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Thank you for the music & the memories, Neil!

Author: Ricardo F. Lo
Column: Funfare Update

My aunt was right. "If you closed your eyes," she said, "you would think that the one singing onstage was a teenager!"

I did close my eyes for a while and, true enough, while Neil Sedaka was on the stage of the Araneta Coliseum Saturday night - his third time to perform in the same venue in, hold your breath, 48 years! - singing one hit after another, more than two dozens of them, he sounded exactly like he did decades ago. He sounded so plakang-plaka that it was as if you were playing his "greatest hits" CD in the comfort of your room, except that there were hundreds of others with you that night, tripping down Memory Lane on the "Sedaka Sound," swinging to the beat, basking in the unadulterated yesteryear, savoring every moment of beautiful memories and, yes, singing along with him as he encouraged the audience to, turning the Big Dome into a huge karaoke bar.

The audience was a mixed of the young and the old (no "generation gap" here) and, when the two-hour concert called Neil Sedaka Sings His Greatest Hits (produced by Concertus) was over, they asked for more, more, more! They just wouldn't let Neil (fresh from shows in Australia) go even if he had sung all the hits that the audience were there for, and Neil very graciously and very generously came back for an encore, and another encore, and another encore.

The show opened with film clips of the singers for whom Neil wrote hits (Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, The Carpenters, Rosemary Clooney, Engelbert Humperdinck, Connie Francis, among them) and then emerged Neil, singing a fast number. After greeting everybody "Magandang gabi po!," he launched into a rousing rendition of Oh Carol (written for his friend Carole King), followed by Sweet Sixteen, Breaking Up is Hard to Do, The Diary, Stairway to Heaven, Girl Next Door and Where The Boys Are (written for Connie Francis who was here for a show in the same venue early this year).

"My songs are very naive and very happy but you can understand every word of them," he said, taking a sip from a glass of water (no ice, please!...bad for the vocal cords) and profuse with "Salamat po's!"

Unlike other veteran foreign artists who come for a nostagic concert and fill up their repertoire with so-called "new songs" to which you can't relate, Neil sang only his old, familiar hits, which was precisely what everybody went to the Big Dome for - you know, to relive bygone years. He did not disapppoint. He was as bubbly and as energetic and as exuberant as he sounds in his CDs, and as he must have when he first mounted the Big Dome stage in 1960, the first American pop singer to do so.

There was never a dull moment.

Without let-up, except when he went backstage for a few minutes while a 1961 film clip of Calendar Girl shot in Rome was flashed on the screen (the only "prop" onstage), Neil left the audience breathless with more of his hits, dancing at some point with the spring of somebody who "must be seventeen" and not seventy, proving that he's forever, as he himself put it, "the king of tralala and doo-bee-doo" - Love Will Keep Us Together, Solitaire, I Miss the Hungry Years and You Mean Everything to Me - as the audience continued to sing along with him.

When Neil sang Run Samson Run, the audience rose to their feet and started dancing. I saw Judy Araneta-Roxas (Sen. Mar's mom), seated in front of me, stand up and, yes, dance, clapping; and those on the same front row with her did the same: Pitoy Moreno, Baby Araneta-Fores, Jorge Araneta and wife Stella Marquez, and even Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca. (Others I spotted were Veanna Fores, Mike Enriquez, Vivian Sarabia, my doctor-friend Wilson Lim and his doctor-wife Lily, Ethel Ramos, Cong. Roilo Golez, Misses Philippines Myrna Panlilio-Borromeo and Joy Conde, Viva big boss Vic del Rosario, Jojo Gabinete and his parents, among them.)

Neil sang You, specially dedicated to, (giving the audience a wide smile), "You!"

Then came I Should Never Let You Go (a duet with his daughter Donna, shown in a film clip), My World Gets Smaller Everyday, One Way Ticket to the Blues, I Must Be Dreaming and, as the final encore, Stupid Cupid.

What else can I say but thank you for the music and the memories, Neil!

Hasta la vista! * * * FLASH: When it rains, it does pour.

No, it's not a cliche as far as Charice (now minus Pempengco) is concerned.

After a landmark guesting in Ellen DeGeneres' show (and then in those of Paul O'Brady in London and Oprah Winfrey), Charice shared the spotlight Saturday night with Josh Groban, John Mayer and Alicia Keys in a show organized by songwriter David Forster for the grand opening of the MGM Grand Casino-Hotel at Foxwood, Connecticut, USA.

Here's the full report from immigration lawyer and STAR columnist Michael Gurfinkel and his wife Millie who were in that Foxwood event (it was the couple who helped expedite the issuance of the US visa of Charice and her mom Raquel):

Saturday, May 17, was the grand opening of the hotel.

David Foster put together and produced the very first show, featuring Alicia Keys, Josh Groban, John Mayer and, of course, the International Singing Sensation and pride of the Philippines, Charice.

Charice appeared just before Groban and sang a medley of the Whitney Houston hits I Have Nothing and I Will Always Love You (from the movie The Bodyguard which stars Houston herself and Kevin Costner).

Charice received a standing ovation, the only performer to receive one that night, and therefore the first performer at the MGM Foxwoods to receive a standing ovation.

Foster asked the crowd after Charice finished her numbers, "Would you like one more song?"

The audience cheered and shouted an enthusiastic "Yes!" Foster said that he and Charice would do And I'm Telling You...unrehearsed!

After they sang, the audience once again gave Charice another standing ovation. Among those in the audience were Quincy Jones, and Michael Douglas with his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Backstage, Foster, Alicia and Josh congratulated Charice for her "phenomenal performance."

Next stop for Charice is the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on Friday, May 23, where she will perform once again with Josh Groban, along with Andrea Bocelli, Michael Buble and Katherine McPhee.

(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph )

Source: ABS-CBN News