At midnight on January 7, 2025, Pinoy hard rock legends Wolfgang posted the official video for “Arise,” a track from their 1995 self-titled debut album, on the band’s official YouTube channel. Shot in the same year, the video features footage of original members Basti Artadi (vocals), Manuel Legarda (guitar), Mon Legaspi (bass), and Wolf Gemora (drums) performing the track, intercut with images representing “the evils of war and social discontent,” as editor Adrian Arcega put it in a Facebook post.
In the same post, Arcega details the genesis of the video, which was unearthed from film reels that Artadi kept in his closet. “Turns out they were the film reels of the raw footage for ‘Arise,’ which the band shot in December 1995,” he writes. “I freaked out, worried for the film reels.” The pair then sought the help of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) to restore the footage. “It was like being in an ER, but with film technicians… The original 16mm negatives had already turned into an ugly mess of rust and decaying matter, but the 35mm positive print was surprisingly okay,” he continues.
After the footage was digitized, Arcega proceeded to edit it with the updated audio from the Wolfgang 30 rerecording of the band’s debut, which was recently released by Eikon Records Philippines. “I used the original (unreleased) edit as a jump-off point, as I wanted to stay true to the director’s original vision,” he adds. “But having seen the original cut (which did look dated by today’s standards), I knew that the MV needed to look more timeless. I could have done herculean AI effort by eliminating the red marks, but I opted to lean into the age and the grit. It was the ’90s!”
The release of the “Arise” video follows the recent announcement of a Wolfgang reunion show on February 7, 2025 at the New Frontier Theater in Cubao, Quezon City, presented by Ovation Productions. Tickets are available here. Artadi and Legarda will perform with Gemora — who has been based in the U.S. since 2002 — in a full show for the first time in over two decades. Sadly, bassist Legaspi passed away in October 2022 due to cardiac arrest.
Watch the video of Wolfgang’s “Arise” below: