Poblacion's Bourbon New Orleans is Angeles City in Makati
The place is defiantly not cool-and that's what's great about it.
(SPOT.ph) Poblacion is for the young, or at least, one side of it is. The side North of Kalayaan is where they all hang out, yelling over loud DJ tracks while taking shots or sipping expensive cocktails. It’s where you might run into that hot new influencer you’ve been seeing all over the place, or a political scion blowing off steam.
They’ll hardly make it down South of Kalayaan, which has a seamier reputation. That’s where the bulk of the girly bars are; where women in tight dresses might follow you down P. Burgos asking if you want a massage. The crowd is mostly older white people, sitting in bars usually with a much younger woman beside him, laughing a little too hard at his jokes.
And looking at it from the outside, Bourbon New Orleans might be mistaken for another P. Burgos girly bar, with its neon sign and proximity to several places of ill-repute. But while there are indeed plenty of white people in there sitting beside much younger women laughing too hard at jokes, this is not a place where you buy women’s time. Bourbon New Orleans is a live music venue; the kind we don’t really have in Metro Manila anymore.
Bourbon New Orleans is like Gapo in Pob
This is a place you’re more likely to see in Angeles, or in Olongapo; any place that built an economy around a US Military base, trying to cater to soldiers wanting to have a little taste of home. On Friday nights at Bourbon, that’s exactly what it feels like. This is a road house: a raucous venue where people scream along to a band doing covers of 70s and 80s rock standards.
Inside, it’s pure kitsch. It’s various signs hung up on walls, a bicycle on the ceiling. The corridor leading to the restrooms features a 90s-era PLDT pay phone as decoration. No, this place is not cool, but it is defiantly not cool. It is not cool in the designated cool district of Makati, and by whatever math people use these days to determine what is actually cool, Bourbon New Orleans emerges as something that breaks the matrix.
On stage on Fridays is the band Part III, who you might find online by searching “Part 3 Band.” They are the kind of journeyman Filipino band that you imagine spent some time on a cruise ship. They are regulars at a local casino as well, and seem to make a living playing events between their regular gigs. Both their frontman and their lead guitarist are in their sixties, and there is no pretending otherwise. On stage, though, it hardly matters: they are rock gods. They are the ageless spirit of loud, maximalist music, a vehicle for hot guitar licks and belted out lyrics.
In their repertoire: a lot of Queen, sung with curious ease by the sexagenarian lead singer, whose voice exhibits little of the wear and tear of people his age. Journey, of course, because this is the Philippines, and it is important. Guns n Roses, which reportedly prompts the lead guitarist to occasionally put on a giant curly wig and a top hat. Deep Purple, Meatloaf, Van Halen, AC/DC, all done with incredible technical accuracy. The only cover they did that didn’t sound like the original was Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” which they inflected with arena rock flair. It was pretty strange, but also done with remarkable skill.
None of it is hip, but their performance is electric. These mostly old men look like they’re having a blast on stage, and their enthusiasm is infectious. It should feel corny, but it doesn’t. It feels real, and earnest, and really, really fun. You look out into the crowd of this remarkably large room, and everybody’s just having a really good time, bopping their heads along to the gigantic riffs following the operatic break of "Bohemian Rhapsody." They are writing down requests on little slips of paper, which are delivered by Bourbon’s staff to the stage in the middle of another song. And there is no doubt that Part III will be able to pull it off later in the night.
The Bourbon Crowd
Speaking of the crowd: it’s older than your typical Poblacion hangout. As mentioned, there are a lot of white people in here, but it’s also developing a kind of interesting crowd of regulars. In the back, there is a gang of titas who seem to have come from the office, and they’re gossiping about whether that one girl is coming back to work. They quiet down as the band takes the stage, all of them clearly here for the show. There’s that one lady in glasses, who doesn’t really look the kind of person who would dance to the front of the stage and start belting into the microphone when offered by the frontman. But she does, and it’s great. And it feels like this is her letting her hair down, escaping the confines of her everyday life.
Word just seems to be getting around. The regulars have been telling their friends about it: about this strange place that doesn’t quite feel like it should still exist in 2024 in Metro Manila. And this has led some of Manila’s artists and filmmakers to amble in there on a Friday night to see Part III, and they will, over the night, discover that this place just might be the most fun you can have in Poblacion. The drinks are reasonably priced, the food is pretty good, and the music is loud and performed as if it was the only thing that mattered in the world.
Bourbon New Orleans is located at 5003 P.Burgos Street, Makati City. For inquiries, follow their Instagram or call/message them at (02) 8890-1358.