Twenty

Years ago, local diva Regine Velasquez had a concert series in OnStage (the concert was entitled “Regine at the Movies” where she sings movie theme songs or music from original soundtracks) and my friends (Mitch and Anna) and I thought it would be great to watch this concert. We all really enjoyed it and all of a sudden it became a more-or-less annual thing for the three of us to catch Regine’s shows. Since that first time several years ago, we’ve caught three more of her concerts – one where she sings songs that she has sung and released, another where she covers Barbra Streisand classics, and a duet-concert with Ogie Alcasid.

However, some time ago Regine lashed out at interviewers on a local showbiz talkshow when they asked her about supposedly being upstaged by an up-and-coming divette. Mitch and I didn’t see the show, but Anna did, and ever since then Anna didn’t really feel like watching Regine’s concerts anymore.

Which meant that last Friday night, it was only Mitch and I who went to Araneta Coliseum to watch Regine’s ‘Twenty’ concert, appropriately entitled because it was her twentieth anniversary in showbiz.

And as usual, Regine came up with the goods.

There were actually quite a bit of miscues throughout the concert (like when she forgot that the dancers were supposed to take her gown off to reveal another one underneath and when the mic of one of the Promil kids - the one on cello I think – didn’t work). And well her outfits were a bit outrageous (her opening outfit – this pink/red/fuchsia ensemble made her look like a gigantic pink Pekingese to quote Mitch). So the concert could certainly have been cleaner from a production point of view.

But when you watch Regine perform, you aren’t really after production value or stage performance. You are after her powerful voice and incredible vocal capability. I guess she knows that her fans love her for her incredible power and her unparalleled ability to hit those unbelievable high notes. So during her concert she put everything out on stage with her amazing renditions of “I don’t wanna miss a thing” and “Sana maulit muli”. She also sang the songs that she popularized and that people love her for, like “Shine” and “Dadalhin”. And with her movie career proving to be quite successful, Regine certainly had to perform songs from the movies she has starred in, like “You are my song”, “Pangako”, and “Kailangan ko’y ikaw”.

My favorite performance of hers that night, which actually got her a standing ovation (and has gotten her a standing ovation each time I’ve seen her perform it), was her version of “What kind of fool am I”. Most people presume that Regine is simply a ‘biritera’ who keeps shrieking out high notes and has nothing else going for her. So what’s great about her version of this song (which she said was arranged by Louie Ocampo) is that she delivers the first two-thirds of the song with incredible control and intense passion. That is, until she gets into climax of the song where she does what she does better than anyone else – hit those incredibly high notes and hold them for a lot longer than most people can. The best showcase of her control is when she sing an emotionally soft note, holds it, and throughout the course of this note she gradually increases volume. Not a lot of people can do that, or at least not nearly as well as she does.

Of course, this being a celebration of her twentieth year in showbiz, she naturally had to pay tribute to the songs that paved the way for her immense success. She sang a special arrangement (done by Gerard Salonga) of “Love me again”, which I think was the first single she ever released. After her opening medley, she dazzled the audience with “Narito ako” which is arguably the record that catapulted her to stardom. She was also quite emotional right before she sang “Bakit ako mahihiya”, which she used to perform during singing contests in towns and barrios before making it onto the big stage, and she dedicated this song to both of her parents. And of course she did a medley of songs that she won awards for, both locally and internationally, starting off with “In your eyes” for which she won Bagong Kampeon and then singing “And I’m telling you” and “You’ll never walk alone” both of which she sang at the 1989 Asia Pacific Song Festival where she emerged grand champion.

All in all, a great concert which was tailored to display Regine’s strengths as well as cater to her throngs of fans.

I’m attaching a couple of videos I found in youtube. One of them is for her version of “Kailangan kita”. The end of the video gets screwed up a bit (at around the around 3:30 onwards), but for the most part, the video quality is decent enough. I personally think her take on this song makes both Gary V and Piolo sound like amateurs (no offense to either of them of course). And check out the note she holds for 14 seconds at around the 2:32 mark. The other video I am attaching is her version of “What kind of fool am I?” which she sang way back in a concert of hers in 1993. It's kinda cuts into the last third of the song though so you'll just be hearing all the 'screechy' parts but hey, you won't really find a lot of people who can hit those notes (oh and that really hight note at the end? She actually holds it for a little more than 12 seconds).

Kailangan kita

What kind of fool am I?