I managed to get to it around half-past 10 p.m. because of my boardwork that night. I missed seeing When In Rome play, and caught Real Life in the middle of its set. Turns out it was only the original lead singer of Real Life, David Sterry that was playing, backed up by two members of WIR. I gotta admit that after more than 20 years, he still sung the old songs like "Send Me An Angel" and "Catch Me I'm Falling" quite well. But unfortunately for him, he seemed to be another victim of the typical lazy Filipino audience. You know what I'm talking about, I could write an entire post about it. Most of the people watching just sat through the whole thing, with hardly any expression on their faces, except to yawn or look around the venue in boredom. Plus, it seemed to be a family plus plus outing for some groups who brought their very young kids and household help to the show, most likely subjecting them to torture of having to listen to music they had never heard before. Oh well, Real Life managed to get some decent applause for their familiar material. Me? I enjoyed this set quite a bit because I liked the energy the band was putting into it. Later on, I was told WIR played a really odd version of their signature hit, "The Promise", which was totally unfamiliar and hard to sing along with. For me, what's the point of that other than an artist's narcissistic self-indulgence if the fans can't sing along to their favorite song?
So now comes the supposed icing on the cake, A Flock Of Seagulls was next. This was the band with more songs familiar to the Filipino audience. I was excitedly waiting to hear the old faves like, "The More You Live, The More You Love", "I Ran", and "Wishing". I knew I wasn't gonna see lead singer Mike Score with that trademark hairdo he had in the 80's, so I was only too happy to be able to hear him sing live. And that he did.
He came out with an entirely new band, as I read that he'd had a falling out with his bandmate of a brother, and the other original members weren't tagging along anymore. The bass player reminded me of The Cars' Ric Ocasek with a tan. But I digress. So Mike gets into it, starting off by singing new stuff from a forthcoming new album. OK, so we all bear with it, hoping to hear the older stuff right after. And they do just that, playing "The More You Live...", making us fans very happy. Too bad Mike's vocals sounded a bit strained, but I wouldn't fault the guy because he's 50 years old already, and he's no Sting or Bono. I just didn't like that he played one or two new songs alternately with an old one, making the AFOS set run a tad too long. It was almost midnight and the audience was passive and bored, so I was hoping they'd just play all the familiar material in a row to get everyone going. But no, they didn't, and the set seemed to drag on and on and on. Plus, the bass player kept trying to egg the audience on to applaud more with his hand gestures, all to no avail. Mike Score seemed to not want to connect with the crowd in turn by getting sarcastic with some comments that I can't remember now, but gave away his impatience with the seemingly zombie audience he was playing to.
In a nutshell, it could've been a really great show. I actually didn't bother to finish the set because I'd had my fill of AFOS live after hearing them play "Wishing". Maybe it was the too big venue, maybe it was the zombie crowd, maybe Mike was trying too hard to get his new music out, who knows? It just left me wishing.
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