metallica played for like 3 hours! Whatta night! What a blessing to be there. What a great honor it was to have shared the stage with the biggest heavy metal band in the world…
