Gifter’s Foolishness: Cosplaying While Performing

I already mentioned a lot of times in this article series that my partner in this musical endeavor where I’m currently at is a very unusual kind of guy. He’s some kind of an eccentric person and in this article, let’s get to know one his strategies that from my perspective, is somewhat foolish and if I’d be allowed to be a bit verbally brutal… stupid. There I said it.

The grueling strategy-crafting.

We had plenty of those strategy-crafting moments so that we can strengthen and reinforce our methods of succeeding in the mainstream of music. I mentioned in my previous articles that apart from the extensive songwriting and recording process that we went through during the previous months, Gifter also did something else in the sidelines: researching endlessly about what makes bands head towards failure or success.

Because of the countless hours he consumed scouring through Youtube about the best and worst bands, he made a list in his mind about why those bands got big, why they became one-hit-wonders, or why they never kicked off.

He had this belief that in order for a band to truly succeed, it needs to be a phenomenon. “It’s not enough that we’d be good in singing, performing, or making great songs… we need to be entirely different… something that people have never seen before.” Having said that, Gifter mentioned something else.

“We need to make an effective clickbait, so we need to dress up like superheroes.”

That’s what he said as we were making plans on shooting our live video performance in a studio. He was so scared of being ignored, or just scrolled up by social media viewers once they see the first few seconds of our live performances.

Realizing that we are just average-looking people, and that we’re not really great singers, he had this notion that we need to look different, and visually captivating upon first glance. His weird mind came up with this foolish plan of crafting leather costumes for us, so we’d look like superheroes while performing.

As the obedient and submissive partner, I complied. It took me a while to process everything he proposes to me. After all, this is not what I signed up for! So for a few weeks, we spent our days looking for affordable, yet impressive-looking leather costumes and accessories. It’s where online stores and ukay-ukay vendors come in handy.

From Naruto, to X-men, to Scarlet Witch, we considered those.

For Gifter’s outfit, he initially thought of dressing up like Naruto. But as a guy who’s “lagpas na sa kalendaryo” he felt his too old for that. Instead, he decided to look like Gambit from the X-men comics, which means he needs to create and wear a headgear like this:

For his jacket, he decided not to wear a trench-coat like Gambit does in the comics. Instead, he decided he should wear a gray leather vest like those modern-day ninjas in the movies.

For his hand accessories, he decided he must wear fingerless gloves so he can still “look superheroish” while strumming his guitar. As of the moment, he’s still working on modifying his gloves because apparently, wearing them would prevent him from playing properly. We argued about ditching it totally.

“Why wear gloves if it can only hinder your guitar skills?” I asked. But Gifter insisted we should completely look like superheroes while performing, or we’d just be ignored by viewers. So he’s still stubbornly doing the best he can to dress the part, without compromising on his guitar skills.

Now, for my costume.

“You should look like Scarlet Witch” he suggested. But to prevent it from being too obvious, we decided I should be some kind of “gray-black witch.” It’s because my costume looks very similar to Elizabeth Olsen’s costume in the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie, but with a gray jacket and a black dress underneath.

In our video, you can expect me to look like this:

But I should wear a headgear too, which looks like this, but with a black color.

Since Gifter would wear gloves, I’d wear some too, and here they are:

It’s a necessary kind of foolishness, I think I have to concede to it.

Currently, Gifter is still in Davao just to complete whatever accessories needed to achieve our “superheroish look.” To be honest, I’m strongly against the idea. “Why do we need to look silly just to succeed?" I asked.

Gifter then used a tidbit from Parokya Ni Edgar, one of the best alternative bands in OPM. Years ago, when Chito Miranda and his gang were still a small-time band, Gifter said the guys of once wore feminine dresses and dusters just so people would notice them.

Gifter used this idea: He channeled his love for superhero movies and incorporated them into how we’d look on stage and on video.

What do you think readers? Is Gifter being too silly already? Am I being silly too because I agreed to this foolishness? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

Keep safe everyone!