MANILA, Philippines – Eraserheads: Combo On The Run is a documentary that comes out of two necessities: first, to immortalize the legendary band in film as befits any musician of this stature; and second, to provide — what I realized by the end — healing talk therapy for the 4 members to go back and recount the band’s journey, its peaks and valleys, from rise to painful disbandment to discussions of “where they ever friends or not?” to their eventual 2022 reunion.
It is as frontman Ely Buendia describes it, a reckoning in the style of Rashomon, with himself and Raimund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala, and Marcus Adoro all giving their take on incidents both happy and untoward in their career. From there, the audience — and the members themselves — form a clearer picture of the truth.
Director Diane Ventura had always spoken about the film as a way to present the band’s truth, a “reclaiming of the narrative,” to set the record straight on all that had happened.
In the years after the Eraserheads break-up, there have been so many conflicting stories as well as fan-imagined scenarios that perhaps, it is at this point that the band thought, well, it’s time to tell our story from our own lips. As good a reason as any: as Marcus had said in the trailer, you never know when one might die.
As one will see in the documentary, this is the most amiable, and the friendliest the band has been in years, and certainly that is one key factor why the documentary had even become a possibility. After about two decades, the boys were just ready to talk, and talk they did.
It was a great decision for the director to interview them separately as the members truly looked comfortable (as comfortable as you can get discussing the tougher parts of the past) enunciating the truth as they, individually, saw it. Because of that set-up, the members largely didn’t know what each one was saying, and in the final product, that wonderfully leads to “a-ha” moments for the viewer.
Tito Sotto also has his expected cameo, by the way, when the boys went to their Senate “field trip” for “Alapaap” — which, at the time, had apparently triggered some fear that it was going to be the start of government-led suppression again in the arts. (Unfortunately, it’s something that still happens.)
Fans will likely find themselves chuckling too at certain points, as the story unfolds from our 4 storytellers. The documentary also includes interviews with other important figures in the band’s life, and a few expert takes here and there to guide the viewer and provide more context.
The first act starts with the band’s formation, the members coming from broken up bands, and coming together to form… quite the awful band that was mostly out of tune, and had no gigs. But somehow, the right people felt there was something there, despite the rawness, that was going to click, and they eventually get their chance.
When the band started, it was only a few years after the oppressive rule of the Marcoses ended, and the documentary highlights that too: the band would be at the forefront of the unbridled, uncensored creative expression of the time; a cultural revolution. (Is there some irony in the fact that the documentary is coming out just as we have another Marcos in power?)
We’re all familiar with the rise and the domination of the Eraserheads in the ‘90s. But to see the members retell it, along with all that archival footage is just pure nostalgia juice that no fan can resist.
Side stories, possibly “incriminating” as one member would say, sometimes surface. Nostalgia is a big part of this ride, and the documentary relishes in that role.
For the younger fans, for the Gen Z, the documentary is also a chance to see just how big the band was in the ‘90s, filling up the stadiums with throngs and throngs and screaming fans, both male and female, just like Kpop groups do today — although they did miss out on the throwing around of bottles filled with piss.
Such was the fame of the band that they’d find themselves on TV shows and advertisements as well — which was a little bit anathema to a group who had essentially been punks at the start. It was a loss of control of who they are, likely leading to their eventual breakup.
As conflict is, of course, central to any good story, the documentary’s juiciest parts come when the band finds itself in trouble in the latter years — with pressure from the label to provide more music that lends itself to more money-making, and just that whole familiarity-breeding-contempt phenomenon magnified by toxic, macho grin-and-bear-it mentality rather than talking about, you know, feelings.
As in a previous interview with Ventura, if the members had only actually talked to one another, and understood that they process things differently — including how to handle things like one’s friend/associate/colleague being at the hospital due to a heart attack, or that a member may actually care more about the quality of their playing than they actually let on.
Again, to hear the story out of their own mouths, that’s the beauty of this documentary. It’s almost like a confessional, and it’s up to the viewer to judge for themselves.
And you know how breakups even get messier after the actual breakup depending on how the people involved act? There’s a bit of that flavor too in this band’s breakup, leading to the nearly two-decade-long bitterness, broken up only momentarily by a late 2010s reunion, and a few appearances here and there.
The last segment focuses on the 2022 reunion concert, the possibility for which began in 2021 when Ely replied to a tweet about a possible reunion. “Pag tumakbo si Leni,” he tweeted. Leni ran, and Leni lost — something that the documentary reminds us of, which will certainly be an emotional moment for kakampinks watching.
That’s part of the framing of the documentary: the band would reunite amid a country that’s reeling from political tension, to momentarily provide a reprieve from whatever one’s political colors were because Pare Ko and Huling El Bimbo still hit as hard as when they first hit the airwaves — especially the former, which was their breakout hit. But really, the core of the film is seeing the members reconcile, with the parallelism to politics being somewhat adjunct relative to the rest of the story.
Several performances of the 2022 reunion concert are shown, and again, the 4 members looking back on what went right this time.
(The documentary also slightly touches on Marcus Adoro’s controversies with his daughter Syd Hartha.)
The documentary ends on a very optimistic note: the Eraserheads, no longer enemies not yet friends, and maybe, there’s a chance down the line, that they’d find themselves hanging out at the beach one time, or maybe even a new song. Ang Muling El Bimbo, anyone? – Rappler.com
Content shared from www.rappler.com.