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By Esther June Bilbao, Special to The Manila
Times
To be young, in love and broken-hearted—that’s the feeling
you’ll get when you listen to Boys Like Girls. It’s emo music by
any other name—quietly screaming emotive vocals,
heart-on-your-sleeve sensitivity, a cosmetic veneer of punk and
androgynous Goth. All that was felt by mallrats and emo kids in the
metro when the band toured Alabang Town Center, TriNoma and
Glorietta. But it was just a taste of things to come; the band
“Boys Like Girls” promised to come back in the Philippines and
have their concert after they are done recording their next album.
Their last show at the Glorietta Activity Center
on September 6 was a blast not only for their fans but also for
themselves as well. The band clearly had fun performing in front of
a jam-packed venue. Though the show started at exactly 5 p.m.,
devotees of the band waited in line right after the mall opened in
the morning. Boys Like Girls did not disappoint; they gave all the
love their fans showed right back at them with emotive,
heart-on-your-sleeve performance.
This Boston-based four-man band composed of
Martin Johnson on vocals and rhythm guitar, Paul DiGiovanni on lead
guitar, Bryan Donahue on bass and John Keefe on drums found their
success through the internet after topping the New Artist Chart of
PureVolume.com by the end of 2005, where they posted some of their
demos and gained countless MySpace friends.
Boys Like Girls caught the attention of booking
agent Matte Galle (Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance) and
producer Matt Squire (Panic At The Disco) who felt something special
with the bands demos. After getting in touch with the band, Galle
went to Boston to hear Boys Like Girls play. Before they knew it,
the band was playing “A Thorn for Every Heart” and “Hit the
Lights” on the national Pure Volume tour and the band All American
Rejects.
They released their debut album on August 2006
through Columbia/Red Ink. The album’s carrier single is
“Hero/Heroine,” which was followed by “The Great Escape” and
then “Thunder.” December 2007, the album had sold for almost
400,000 copies.
Most of their songs are just a few inches from
being exactly like another song, that may also often give you a
“Haven’t I heard this before” feeling. That’s pretty much
the course of the rest of the album. It’s a lot of fairly mediocre
songs that occasionally have a good enough hook to keep someone
interested and singing along.
Their fans here in the Philippines will be
waiting on what they are going to offer on their next album and
their next concert.
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