MANILA, Philippines - For the fourth time, Jason Mraz visited Manila on Thursday with the all-girl band Raining Jane for a one-night acoustic concert at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum.
Jason started the night with a voice over as he introduced the Raining Jane, who opened the concert with their songs “Opposite of Blue” and “From Me to You.”
The group told the crowd that it was Jason who gave them the big break in 2007, when they were picked to serve as front act for one of his shows.
"When we saw him, we stopped ourselves from fainting,” Mona said, eliciting laughter from the crowd. “After we performed he was there, smiling big and told us, ‘You guys are good. You’re good,’ and we just fainted.”
Then Jason went on stage and performed the song "Life is Wonderful" with the band. As the music stopped, Jason greeted the Filipino crowd “Magandang gabi!” and went on with “Everywhere,” “Sweet Dynamo,” where he asked the crowd to dance with him.
“People at the back can you feel me?” asked Jason after his second song. “Distance is okay, distance makes the heart grow fonder,” he continued and performed one of his popular songs, “Lucky.”
While playing random rhythm with his Ukulele, Jason tried his best to perfect the Filipino sentence “Masaya akong makabalik, magbalik, I don’t know,” which made everyone cheer. He performed his song “Take the Music” before Raining Jane joined him again to perform “Hello.”
He introduced his next song by relating how he comes up with his songs.
“Whenever I’m sad, I write a happy song,” he said. “So it’s not like the positivity always come from a happy place. This song is about waking up the wrong side of the bed, and I say, ‘oh, hell no! I’m gonna make my rainbow.” He then performed “Make It Mine,” followed by “Quiet.”
He also performed songs, which he said, are about hope and optimism in life like “Beautiful Mess,” “Three Things,” “Back to the Earth,” and “Mr. Curiousity.”
Aside from performing for his fans, Jason also promoted awareness about climate change. That night, he shared about his trip in Antarctica with Raining Jane’s drummer Mona, as they witness how climate change affect its local habitants like the penguins.
“We went there to learn the realities of climate change,” he said about their trip. Then he flashed some pictures from the trip, where they photographed a big iceberg on their way to Antarctica.
“In that trip I’ve learned how the world is dramatically changing, it’s what inspired me to plant trees and be a better farmer, to be really responsible for the energy that we consume,” a video then played as they perform “Bottom of the Sea."
The group took a 10-minute break before going back stage and performed “Love Someone,” “Song for a Geek,” “Only Human,” and “Long Drive.”
He also performed “Remedy,” which is one of the songs from his first album, followed by “Browntown,” “93 Million Miles” and “Shine.”
His finale song was supposed to be "I'm Yours," but the crowd egged him to do another so he performed “I Won’t Give Up.”
The last song was the most memorable of all the performances as the coliseum was transformed into a night sky filled with stars, depicted the by the lights of the crowd's phones.
As he waved goodbye to everyone he left one promise, “Salamat po! Kita-kits!”