An all-out rendition of "You Oughta Know" by Alanis

It was close to midnight on a Monday, but inside a dim, smoke-filled bar in Bonifacio High Street, people jostled for seats and craned their necks to peer at a makeshift stage. Strobe lights dotted the platform with purple and blue, and band members tuned their instruments as a nervous, twenty-something woman clambered onstage. She looked like she had just come out of the office, dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt. She cleared her throat.

The band started playing the first few notes of Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic.” She clutched the mic and glanced at the laptop screen—where the lyrics were posted—and squeezed her eyes shut. “An old man turned 98/He won the lottery/And died the next day,” she began, whispering the verses.

Like most Rockeoke newbies, she was clearly ill at ease at the start of the song, but 10 seconds later, she was screaming the chorus as if she had been born to sing onstage, goaded on by a cheering crowd. “It’s like ra-yee-yain/On your wedding day/It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid/It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take/And who would’ve thought it figures?”

She sailed through the rest of the song, strengthened by a dark shot of liquor she downed just before going onstage. The group of three college-age guys that followed her looked like they had more than just a shot; they warbled an over-the-top, drunken rendition of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” complete with heartfelt gestures. By the end of the song, they were too wasted to look at the laptop screen for the lyrics, so they shrugged and did a group hug onstage. The audience erupted in wild cheers.

Rockeoke was a Monday night staple for yuppies who wanted to break the monotony of weekdays, or who felt that they didn’t get the most out of their weekends. On specially arranged nights, birthdays and graduations were celebrated with a wild song or two, as were company parties and fund-raising events.

However, there will no longer be more epic drunken performances on Rockeoke’s famed stage, as Mag:net Bonifacio High Street held its final run last May 30. Facebook and Twitter were full of panicked updates last week as people looked for confirmation of the news. There were plenty of rumors (several guessed that it Mag:net’s BHS branch wasn’t making money on non-Rockeoke nights), but it seemed that no one really knew why the bar/art gallery was shutting its doors.

Gabe Mercado, one of Mag:net’s partners, cleared up the matter. “Mag:net required a lot of time, love and attention to keep it as sharp and as fun and as cutting edge as it was,” he explained. “After three great years, the active partners who were there practically every night faced new challenges in their own lives. I have a six-year-old needing more time from me, JC may relocate because of work, Ralph already spends half his time out of the country and Kat has a new job and just recently got married too.”

End of an era

The final run of the three-year-old Rockeoke disappointed the yuppies and students who frequented the bar. “It made me really sad,” said makeup artist Jigs Mayuga.

“It’s the end of an era,” declared blogger Jayvee Fernandez. “It was a second home for some people; people went there to do certain things [that couldn’t be done elsewhere]. Now that it’s gone, people are wondering where they can go.”

Wanggo Gallaga, a Rockeoke regular who often hosted the event, offered an explanation for its popularity. “The greatest part of Rockeoke is that whether you have talent or not, you can go up on stage to sing, and no one can take you down from it. For the duration of that song, you’re a rock star. You have your friends and strangers are cheering for you. The great bands help you really feel like you’re part of a band because they make you sound good.”

He added, “The last night was really epic; a lot of people got piss drunk. People who were going from the very start showed up, and everyone sang the songs that they had been wanting to sing. Quark Henares’s performance of Paramore’s ‘That’s What You Get’ was legendary—he was jumping onstage, standing on the table. People were pouring beer on him.”

“I finally was able to sing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’” he shared. “I’d been singing that backup for 1.5 years, and it was finally my first time to sing the lead. It’s one of the most popular songs on the list, and it’s always the ending song of the first set. The finale song was ‘Mr. Brightside’ by The Killers.”

I had my own moments with Rockeoke—my first time was with a group of friends as we managed a giggly version of U2’s ‘With or Without You,’ and another had me noiselessly mouthing verses with some officemates because I didn’t know the song they chose.

The subsequent times were braver; the last time I remember going to Rockeoke was when I belted out “You Oughta Know,” also by Alanis Morisette. It was a time when I was confused about relationships, and slightly bitter over one that just ended. I didn’t want to show it to everyone, but when I got up on the Rockeoke stage, I forgot about the mass of strangers peering up at me and shouted all the bitterness and hurt that was bottled up inside. My throat felt raw and dry after, but for four minutes, I was a rock star. And it was pure magic.