Wow! San Miguel Beer is going all-out with this year's Oktoberfest by having it start earlier and running it for 120 days. The first Oktoberfest night will start this Friday, September 5 at Ortigas Center and will feature the American rock group Third Eye Blind. 3EB grew to tremendous popularity in the late 90s with such Top 10 hits like "Jumper", "How's It Going to Be", and their most popular song, "Semi-Charmed Life". There will also be simultaneous parties in Cebu (Lapu-Lapu), Davao, Iloilo, Olongapo, and Sta. Rosa.

According to Juned of Dilis Media there are three types of tickets for three sections that you can avail of to get into the Ortigas party:

• General Admission (Longest Bar) Ticket (P120)
  inclusive of 2 San Miguel Pale Pilsens
• Special Oktoberfest Marquee Ticket (P300)
  inclusive of 3 San Miguel Oktoberfest Beers & food
• Gold Ticket (P1,500)
  inclusive of 2 San Miguel Pale Pilsens at General Admission Section and 3 San Miguel Oktoberfest Beers & food at the Special Oktoberfest Marquee Section

Of the three tickets, only the Gold Ticket will get you to see the Third Eye Blind perform up close and personal. Other bands will be performing at other stages in the other sections of the Ortigas party. But I guess, you can still get to hear (though probably not see) Third Eye Blind even if you don't get the Gold Ticket. Unless of course they cordon off the whole area. :-p

One good thing I like about Ayala Malls is that they provide great concerts for free at their malls. Like back in May, I stumbled into an ongoing concert by Vanessa Carlton at Alabang Town Center. But because the concerts are free, and because Ayala Malls are not ideal places to hold large concerts, don't expect Ayala to bring to the Philippines big-name acts like Beyoncé or Maroon 5. But hey, the foreign acts that Ayala Malls bring to Manila are no less worthy of of your ear.

Well this September, Ayala Malls is bringing to the Philippines Boys Like Girls, an American rock band based in Boston, Massachusetts. Boys Like Girls is actually quite new, having been formed in 2005 and having released to date only one album (the eponymous Boys Like Girls) and three singles: "The Great Escape", "Hero/Heroine", and "Thunder". The band is not quite well known among Filipinos and I think it is only Jam 88.3 that actively plays their songs. I've heard the last two singles on the air already, as well as well as an acoustic cover of Frou Frou's "Let Go" that was released in iTunes last year. I personally count "Hero/Heroine" and "Let Go" among my favorite tracks from Boys Like Girls.

Boys Like Girls will grace three of Ayala's malls this first week of September. The schedule is shown below and remember: this is all for free!

• Alabang Town Center
  Activity Center
  September 3, Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.
• TriNoma
  Activity Center
  September 5, Friday at 7:00 p.m.
• Glorietta
  Activity Center
  September 6, Saturday at 5:00 p.m.

And here are links to other pages about the event:

• MyAyalaMalls event page
• Philippine Entertainment Portal blog entry

July and August of 2008 had a lot of foreign artists do concerts in the Philippines with the likes of Simple Plan, Daughtry, Lifehouse, and even 80s British pop sensation Rick Astley. Yet September will not be any less exciting especially as it starts rocking with a huge concert by Canadian singer and songwriter Avril Lavigne at the Araneta Coliseum this Wednesday, September 3, to promote her third and latest album The Best Damn Thing (and the concert is part of her worldwide The Best Damn Tour).

If you're eyeing to get tickets, it's probably too late since I'm guessing the sellable tickets would have been sold out by now. If you're lucky you can probably snag some of the last-minute tickets that will be given away by partner radio stations for their on-air promos. (Or hope that you know any employee who works at Araneta Center since they often get complimentary tickets, according to my officemate whose sister has a boyfriend who is one of the said Araneta Center employees. Hehehe.)

Avril Lavigne first came to the Philippines on March 31, 2005 as part of her Bonez Tour which promoted her sophomore album Under My Skin. During that concert held at Fort Bonifacio, the opening act was Simple Plan (it's probably a coincidence that Simple Plan had their own solo concert last August 4, 2008, a month before Avril's second concert here). Anyway, my older sister gave my younger sister a ticket to that concert as a birthday gift since she's a huge Avril fan. I happened to be at the Bonifacio Stop-over eating dinner at Chowking that night and I got to hear part of the concert, though the sound was of course lousy at that distance.

Shown below is the setlist of the Araneta concert according to Wikipedia, though basing on her previous concerts in the tour, the setlist is not set in stone. Many of the songs come from the album (marked below with asterisks) including all of the album's four singles, especially the ultra-popular "Girlfriend". Other songs include hits from her previous two albums. It's amusing to note that Avril is including a cover of Toni Basil's "Mickey", to which "Girlfriend" has often been compared with.

1. "Girlfriend"*
2. "I Can Do Better"*
3. "Complicated"
4. "My Happy Ending"
5. "I'm With You"
6. "I Always Get What I Want"
7. "When You're Gone"*
8. "Innocence"*
9. "Don't Tell Me"
10. "Hot"*
11. "Losing Grip"
12. "Bad Reputation"
13. "Everything Back But You"*
14. "Runaway"*
15. "Hey Mickey"
16. "The Best Damn Thing"*
17. "I Don't Have to Try"*
18. "He Wasn't"
19. "Girlfriend (Dr. Luke Remix)"*
20. "Sk8er Boi"

Here are other links about the Avril Lavigne and the concert:

• ClickTheCity.com event page
• Ricky Lo's interview with Avril for her concert

Live in Manila! is blog dedicated to foreign music acts performing in Manila, Philippines. We scour the web for stories, news, rumors, information, photos, and videos about concerts and foreign artists.

Why a blog only for foreign artists? Well, a lot of people have noticed that there's an increase in the number of foreign acts having tour stops in Manila. It's best that there's a central website to collect such information. Another reason is that there's already plenty of local websites that tackle OPM and music in general, but none that deals exclusively with non-Pinoy music acts. Thus, Live in Manila! is born.