• Guess where Heart and Echo spent Valentine’s Day • Santana Roots also at Big Dome, April 7

Curtain-raiser: Oops! Several readers (among them actor Ricky Davao) clarified that Robert Wise directed The Sound of Music and not Robert Altman (as Funfare erroneously mentioned yesterday) who was given an Honorary Oscar at the 78th Academy Awards held the other day in L.A. Reader Jun V. pointed out that Altman was nominated for Best Director for M.A.S.H. (1970), Nashville (1975), The Player (1991), Short Cuts (1993) and Gosford Park (2001). Meanwhile, another (unidentified) reader noted the "two guys" who presented the award for Best Make-Up were Will Ferrell and Steve Carell, both from Saturday Night Live (SNL). The reader said that Ferrell starred with Nicole Kidman in Bewitched and Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Thanks, guys!

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Up to now, three weeks after Valentine’s Day, it remains a puzzle and a guessing game where sweethearts Jericho Rosales and Heart Evangelista spent the Day of Hearts. It will be recalled that on Feb. 12, a Sunday, Jericho said he was rushing from the impromptu presscon for The Manny Pacquiao Story (in which he plays the title role, with Bea Alonzo as Pacquiao’s wife Jinkee) to the airport to catch a flight to Malaysia where he said he was having a CD-promo concert.

Asked if he was coming back in time to celebrate Valentine’s Day with Heart, Jericho smiled, "I just might spring a surprise on her and dedicate a solo ‘concert’ with her as the lone audience."

Well, did Jericho come back to spring that "surprise" on Heart?

Guess again.

According to a Funfare DPA in Hawaii, Jericho and Heart spent Valentine’s Day in Maui, playfully taking pictures of each other. They were booked at the Sheraton Hotel. Their brief stay in Maui must have been as memorable as the time they stayed at a popular resort in Bohol during the first days of the shoot for their teleserye starrer, ABS-CBN’s Panday, which will resume telecast very soon.

Nothing wrong with two lovers spending time together, is there? After all, they are both eligible and of age. So why do they have to "mislead" people? Ask them.

That Jericho and Heart are in love is a given.

"Heart is young and so in love," confirmed Angeli Pangilinan, Heart’s new manager.

But no, Angeli insisted (and so Heart did in interviews), Jericho’s girlfriend of almost a year is not pregnant, contrary to persistent rumors.

If the nasty rumor is not true, why would it bother Heart?

"What bothers her is not so much the rumor as her asthma," explained Angeli. "She is horribly asthmatic. She had been rushed twice to the hospital on an ambulance due to multiple asthma attacks. People must have misinterpreted her confinement as due to (the rumored) pregnancy. I repeat, Heart is not and has never been pregnant." (Angeli didn’t say if Heart is living-in with Jericho at her posh Makati condo, reportedly against her parents’ wishes.)

Heart should be back from a three-day commercial shoot in a neighboring Asian city, straight into the set of Panday to shoot more episodes.

But I guess the pregnancy rumor must be affecting Heart because, besides having those asthma attacks (worsened by tapings for new episodes of Panday that require two nurses to watch over her on the set), she has also been attending Bible studies (as do all of Angeli’s talents at Genesis).

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As I’ve been saying, the "exodus" of foreign artists to Manila continues unabated. We have to thank concert producers like Renen de Guia (of Ovation Productions) for bringing them over, giving music-lovers a chance to watch the artists perform "live."

After Sergio Mendes on March 18, scheduled next at the Araneta Coliseum on April 7 are Santana veterans led by Santana co-founder and original singer Gregg Rollie, and on April 8 at Clark Expo at Clark Field, Pampanga, as a highlight of Clark Expo’s reopening (on April 4).

Dubbed as Santana Roots in Manila, the two-night Latin-rock concert to be mounted by Renen’s Ovation Productions will also feature other former Santana members Michael Carabello (congas), Alphonso Johnson (bass) and Adrian Arias (timbales).

Funfare first heard about Santana Roots from Renen himself in late January when we met in Iloilo during the Lettermen concert (which Renen also promoted).

Well, who doesn’t know or hasn’t heard of Santana?

It was the celebrated Latin rock band of the ’70s led by Carlos Santana which thrilled millions worldwide with such monster hits as Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va, Evil Eyes, Jingo, Soul Sacrifice and many others, the very same songs in the band’s repertoire at its Big Dome concert.

"Santana Roots creates the classic Santana sound before the time of Rob Thomas and Michelle Branch and represents the original Santana sound as we knew it in the 1970s," explained Renen. "The songs will be performed by the same artists who recorded them."

The concert, according to Renen, is an answered prayer for avid classic Santana fans.

"Since Carlos Santana has created so much new materials over the years, he seldom performs his classic hits during his shows, perhaps just a song or two within an entire set."

How Renen stumbled upon the band is an interesting story in itself.

"It was Santana’s own people who recommended the band to me," said Renen. "Apparently, a very strong bond of friendship and respect still exists between Carlos Santana and Rollie, despite Rollie’s parting ways with Santana in the early ’70s to form the super group Journey. Upon viewing a Santana Roots video sent to me, I was instantly blown away. I concluded that this group is what the Filipino fans wanted to hear."

(Note: Tickets for Santana Roots in Manila – priced at P3,500, P3,000, P2,500, P1,500, P800 and P300 – are available at Ticketnet outlets in all SM malls and at the Araneta Coliseum ticket office. For more information, call Ticketnet at 911-5555.)

(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph)