Michael Learns To Rock and Spandau Ballet in Manila

Brace yourselves for nostalgia overload this week, what with two of the Pinoy’s favorite bands of all time coming into town for one-night only performances. These are Michael Learns To Rock (MLTR) from Denmark which will be at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Sept. 19 and Spandau Ballet from the UK which will perform at the Mall of Asia Arena on Sept. 21. I can already imagine what huge sing-along fests these concerts will turn out to be. Local fans love to sing and this time around, they know all the songs.  

MLTR comes from the ’90s while Spandau Ballet rose up in the ’80s. But I can say in all honesty that not a day goes by when one or two of their songs are not played on the radio in some café or store, etc., and certainly in lots of personal playlists. You need mellow down music, you play The Actor. You want to charge the air, you do Gold. Their sounds are vastly different from one another but are so strongly appealing.  So if you can afford it, it will be really worth your while to watch them both.

Michael Learns To Rock is made up of songwriter Jascha Richter on lead vocals and keyboards; Kare Wanscher, drums, and Mikkel Lentz, guitars, who are all-original founding members. They have sold over 11 million albums and six million downloads. They are one of the biggest acts to emerge from Scandinavia, second only to ABBA. The band is known for its soft rock sound and its sentimental ballads. I like it that they have not changed their style and that they keep on coming up with new songs. Among their biggest hits and definitely the ones fans are hoping they will perform at the Big Dome are:

25 Minutes, The Actor, Sleeping Child, Out Of The Blue, That’s Why You Go Away, Nothing To Lose, Breaking My Heart, Take Me To Your Heart, Someday, Paint My Love, Blue Night, I’m Gonna Be Around, Wild Women, I Wanna Dance, Breaking The Rules, Ghost Of You, Love Will Never Lie, You Took My Heart Away, Strange Foreign Beauty, If You Leave My World, More Than A Friend, Complicated Heart, I Still Carry On, Forever And A Day, How Many Hours, Angel Eyes and Frostbite.

In contrast, while MLTR is laidback, Spandau Ballet has a big synth-heavy rock sound filled with emotional flourishes. The band, which has sold over 25 million records, was one of the stylish acts dubbed the New Romantics. Among the others were Duran Duran and Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. They were also known for their foppish costumes. Take a look at what they call their show, Soulboys of the Western World Live. With a name like that you can expect a great evening of truly dramatic sounds.  More so because the original members of Spandau Ballet have reunited and will be together for the first time ever in the Philippines.

Arriving will be Tony Hadley, certainly one of the great rock vocalists of all time, plus John Keeble, Gary Kemp, Martin Kemp and Steve Norman. I am hopeful that they will do True, Gold, Through The Barricades, I’ll Fly For You, Lifeline, Round And Round, Communication, Highly Strung, Only When You Leave, Instinction, Chant No.1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On), To Cut A Long Story Short, The Freeze, Musclebound, Paint Me Down, She Loved Like A Diamond, Fight For Yourselves, Be Free With Your Love, Raw and Crashed Into Love in the show.

Meanwhile, big news on the local front, fans have until 5:59 p.m. today to vote for the Best Southeast Asia Act Wild Card nominee for the 2015 MTV European Music Awards. Now in the running is singer and actress Nadine Lustre. To vote for Nadine, tweet MTVEMA#NominateNadineLustre. 

Already nominated are Faizal Tahir (Malaysia), James Reid (Philippines), NOAH (Indonesia), Slot Machine (Thailand), Son Tung M-TP (Vietnam) and The Sam Willows (Singapore) but there is one spot left. So MTV is giving music lovers the power to tweet and vote for the seventh Wild Card nominee.

Make sure you vote for Nadine today. I know JaDine fans will not like the fact that she will be competing with James.  But it would be such an honor for the Philippines to have the two of them among the nominees.