Show #1: Trinoma
This was on Sept. 21, a Friday. Early that morning, I find out that the ticket stubs for the seating area were gone 40 minutes after Trinoma opened. That was unbelievable! I didn't realize Elliott had that many rabid fans in Manila. Anyways, I didn't want to drive through crazy Manila traffic during Friday rush hour so I decided to take the MRT. Since I didn't get to line up for a ticket at 10am, I figured I would just stand outside the cordoned off area. But one of the other Yaminoys actually had an extra ticket and she gave it to me, so I got to sit with the rest of the Yaminoys. That made it a lot more fun (save for the fact that there was this woman who was unreasonably upset that we were all having a great time - she was enraged by the fact that we were standing up and having our photos taken when in fact Elliott wasn't even on stage yet!)
Anyways, when Elliott came on stage, he got a massive reception from crowd. He ended up singing about 8 songs from his album, including 'Wait for you' and 'A song for you', the song that got him through to the top 3 in American Idol, plus 'In love with you forever', one of the bonus tracks from his itunes album. He encored with what seemed to be a very impromptu 'Moody's Mood for love', another song that put him on the map during season 5.
The meet and greets followed, and Mel and Jo managed to give Elliott the Yaminoy welcome gift - a mini-me doll of Elliott. He apparently was so pleased with it that he put it up as the main photo in his myspace account.
Show #2: Glorietta
Sept. 22 actually started way too early for me for a Saturday - I headed to Glorietta at 930am before it opened to make sure I got ticket stubs for me and my mom, who is also a fan and was going to watch with me that day. I managed to borrow Joh's Ayala Discount Card because discount card holders would be given 2 tickets instead of 1, and the first few discount card holders would get a meet and greet (my mom wanted to get an autograph and well of course so did I). I pulled in my friend Anne, just in case they wouldn't honor that rule, in which case there would give only one ticket stub per person.
I missed the free meet and greets for the Ayala Discount card (they did give me two tickets though in the front-most area) and so I had to buy 2 CDs to get ensure my mom and I both got autograph-signing passes. We made the cut this time, and I treated Anne to brunch in Heaven and Eggs (she did have to wake up early on a Saturday and oblige my craziness). I head back to Glorietta where I met up with my mom. Yam had fallen in line early and saved us seats, so we ended up in the front row.
Now if we thought Trinoma was fantastic, Glorietta took it up a couple of notches. The audience reaction throughout this show was incredible. He opened with "I'm the man", which was one of the three songs from his album that he didn't perform the day before. One of my favorite moments that night though was during one very short lull in between songs. Elliott was quiet, the audience was quiet, and I was in the front row. So I used that opportunity to shout out my request: "A whiter shade of pale!" That was one of his other bonus tracks from the itunes album, and he sings it really well. He hears me, looks in my direction, smiles, points towards me, then he says "That's a good one" then he puts his hands together in front of him, bows a bit and says "Thank you." Woo-hoo! My first conversation with Elliott LOL. Another highlight of the show was his performance of "A song for you". Some of the Yaminoys will say his rendition in ATC was the best, and maybe vocally it was, but there was something unmistakably magical about his "A song for you" that night that I felt wasn't captured to the same extent in any of his other shows. I managed to take a video of it - it includes his opening spiel wherein you can hear the amazing crowd reception he gets even while he's just introducing the song.
(sorry for the video quality, I used the wrong resolution setting in my point-and-shoot digicam).
After the show, the autograph signing went a bit too quickly. I think there were way too many people there and not a lot of time. I'm not sure if my mom got to talk to Elliott but I wasn't (the guards take the CD jacket from you and pass it on to Elliott while you aren't even there yet, and by the time you are in front of him, they are passing you the jacket and moving you along).
But an amazing thing happened after that. We ended up giving Monet, his road manager, a Yaminoy shirt and we had our photo taken with her. She then walks backstage, walks back out, and tells us that Elliott will take one photo with us. We were ecstatic! She goes backstage again, and a few moments later, Elliott comes out wearing the Yaminoy shirt! We all screamed LOL. He makes his way towards us and we start shaking his hand, saying stuff like "thank you for coming to the Philippines". Some of the Yaminoys even got a hug. Monet then took a photo of us using Marie's camera, and then another one with Elliott's camera.
Coming soon: tales from the Market! Market! and the Alabang Town Center shows!
