HEAL OUR LAND BENEFIT CONCERT
A few weeks ago, a very good friend called me to reserve the night of January 31st as he has bought quite a few tickets to the Heal our Land Benefit concert for the victims of typhoon Yolanda. He was a big fan of Jonathan Butler so that alone started his interest. He also loved David Benoit, Brian Simpson and Kevin Lettau. He told me he can't go wrong here. So can't I.
Enter the MOA Arena, on Chinese New Year's Day, to boot.
Stage. We were like a few meters from the stage, and a few meters from the monster woofers positioned straight smack into these ears.
No worries, first act was a Pinoy group called South Border and below, this keyboard player and vocalist was pretty good. So no eardrum buster here.
Mulatto was up and about for the next piece.
Freestyle, with new singers, came next.
Then came the ever-lovely Sitti. Singing Olivia Newton John's 'Suddenly'. Di lang pang bossa nova siya, pang love song pa. Smoooooooth girl.
Constant returning visitor Kevin Lettau, who admitted she fell in love with the Philippines the first time she performed here in 1983, when she was 10!.
Then came Side A, with Joey G.
Chad Borja performed with one of the musician/organizers from Hawaii, saxophonist Michael Paolo. Heard some giggles in the crowd when Paolo pronounced his name as Chad Borgia with his American twang, well, tama din si Paolo.
Freestyle female vocalist performing a duet with American jazz singer Spencer Day.
And heeeeeeerrrre comes Daaaaviiiiiiid.....The man, the piano.
Our own Thor Dulay came out to sing Take A Look Inside My Heart with David Benoit on the piano. Nice voice.
Jaya was next, singing Land of the Loving with David on the piano. She was called the Anita Baker of the Philippines by Paolo.
For me, the best moment of the night was when Ambrosia's David Pack came out, first singing A Key to You with David B on the piano.
Then David Pack performed 2 hits songs of Ambrosia, How Much I Feel, and You're the Biggest Part of Me. Our college buddies went crazy over these songs. We suddenly got younger, feeling college.
A pretty and tall guitarist came out and did a few songs, Emmanuelle Vera.
Keyboard/pianist Brian Simpson wow'ed the crowd with his portable keyboard on the legs sizzling performance. Great guy. And he was sizzling on the Lyric grand piano.
Latina sax player/singer Jessy J belted out a few hot hits too.
Ray Parker Jr. sang a few of his 'sexy man' hits, doing some 'macho dancing' in the process. Well, we has gotten a bit 'mature', and your time has lapsed, Ray.
South African guitarist/gospel singer Jonathan Butler excited the crowd with his exotic jazz vocal tunes and healing prayer of our country and our people. Truly inspirational performance.
I was extremely impressed with the drummer, Eric Valentine. The moment he sat and hit the sticks, I couldn't take my eyes off his drum set. The music was electrifying and mesmerizing. The dynamics was just awesome. To the right is bassist Nate Philipps.
Piping hot and rocking keyboardist Gregg Karukas was fantastic, playing some tunes in rhythmic fashion. He bops his head constantly with each note and is ever smiling. Cool dude.
Afterwards, Jonathan Butler called out whom he said was a Pinay singer who blew him away by her singing during rehearsals - Anna Jomeo from the local band Mulatto. And they belted out a couple of tunes together, among them If I Ever Lose This Heaven. Wow! This girl can move!
The Finale. With a lot of inspiration talk to our people in the aftermath of the destruction of Yolanda, the group performed a fantastic song about healing our land and loving our people. Truly a class act and a touching moment. It was a very long concert, a lot longer than I thought but every worth the message through music that the people involved gave us. It's definitely an event to remember.
I'll try to post some youtube videos I took with my amateur hands and P&S camera. At this moment, youtube is 'cyber-correcting' the 'shake' in the video, or correcting the 'jitter'. Most do not have a beginning or an end, so it's like chop chop excerpts of some artists' performance. When I watch them on youtube, I just 'listen to the music, and not the recording'.