Imagine my excitement when my ICU friends told me that THE Miss Lea Salonga is staging a concert for three nights in Manila this February and that they were very much interested in watching one of the shows. I don’t think I can put into actual words just how much of a big deal this was. This literally was a dream come true.

When I was a lot younger, a random ninang gifted me with a cassette tape (that gives you a glimpse of how old I am, LOL) of songs from the popular Disney animated movies. Of course, with Aladdin being the international hit that it was, A Whole New World was included in the song line up in Side B. At the time I had neither seen the movie nor did I have any idea that the female voice belonged to a fellow Filipino, but I kid you not when I say that that was the only song that I listened to on that tape. Do you have any idea how difficult rewinding cassette tapes were? I remember changing the batteries of my portable tape player multiple times because I played the song all. the. freakin. time. I’d like to think that my interest in stage plays and musicals were awakened by this experience.

I never actually thought that I’d be able to watch one of her concerts this early in my lifetime. She is, after all, a world-renowned performer and tickets with that kind of a headline don’t come cheap. Fortunately I was #blessed to have friends who were willing to spend hard earned money on a two and a half hour production. It wasn’t a total surprise since these were the same people I routinely watch stage plays with so I guess it was a culmination of our interests of sorts, with these being the most expensive tickets we’ve ever paid for.

Even more fortunately, N was tasked to buy the tickets and she managed to get us really good seats. It wasn’t too far away and we were right smack down in the middle of the PICC Plenary Hall. The long walk to the theater only intensified the adrenaline rush that I got at the thought of watching the Lea Salonga perform songs from musicals that she loved.

Of course, the show was great. It started a little bit later than announced but she made up for it by giving an encore by way of an apology. There were a lot of songs in her line up that I was familiar with but had no idea that they were part of stage plays. It’s actually a good thing because I’m always on the hunt for ear candy that I can listen to at work.

She had a few guests – Jett Pangan, Wayneheart Geonzon, Esang De Torres, Andee Achacoso and Krystal Brimner – and of course she had her brother Gerard at the helm of the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra. The siblings even made a touching tribute for their mother and the show really turned into a family affair when Lea’s daughter, Nicole, performed a song from Fun House.

My favorite numbers from the show were a three-way tie between “Burn” from Hamilton, the whole Rak of Aegis set and “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen, although we’ve all agreed that we would pay good money to see Lea Salonga and Jett Pangan perform the entirety of Sunday in the Park with George because their cover of “Move On” was just so good. I’ve only started listening to the Hamilton soundtrack but now I get goose bumps whenever the song plays because I keep on hearing her rendition. I’m sure that’s sacrilegious to hardcore Hamilton fans but please try to keep the bashing to a minimum.

It truly was a magical night and we all spent the rest of the evening with gentle smiles on our faces. Now if I could only raise enough funds to watch the re-run of Fun Home…