Anne Curtis doesn’t disappoint in comeback concert Luv Anne
Anne Curtis was honest to a fault when she decided to return onstage and performed live before a full-house crowd for Luv Anne, her first major showbiz event since taking a nearly three-year hiatus.
She opened the concert at Resorts World Manila with Dua Lipa’s bouncy Levitating, in a striking lime green outfit from head to toe. Interacting with her crowd was important to her. After only the second song, she immediately addressed her audience even while catching her breath.
“Ayan, may hingal factor na,” the 37-year-old Anne casually told her full-house crowd. “Nahahalata na ang edad ko.”
The popular singer-actress apparently enjoyed her hiatus to the hilt, when she gave birth and raised Dahlia Amelie, her precocious two-year-old daughter with husband Erwan Heussaff. Her absence were the “best years” of her life to date, where she enjoyed being a mom away from the glare of the klieg lights.
“Super it took me a while to do this concert,” Anne admitted. “I was so paranoid. I thought I didn’t have the confidence anymore. I am not the best singer, but I’m improving.”
Anne insisted there’s also nothing compared to performing live onstage again before an audience, something that she is wont to do for a long time yet. If she did Luv Anne a year ago, she would have opted for a digital concert, minus the interaction with an audience, something that she missed most.
It helped that Anne returned to It’s Showtime two weeks ago and that prepared her to deal directly with a live audience before mounting the stage for Luv Anne. The jitters were hardly evident even if she admitted her nervousness once she agreed to do a live concert.
In Luv Anne, mounted by Viva Live, Anne only proved she is never less daring after more than two decades in showbiz. A poignant video clip showed how a 12-year-old Anne, who made her big screen debut in Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes’ Magic Kingdom (1997), easily stole everyone’s hearts.
Evidently, performing onstage is not just singing for Anne or delivering those high notes to impress. She never shortchanged her audience when she performed.
In earlier years, she would inevitably get off key or out of beat. In Luv Anne, she has considerably improved a lot. She consciously made an effort to study her songs repeatedly. She seriously shared a part of herself and maybe more with her audience.
She promised her audience that Luv Anne would be a visual spectacle. From the more than half-a-dozen outfits that she donned while performing — thanks to leading stylists, Pam Quiñones and Liz Uy — to the hanging pulley onstage where she sang, Anne didn’t disappoint.
Something that visibly wowed the crowd was the movable, hanging pulley with an axle that allowed Anne to sing standing up with a harness on a small platform, while seeing her audience from a 360-degree angle.
Dishing out Empire of Pink, in her hot pink outfit and block heels, the elevated platform looked scary since it was high. But the brazen singer-actress projected her confidence and bravura several feet above the ground. Not just once, but in two production numbers, complete with outfit changes.
Her clothes enviably revealed her toned body and sculpted abs, quite miraculously after childbirth. She easily shed off those added pounds she gained after childbirth.
Her guests that night were artists whom she never featured in her previous concerts, led by Darren Espanto, with whom Anne carried out Cold Heart, followed by singer-rapper Ez Mil (Ezekiel Miller). Anne joined Ez Mil in rendering his viral song, Tayo’y Pilipino, a brilliant translation on the traditional Cariñosa, that allowed Anne, in midriff baro’t saya, to rap.
Covers of Selena Gomez’s Lose You To Love Me and Alessia Cara’s Scars To Your Beautiful, as well as familiar OPM tunes Torete and Torpe, made it to Anne’s repertoire. The concert had a number of new tunes in the lineup, songs that she adventurously sang for the first time.
Louie Ocampo, with his four-man session artists, backed up Anne. Writer was G3 San Diego and Georcelle Dapat Sy was the creative director. Concert director Paolo Valenciano has become better in every concert he worked on.
The guesting of Paolo’s dad, Gary Valenciano, requested by Anne, happened largely because of the director-son. Anne said she had performed with the likes of Martin Nievera, even Regine Velasquez. She wanted Gary for Luv Anne. Their duet of ‘Wag Ka Nang Umiyak was one of the most-applauded numbers. Even if Anne had to sing an octave lower, she didn’t falter amid her jitters.
Anne proudly belted out her Celine Dion number, It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, elegant in black gown with an extended train, but accentuated with a wide-brimmed white hat. She wrapped up Luv Anne with the belting of Aegis’ Halik, something that she always loved to render.
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