ALYSON: OPM Beyond Its Usual Borders
What started in Quezon City is reaching further, as ALYSON finds unexpected audiences in Bali and Cebu while imagining a wider future for OPM.
Words Mian Centeno
Photos courtesy of Aldhy and Lorenz Torres
September 28, 2026
ALYSON at AXEAN Music Festival | Photo by Aldhy
For ALYSON, leaving Manila has become more than a matter of bringing their music elsewhere. The city band is looking beyond Manila, finding unexpected audiences and new possibilities for where Filipino music can go.
The band recently performed at AXEAN Music Festival in Bali, Indonesia, followed by a set at September Fever in Cebu. While the two stages offered different experiences, both gave ALYSON a glimpse of an audience beyond their usual homecourt.
ALYSON at September Fever Cebu PH | Photo by Lorenz Torres
“It was a dream to be able to play outside the Philippines,” drummer Marcus Mababangloob shared, pointing to the band’s influences from Japanese and Indonesian music, and the musical parallels they share with the Philippines.
In Bali, Mababangloob found a familiar warmth among fellow ASEAN music lovers, describing the region’s musical connections as a kind of “spider-verse.”
ALYSON at AXEAN Music Festival | Photo by Aldhy
Cebu, on the other hand, offered a different surprise: a crowd that already seemed to know ALYSON’s music, despite it being their first performance there.
“I felt like a lot of the crowd knew our music and were fans despite us never playing there before,” he said, calling Cebu “a homecourt we never knew.”
ALYSON at September Fever Cebu PH | Photo by Lorenz Torres
These experiences have given ALYSON a closer look at how their music can connect with people outside the places they usually perform.
For Mababangloob, it also reaffirmed the band’s desire to be a Filipino group that is not “contained to their contexts,” but can connect with the wider Southeast Asian music scene.
That next step may already be taking shape.
WIth a Luzon-wide bar tour currently in the works through Offshore Music, ALYSON is bringing its music closer to more ALYSTANS—one new city at a time.
