Foster The People (FTP) are best known for “Pumped Up Kicks,” a song so disarmingly charming at first listen that it takes a while to figure out its darker message. Band leader Mark Foster has said he wrote the song to try to get inside the head of a kid isolated from his peers, living in his own world.

“Pumped Up Kicks” has since gone on to become one of the biggest tracks of the last two years and has pushed FTP from relative indie obscurity into mainstream. The band has become so big they included Manila as a stop in their world tour. It’s not every day that newcomers garner enough of a following to make producers believe it’s commercially feasible to bring in a musical act to these shores, but they apparently did.

Still, it was one thing to have them come and play but quite another if people were actually willing to shell out good money to see them. But maybe I was just behind the times and was unaware about what the kids are listening to these days. Because the Smart Araneta Coliseum that Saturday night was teeming with kids in their, well, Saturday night-best.

Too many kids were wearing too-tight jeans, high school-age girls were chattering nonstop about what happened at school the day before, and a teenage boy with sky-high hair was running around with a paper flame. It was an interesting crowd that turned up to see FTP, but more importantly, there was a crowd that turned up. My estimate was that the Big Dome, with its 15,000-seating capacity, was about 75 percent filled. Not bad for an anti-hipster/hipster band.

With Foster in the band are bassist Cubbie Fink and drummer Mark Pontius. During the press conference earlier that day, Foster expressed how excited he was about playing in Manila, especially since he is the third generation in his family to have been here. “My grandfather was a soldier and he was here in the 1940s, while my dad was a hippie who lived here in the ‘70s,” he said.

The frontman also related how other artists spoke highly of the Philippines. “A couple of weeks ago the guitar player from Maroon 5 texted me and said he saw posters of us, so I asked what’s the vibe here. He told me that ‘everybody sang on pitch, the whole crowd sings along [and] they all sound amazing.’”

The audience certainly didn’t let Foster down. After a great warm-up act by local indie rockers Techy Romantics, a huge black cloth unfurled at the back of the stage with the band’s name, signaling the start of the main act. The trio walked out all smiles and immediately launched into “Miss You.”

The energy inside Araneta was so palpable you could almost see the electricity being passed back and forth between the band and the audience. I am not the biggest of fans and am not thoroughly versed in their repertoire, but it really didn’t matter. Foster was a monster onstage, coaxing emotions out of every note sung, every strum of the guitar, every tap on the keyboards. At one point, he even picked up drumsticks and went at it on the cymbals and snare.

I did recognize a few songs from their debut album, Torches, including “Houdini,” “Broken Jaw” and “Ruby.” But the biggest hit of all was expectedly saved for last. It’s often disappointing when artists choose to mess with the arrangement of their biggest songs in an effort to “jazz it up.” Fortunately, the band simply started slow and went full blast with “Pumped up Kicks” and performed it exactly as people know it. Even non-fans would have felt the love inside the Big Dome that evening, leaving with ears probably still ringing but contented smiles on their faces.

The first show in Manila of Foster the People was a complete success. Here’s hoping it won’t be the last.

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