14 January 2017

Or the night we bathed in laser lights

David Guetta takes a pause from his awe-inspiring, albeit mild seizure-inducing, concert to express his love for sports and music: “These are two of my favorite things because they bring people together,” says the French DJ, whose This one’s for you is the official UEFA Euro 2016 theme.

He’s not exactly right, though. Sports spark bitterness, if not among competitors, among loyal spectators from opposing sides; and music, especially pop music, is rife with rivalries, with fans ready to bite each other’s head off as they prove who’s better than whom, why this or that genre should cease to exist, and which era is superior of them all.

But we know what he means. And that kind of over-thinking and negativity displayed above disappears once you hit the dance floor and lose yourself among the crowd and to whatever song the DJ dishes out.

“I’m happy that we get to start the year together,” Guetta tells the ravers at the Araneta Coliseum last night. He’s quite chatty for a DJ, and you can hear him smiling. In one of his most engaging numbers, he asks that all the lights are turned off. “If you like it dark and sexy like me, make some noise!” he pleads in his unsexy English. But never mind his accent; he’s playing a rhythmic pattern that makes the shy gyrate. This stretch of musical foreplay culminates in a drop that’s matched by a crazy spectacle of lights.

For someone who welcomed 2017 locked at home, afraid of firecrackers and stray bullets, Guetta’s Unity Tour in Manila is a belated New Year’s celebration. His remixes and light-works are the noise and luminance I dig.

It is also GIST’s first major event in the calendar. Coming from a long holiday break, and a longer break from covering concerts, I fear that I may have forgotten how to do this. Seeing the pile of huge cases labeled ‘LASER’ as we go inside, however, is enough to excite me. The walk along the dim pathway is a walk towards home.

We’re back to the grind.



It’s naive to think that having a good start means having a good run. But that’s what euphoria does — it gives you some positive energy to carry on, and an easy way to reach that state is through music. So long as artists like Guetta keep visiting, providing reprieve from the daily stress and the saddest state of affairs, then we should be fine.

As chart-toppers Bad, Titanium, and Without you blast in the big dome, I get out of the zone and realize, “This is David world’s-highest-paid-DJ Guetta spinning for us. How lucky are we!” Welcome indeed, 2017. And thank you, David Guetta for being this year’s superb opening act.

—Originally published on GIST

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