Hot summer night with Air Supply

Saturday, May 14, 2011

EARLY on into the concert, my seatmate leans into my ear and says, “Look at the guitarist.”

There are two of them, located stage left. One is in red and one is in black. “Which one?” I shout into my seatmate’s ear.

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“The one with hair.” Her eyes twinkle. Mine find the one in black.

Yes, he looks hot. Twinkle. And cool. So our eyes are on him as he does his guitar thing and his backup vocals thing and his rock and roll thing. Even as the two Russels, Graham and Hitchcock, they do their Air Supply thing. Uhmmm.

“Even the nights are better, now that we’re here together. Even the nights are better… since I found yooouuu!”

The audience knows every word of all but one song (Dance With Me?) and we sing along unabashedly, enthusiastically. The night Air Supply comes to Baguio, it rocks.

No, we are not in a giant stadium as they will be in Singapore, where they will head to after the Philippines on this their 2011 world tour. No, we do not number in the tens of thousands that is more the norm for a pop concert. But yes, we give the band a whole lot of love even as they sing that they are, famously, all out of it. All out of love.

“Just as I thought I was over you. Just as I thought I could stand on my own — oh baby, those memories come crashing through and I just can’t go on without you…” Oh yeah. In this country of the “kundiman” of unrequited love, there isn’t a soul who cannot feeeeeel that feeling of the one that you love asking for another day. Nor is there anyone who cannot understand the one that you love loving you in so many ways.

The guitarists croon along with that song and I notice that the one we’re watching is doing bass guitar. Uhmmm-hmmm. And his black shirt, it’s, uhm, polka-dotted. He’s seriously hot.

The night caps with an exit, one encore, a crowd that simply will not leave, another encore, and still we sit still, to be rewarded with yet another encore. After which there is a proper curtain call, where we learn the names of the keyboards player and the drummer, who is offered up as a ladies” delight. But my seatmate and I — we wait for the guitarists’ names.

They are stated, and I catch on bass is Johnny something-foot. My seatmate says, “What’s his name?” I say I didn’t quite get it and she should just Google it. Something I yet have to do.

Hey, Mr. Bass Guitar, what’s your name? - S. Victoria