Tears for Fears was set to perform in Manila in February 28, 2010. I was already eagerly awaiting this much-anticipated concert since then. The date was later moved to May 2, 2010, which was last night. Seats for this concert were sold out several days before. My cousin Jerry and I arrived in Cubao around 6 pm and there was already a crowd around the entrances of the Araneta Coliseum. After a quick dinner at KFC, we immediately went back to enter the venue.
Wow, the "first come first served" areas were already practically full! The central General Admission area (which was not utilized in the Kelly Clarkson concert the previous night) was also filled with people already. The last time I saw the Coliseum this full was for the Lady GaGa concert. This early in the night, it was already fulfilling its promise to be the biggest concert event of this year.
Before 8 pm, the first front act Sandwich took the stage with four songs. This is one of the rare times that the front act already brought fans to mill around in front of the stage. This was especially true when they announced that they will have a guest "classmate" for their last number -- which turned out to be the great Ely Buendia! He sang "Alapaap" of the Eraserheads. Fantastic! Too bad my camera was not ready yet at that time. Mr. Buendia then took on his other persona as lead singer of the band Pupil, the second front act. They sang "Disconnection Notice" and three more unfamiliar songs. But people were definitely riveted to this Filipino rock icon.
During the lull before the concert proper, every possible space in the Coliseum was fully occupied. The Gen Ad and the Upper Box areas were filled up up to the edges beside the stage. Standing room already! The moment the stage light dimmed and strains of "Mad World" started, there was pandemonium! There they were, Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal in the flesh on stage! They immediately sang "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" to start things up and everyone was out of their seats, singing along and dancing!
This wild phenomenon would happen every time they would sing a hit, like "Sowing the Seeds of Love", then "Mad World", "Pale Shelter", "Break It Down Again" and the last song of their regular set, "Head Over Heels". You practically do not hear Curt and Roland sing anymore, only the voices of the Filipino audience heartily singing along with them on these well-loved songs.
Roland unexpectedly sang an emo-style cover version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". Admittedly, there was a rather long stretch in the middle of the show when they sang about five or even six unfamiliar songs in a row like "Closest Thing to Heaven" (VIDEO), which was a bit boring. However the energy level of the audience remained on the up as their applause was more than polite even in these numbers.
After "Head Over Heels" and the band left the stage, the audience did not sit down anymore. They continually clapped and shouted for more, more, more! After a few minutes of this, they re-entered the stage to thunderous applause and hooting. Roland was telling us that their next song was "Woman in Chains", but we were puzzled because they had no female backup singer. Turned out that the Oleta Adams part was to be sung by their bald MALE back-up singer Micheal Wainwright, who looked like Phil Collins!
After that, they finally closed their show with their other Number 1 hit, "Shout", and people were singing along like there's no tomorrow. And then that was it, the loudest and best-selling concert of the year was over. People were all stunned and did not file out at once, hoping that they would still come out to play "Change" or "Mothers Talk", but that was not to be. It was truly over.
Before going out, we looked at the merchandise in the lobby, and they were selling autographed posters of Curt and Roland. These were at a hefty P1,800 apiece and there were actually people buying them! Even the tour t-shirts were at P1,800 each, and I thought the P1,000 Kelly Clarkson t-shirts the other night was already exorbitant. Haha! This was really a concert to remember. Talk of a return engagement in response to the massive clamor are already out there.
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