Sergio Mendes shows why he’s a legend

Last weekend, thousands of Metro Manilans decided to have a romantic respite and authentic great fun by biting again slices of experience and memories of the ’60s to ’80s era through music and dance. The period gone by was described by entertainer par excellence Mitch Valdes as a "wonderful era musically."

Metro Manilans, amid the uncertainties, continue to be under the spell and grip of collective nostalgia for the music of the yesteryears. And it is good business.

Last year, Patti Austin teamed up with Martin Nievera for a Valentine concert. The Cascades, James Ingram, Pat Upton of the Spiral Starecase fame, Peter and Gordon, Chad and Jeremy, The Beach Boys, The Lettermen, Paul Anka, Engelbert Humperdinck and Herman’s Hermits had sold out concerts. Andy Williams chose to spend the last Valentine’s Day in Cubao to serenade Filipinos who trooped to the Araneta Coliseum, which was filled to the rafters. Rex Smith, whose song, Simply Jessie, electrified the local airwaves for some time, is coming back to perform in Araneta Coliseum on April 1. So is Gregg Rolie of Santana on April 7. Making return engagements are Paul Anka on May 14 and 15, The Cascades on June 16 and Engelbert Humperdinck on June 27.

On the dance front, the music of rock singing sensation Sampaguita and the all-male band Hagibis were heard again at the Main Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines last March 18.

The company of Bam Damian’s Ballet Philippines leaped and pirouetted to the strains of Hagibis’ Katawan and Sampaguita’s Pabonggahan under the direction of Tony Fabella. One of the most applauded pieces in the Ballet Philippines’ Tango Filipino/La Divina show was the number that used the song I’d Like to Run Away From You, popularized by Shirley Bassey in the ’70s, as its accompaniment. Both the aging bejeweled and the jeans-clad segments of the audience agreed that the number was hilarious, and the whole show fabulous.

However, the bigger celebration of the ’60s to ’80s music last March 18 happened at the Araneta Coliseum courtesy of Uniprom Inc., the company that brought the legendary Sergio Mendes and his current band, Brasil 2006, for a one-night concert.

As expected, Mendes and his Brasil 2006 competently delivered, and the audience enthusiastically received what it hoped for: love songs that transported them to the times when life was much more so genteel, without cellular phones and the Internet, and when people were more well-mannered, civil and polite.

Mitch Valdes’ front act properly pepped the audience that started trickling in as early as 7 p.m. "I was in high school at St. Scho when I first heard him (Mendes)," Valdes confessed to the giggling crowd.

When Mendes strode into the stage at around 9 p.m., the coliseum was about 80 percent full. Having watched his performances in Tokyo and during his 2002 Manila visit, this reviewer felt like the legend picked up from where he stopped after the encores in those two previous concerts.

Mendes, who opened the show A Celebration of His Timeless Hits with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s The Girl from Ipanema, was himself in the mood to reminisce his personal journey, his first band Brasil ’66, and the bygone days. Marking the Brasil band’s 40th year and his eighth visit to the Philippines, Mendes noted that Jobim’s The Girl from Ipanema "started the whole thing." Forty-years and still conquering the music world, Mendes is a difficult act to copy.

To set the carnival-like atmosphere, Mendes and the Brasil 2006 followed The Girl from Ipanema with Happy Faces and in rapid succession, several Portuguese numbers.

Then suddenly, Mendes blurted in his studied Filipino, "Mahal kita, Pilipinas" which prompted the audience to applaud with much gusto. "I have wonderful memories of Araneta (Coliseum)."

To show that he completely understood the mindset of his audience that night, Mendes and his band devoted most of the show to Brasil ’66 bossa nova hits instead of their more modern hits, although they performed Never Gonna Let You Go by Barry Mann and C. Weill.

Initially the audience was quiet, giving the impression that it wanted to totally take in and savor what the legend and his band had for them. But not for long. The first communal sigh and gasp of the evening was heard when the band performed Dindi. The sighs and the gasps were replaced with the once-young joining in the singing: "Skies so vast as the sky/ With far away clouds just wondering by/ Where do they go, oh I don’t know, don’t know/ Wind that speaks to the leaves telling stories no one believes/ Stories of love belong to you and me/ Oh Dindi, if I only had words I would say/ Of the beautiful things that I see when you with me/ Oh my Dindi/ Oh Dindi, like the song of the wind in the trees/ That’s how I’m missing you, Dindi/ Happy Dindi, when you’re with me/ I love you more each day, yes I do, yes I do/ I’d let you go away if you’d take me with you/ Don’t you know, Dindi, I’d be running and searching for you/ Like a river that can’t find the sea/ That would be me without you, my Dindi/ That would be me without you, my Dindi" Composers do not write lyrics like this one anymore.

Jessica Taylor’s stirring and soulful rendition of Dindi must be acknowledged for it was the best loved song of the evening.

Mendes hastened the tempo by switching to Waters of March (A. Jobim), Bridges, and One Note Samba. With these songs, members of the audience either sang, danced, cheered or clapped to release their energies. The coliseum was transformed into a giant dance hall where a party cum carnival was in progress.

Like a Lover (Cammy/Motta/A. Bergman/M. Bergman), The Look of Love (Burt Bacharach/David) from the Columbia Picture movie Casino Royale, Fool on the Hill (John Lennon/Paul McCartney), and Mais Que Nada (Jorge Ben) formed the repertoire in the second half of the show. For their encore, they performed Never Let You Go (Barry/Mann) and Going Out of My Head (Randazzo/Weinstein).

Sergio Mendes and Brasil 2006, in more or less 90 minutes, showed Metro Manilans why he is a legend and his band great. Mendes, visibly aging, made no long spiels intended to make the audience roar in laughter. It was through his music with which he connected and reconnected with the Filipino audience. The 90 minutes spent watching Mendes and Brasil 2006 was wonderful, especially that they captured the poetry and passion of Brasil ’66. No one could ask for more. But as one Brasil ’66 song says it: "The trouble with hello is goodbye."