When the Wildcard Realizes the Room Matters: YANO and MISSING FILEMON at Rakrakan Davao Pt. 2

At first, seeing TRASHBUNK on the lineup for Rakrakan Davao Pt. 2 felt like a typo that somehow made it to print.

It was validating, funny, surreal, and honestly a little intimidating too—especially after seeing how many people actually showed up. On the same poster were names that clearly meant something deeper to people, names with history behind them, names tied to memory. Then suddenly there was us—a rowdy, loud, heavy band armed with originals and absolutely no intention of easing anybody into anything.

So yeah, my first reaction was basically: what the hell are we doing here?

Before the reality of the night fully sank in, we were doing what TRASHBUNK usually does backstage—goofing around in the VIP room, acting like idiots, probably confusing some of the other artists in the process. We likely looked less like a band preparing for one of the bigger lineups we’ve played and more like a group of troublemakers who somehow wandered into the right place by accident.

But that’s also part of who we are. Sometimes the jokes come first because they keep the pressure from getting too loud in our heads. Sometimes acting stupid is how you keep yourself from overthinking the fact that you’re about to step in front of a crowd way bigger than usual.

And the crowd that night was already locked in.

TRX and Crew Crocs set a tone that was warm, singable, and instantly lovable. The kind of songs people can settle into. The kind of energy that feels easy to hold. You could feel the room opening up in that melodic, familiar way—people vibing, singing along, relaxing into the night. I personally know TRX and his set makes the butterflies in your stomach go around as usual, singing along with his originals!

Then we came in with “Trigger.”

That was the hard left turn.

You could almost feel the shift happen in real time. Suddenly the openers weren’t just there to warm up the room anymore. Suddenly the crowd was getting hit with heavy music, all originals, no safety net. No covers to ease them in. No trying to sound more digestible than we really are. Just TRASHBUNK being TRASHBUNK—loud, jagged, and probably a little rude in the middle of a lineup that, up to that point, had been flowing in a very different direction.

You can listen to us on Spotify

And honestly, I think that was the point.

Somewhere in my head while we were playing, I had that exact mix of thoughts you get in moments like that: well, no taking this back now. Another part of me was thinking, either this works or we die very publicly in front of everybody. But underneath the panic and adrenaline, there was also this weird confidence—like if we were going to be the odd ones out in this lineup, then we might as well do that job properly.

We were not there to blend in. We were there to be the shock treatment.

Looking back now, that role made more sense than I expected. At the time, though, I still didn’t fully grasp how big the night really was.

That changed because of Ryan.

Before this event, I’ll be honest—I wasn’t fully familiar with just how much Missing Filemon meant to a lot of Bisaya listeners. I knew the name, but not the emotional weight behind it. Then I saw Ryan, our drummer, get emotional meeting them. That was the moment the whole thing snapped into focus for me. This wasn’t just some free gig we happened to get booked on. This wasn’t just another Saturday where we played loud and went home. For Ryan, meeting Missing Filemon meant meeting a part of his childhood. And once you see that kind of reaction from your own bandmate, you stop looking at the event like just another show.

You start realizing that some names on a poster are not just names. They’re memory. They’re identity. They’re home for people.

That made me look at the rest of the lineup differently too.

I’ll admit it—I wasn’t as familiar with Crew Crocs and Jay-R Siaboc going into the event, so apologies in advance to their fans and to anyone currently clutching their chest reading this. That’s on me. Sometimes you walk into a lineup knowing exactly what kind of history you’re standing beside, and sometimes you walk in like a kid who forgot to study for the quiz but still showed up with confidence. But that’s also part of what made the night interesting—it reminded me that not every gap in your knowledge is a bad thing. Sometimes it just means you still have more of the scene left to discover.

Missing Filemon wasn’t just a “big band from Cebu” anymore. You could feel that they meant something personal to people. The kind of band whose songs live inside people long after the speakers are turned off. And Yano carried a different kind of weight—sharp, classic, funny, grounded, still alive in a way that doesn’t feel frozen in time. The more I took it all in, the more I understood that Rakrakan Davao Pt. 2 wasn’t just a mixed lineup. It was a strange and beautiful collision of different musical languages, different memories, different generations, and different ways of belonging to the same night.

Which makes TRASHBUNK’s place in it even funnier and even better.

Because if the night proved anything, it’s that Davao can handle curveballs.

We may have looked out of place on paper. Maybe some people in the crowd were wondering why this loud heavy band suddenly barged into the middle of a more singable, more melodic flow. Maybe some people thought we were in the wrong lineup. But the beautiful part is that the attention still landed. Even confusion can be useful when it wakes people up. And from where we stood, it felt like that happened.

We got people’s attention. We gained a few followers. We gained a few fans. For the first time, we even signed someone’s poster and hat—which is still hilarious to think about because we’re so used to being the ones watching other bands do that. Moments like that make something click in your brain. Maybe we were the wildcard, but we were a wildcard that actually mattered that night.

Of course, because this is TRASHBUNK, the night also had to include some chaos.

At one point, JC got shocked in the middle of a song because he was barefoot. From the outside, it was so abrupt and weird that people probably thought it was part of the act. Even the sound guy seemed like he could’ve mistaken it for some dramatic stage moment. But no—bro actually got zapped.

The most likely reason is simple enough: being barefoot onstage removes a layer of insulation, so if there’s any stray electrical leakage, grounding issue, bad cable, or live metal contact somewhere in the setup, your body can end up completing part of that path more easily. Add sweat, stage humidity, crowded equipment, and the usual gig-night mess, and suddenly “rock and roll” gets way too literal.

So, lesson learned—no more barefoot heroics. Shoes on next time. Also worth checking in future gigs: proper grounding for amps, mics, DI boxes, and extension lines; damaged cables; wet stage surfaces; spilled drinks near power sources; and any power strips that look like they’ve already survived three different bands and a small fire. Funny in the moment is one thing. Electrical hazards are another.

Still, that moment weirdly sums up the whole night. It was funny, chaotic, slightly dangerous, and impossible to ignore.

Which is also how Rakrakan Davao Pt. 2 felt from our side of the stage.

I walked into that event thinking it was just another gig—just a free show, just another chance to play, just another night to be loud. I walked out realizing it was bigger than that. It was one of those nights that quietly teaches you where you stand, what kind of scene you’re actually in, and how much music can mean to people in ways you don’t fully understand until you’re inside the room with them.

TRASHBUNK may have been the loud left turn in the middle of that lineup, but maybe that’s exactly why we belonged there.

Not because we matched everything around us.

But because we didn’t.

And somehow, in a city and a scene wide enough to hold singalongs, legacy acts, heavy originals, nostalgia, chaos, and first-time fans asking for signatures, that difference made perfect sense.

We showed up loud, confused a few people, gained a few fans, nearly electrocuted JC, and left with a deeper respect for the weight that night carried.

That sounds very TRASHBUNK, honestly.

This event also felt personal for another reason—it pulled me back into writing again. After being away from it for a while, getting to experience a night like this from the inside gave me something real to hold onto and actually talk about. So I’m thankful too—to Holodeck for putting together a lineup wild enough to make all these things collide in one night, and to Musika Wabad for still giving me a space to turn moments like this into words. Sometimes you need a night like this to remind you that music is not the only thing worth returning to—sometimes writing comes back with it.