'Scent of Home' concert doomed from the start

'Scent of Home' concert doomed from the start
By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

The "Scent of Home" where Philippine music legend Pilita Corrales lost her temper concert seemed jinxed from the beginning: it was already postponed three times due to visa problems for the performers, reported ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau.

The concert which starred Pilita Corrales, Richard Merk, Lolita Carbon and the last-minute addition of Rachel Ann Wolfe was originally billed as “An Evening With Pilita.

Tickets were sold out when it was first scheduled for June 16 but because of the postponement and two other later postponements, almost all of the tickets were returned.

The concert was supposed to be held in Belgium, the Netherlands and Paris but was cancelled in Paris because the organizers couldn’t find a venue at the last minute.

"Scent of Home" in the Netherlands was held in the 1,000-seater Philharmonie Theater in Haarlem, but the hall was barely one- third full on November 4.

However, Pinoy luminaries such as Ambassador Romeo Arguelles and dance diva Becky Garcia attended to show their support and didn’t seem to feel the emptiness of the concert hall due to the warm response the performers received from the audience.

Cito Beltran opened the show with the second launch in the Netherlands of Pinoy Global Access Magazine.

The brainchild of Merk’s wife Roni, the magazine is dubbed as the “magazine for overseas Filipinos.”

Beltran, the Merks and Wolfe first launched the magazine at the luncheon earlier that day at Arguelles’ residence in Wassenaar.

Wolfe sang three songs including her own composition “Kahit Di Ako” which she claims she composed while in the laundry room in her house in New Jersey and is included in her brand-new album “Cool.”

For the small number of Pinoys who watched the concert, the evening became memorable during the performance of Lolita Carbon who sang four songs from way back her days as vocalist of “Asin.”

People just sang, swayed their hands and even danced as Carbon belted out the songs that the Pinoys, regardless of age, knew by heart.

In fact, a lot of younger Pinoys came here to watch Carbon.

“Sayang kokonti ang tao pero syempre nagpunta kami ng grupo dahil kay Lolita. Sayang, dapat sana yung buong Asin. Kay Lolita kami pumunta syempre. Kaming mga kabataan paborito siya. Magaling siyang maggitara at hanggang ngayon tintugtog pa din namin ang kanyang mga kinanta,” Lito Mendoza said.

(Too bad not many people came to watch the show. Our group watched it because of Lolita. The whole band Asin should have been there. Lolita is a favorite of young people like us. She plays the guitar really well and until now we play her songs.

“Sayang nga ho. Kokonti ang mga tao pero da best ang nagcoconcert lalo na yung Asin,” Jerome Kuypers, another Carbon fan said.

Queen of songs

For her part, despite her reported tantrum after the concert, Corrales proved that she’s still the keeper of the crown as Asia’s queen of songs, impressing the audience, especially the Dutch spectators.

Even at her present age of 68, Corrales continued to wow the audience that night with her back-bending moves, gracious style, one-of-a-kind voice, elegance and simply her beauty.

When she went down the stage to sing for the audience, the Pinays just threw themselves in front of her, dancing with her and taking photos at every single opportunity and just kept on uttering, “Pilita, you are so beautiful.”

Indeed Corrales mesmerized her audience, living up to her reputation as the living legend singing five songs that left the audience asking for more.

As the last performer of the evening, Merk also showed the audience the true royalty that he is, being the Philippines’ Prince of Jazz.

Unfortunately, Merk only sang two songs as his minus one suffered a technical setback but his two performances were very entertaining as he injected some sense of humor to his moves, most of the time swaying and back bending a la Pilita.

The evening’s savior though is Holland’s Pinay diva Nhelly dela Rosa who rose to fame in Europe when she won the 1992 Soundmix Show which is a talent search in Europe.

Dela Rosa went onstage as if to give the concert a fitting postscript, without any talent fee but nonetheless delivering her best performance, as she always does, leaving the audience spellbound with her trademark “We Are The World” rendition which she sang in different voices.

The concert ended without a finale from the stars, an ominous twist considering what later happened between Corrales and the concert's producer.

"Scent of Home" was marred by an alleged shouting match between Corrales and the concert's Filipina producer, Carmen Jebb. Corrales supposedly lost her temper and accused the latter of not paying her talent fee.

Jebb has denied the accusation in an interview with the ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau. See related article here (http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=99161).

Even if the "Scent of Home" failed at the box office because the organizer was left saddled with a 4,500 euro bill (288,000 pesos) for the concert hall, there’s no reason for the Pinoys in Europe to stop wishing for more shows featuring Filipino artists; if only for the simple reason of finding an occasional cure to their homesickness and constant longing to get a whiff of home.

SOURCE: WWW.ABS-CBNNEWS.COM

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryID=99172