Performing the "Filipino" at the Crossroads: Filipino Bands in Five-Star Hotels Throughout Asia

I arrived at the Concorde Hotel at about 8:50 P.M. on a Friday evening. The Concorde Hotel is a high-class business hotel, located on busy Jalan Sultan Ismail in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Across from The Concorde Hotel is Shangri-La Hotel, a five-star establishment belonging to an international chain. Jalan Sultan Ismail and its adjacent streets are home to several of the largest business hotels in the city, such as Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Equatorial Hotel, Mutiara Hotel, Renaissance Hotel, and New World Hotel. These hotels cater to the needs of the business district of Kuala Lumpur and provide accommodation to tourists and business travelers from within the country and abroad. While this area is generally very crowded each evening because of the many nightspots located there, traffic virtually slows to a crawl on Friday and Saturday nights, and people have to wait in line to get into many of the more popular clubs and restaurants. Malaysia's only Hard Rock Café, the haunt of expatriates, travelers from the west, and the Kuala Lumpur elite, is located at the Concorde Hotel. Here one can savor western food and rock music.

However, what specifically drew me to the Concorde Hotel that evening was the band performing at Crossroads Lounge, located in the lobby of the hotel. An inconspicuous poster at the entrance of the lounge advertised the two bands that were playing there that evening, a Filipino band called 2 By 2 and a local band, Memorabilia.¹ 2 By 2 had been performing at the Concorde for the last three years and the hotel had pre-booked them for the next year. I was shown to a table near the stage, was proffered snacks of muruku and kacang puteh, and my drink order was taken. On looking around, I observed that the audience was diverse. Two tables near the stage were occupied by middle-aged Caucasian men, accompanied by young local women. Seated to my right were three Japanese men whom I judged to be in their mid-thirties or early forties. A group of men of Middle Eastern descent occupied the table next to mine. I concluded that these internationals were either expatriates working in multinational corporations in Kuala Lumpur or business travelers. What particularly caught my attention, though, was the number of locals in the crowd. They formed at least half the audience at the lounge. The Malaysians, who lived in Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding suburbs, consisted of middle-aged couples, families with teenaged children and elderly grandparents, and yuppies in their thirties. When 9:00 P.M. approached, the musicians took their place on stage. The band consisted of a male and two female singers and a male keyboardist. The women were dressed in identical black pantsuits with gold fringe, while the men were more casually dressed in shirts and dark pants. The singers waved to some audience members with whom they were familiar and greeted them by name. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We are the 2 By 2 band from Manila, Philippines, here to entertain you at the Crossroads Lounge," Tina Argao announced, on receiving her cue from the keyboardist.

It is not uncommon for Filipino band members performing throughout Asia to introduce themselves in this manner. Even hotels where they perform advertise these bands in local newspapers and on promotional material as "(a band) direct from the Philippines" (City Bayview Hotel, Advertisement), "sensational Filipino band" (Holiday Inn Resort) and "Filipino show-band"(City Bayview Hotel, Leaflet). These examples suggest that the musicians and the hotels perceive using the term "Filipino" to be beneficial to them, either from an entertainment or business standpoint, and believe the term has positive connotations for their audience. This paper, therefore, explores what "Filipino" means to the hotels, the audiences, and...