Emerging victorious in this year’s Battle of the Bands (BOTB), the School of Engineering and Architecture (SEA) Tigers’ Octaves secured the championship title with their musical retelling of a hopeless romantic story.

With this year’s BOTB theme “Himig ng mga Kwento,” the event invited Ateneans to submit anonymous stories, from which nine were selected to inspire various cluster performances at Musikahan.

Among these was the Octaves’ chosen story entitled “Huling Liham,” addressed to the sender’s close friend and tells a story of unrequited love and heartbreak.

To translate these themes into a musical arrangement, the band performed their renditions of Ric Segreto’s “Don’t Know What to Say,” Lola Amour’s “Sanity,” and Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”

Octaves’ Lead Guitarist Ryan Joshua Reyes and Vocalist Marc Lorenz Fabro shared that their song choices connected to the story’s essence of heartache, as expressed in the lyrics.

“The theme had a lot to do with subjects such as unreciprocated love, struggle of moving on, heartache, uncertainty, and all that jazz which we believe ties in quite well with our chosen songs,” they said.

Bassist Humphrey John Clover Puno also added that they put their songs through “different dimensions” to evoke a feeling of varying emotions from the audience.

“Considering that our chosen song was slow and mellow, we decided to let the song go through ‘different dimensions’ to better play around with it in order to make the audience feel as if they are on [a] rollercoaster of emotions. Our goal was to be as weird as possible,” Puno said.

Meanwhile, Keyboardist Raphael Gabriel Dineros shared that he resonated with the themes of uncertainty and related it to a collective student experience of academic challenges.

“As the guy was leaving for his career, their feelings for each other slowly dissipated because of the feeling of uncertainty. This relates to us students, as there is always that uncertainty to pass our respective programs,” he said.

In a thrilling twist, the competition featured a rare four-way podium, with the Accountancy (ACC) Griffins’ Pacioli and the Social Sciences (SS) Dragons’ Dracarys tying for first runner-up.  

This year’s Musikahan expanded the scope of its advocacies, with proceeds from the event channeled into supporting the SAMAHAN AdvocaSIX, as discussed in this year’s first-semester budget hearing.

According to Musikahan ‘24 Event Head and SAMAHAN Treasurer Mary Clair Clarde, while the event highlights the talents of the students, there’s also a commitment to align with the vision and mission of the university.

“While we focus on celebrating our fellow students, the talents that they have, the passion that they have in performance, we also consider to instill sa mga activities and events or projects natin ang vision and mission ng AdDU and advocacies are really part of it,” Clarde said.

Aside from the six advocacies of SAMAHAN, a portion will also go to the Adopt-a-Riverbank program by the Ecoteneo Student Unit.

The event ended with a performance from Filipino boy group Alamat, who performed their songs Dayang, ABKD, Maharani, and Ang Galing Dito.

The Musikahan ‘24: Battle of the Bands took place at Martin Hall on September 26.