Like the best wines, Tony Bennett had aged to perfection by our first date, on Sept. 17 at the Philippine International Convention Center; no venue could have been worthier. If he had ever sung better I couldn’t imagine; I didn’t mind at all not having heard him live through his long career.
The night’s crowd cut across three generations down from him: He was, is, 87. I had never seen so many canes, so many crutches, so many wheelchairs, not to mention so many younger hands employed to the same purpose, except perhaps at the Lourdes shrine.
And neither have I witnessed more miracles of their users rising above their infirmities for a standing ovation for Tony.
A foreigner—by accent and looks, an American senior, I’d say—asked us at the admission line, “This is the Sinatra show, right?”
It was a rather uncomfortable joke that provoked a reply from my husband in the same currency: “Right, it’s Sinatra, with Tony Bennett prompting him.”
Memory, indeed, had taken us back to the Sinatra show many years ago, when pain kept throbbing in our hearts seeing our idol no longer quite himself, so that for a while we hesitated with Tony Bennett. But testimonials to his miracle kept our faith alive.
Ironically, it was a recorded Sinatra voice that introduced Tony. And there he was, “the best singer on the planet” by Sinatra’s standard no less, materializing to an explosion of applause, wearing a politically correct pale yellow suit jacket, a decided spring in his feet. As soon as he sang the first note, we all felt redeemed.
He owned every song, yet didn’t sing it quite like he had done before—not quite like any in the hoard of Tony Bennett CDs we treasure, in any case. He sounded fresh, yet nostalgically familiar.
“He’s still doing it in the same key,” noted my husband. “Incredible! Everyone adjusts with age—Sinatra, me…”
Tony cut him off with another number. Telling his signature tales of heartbreak, he held certain words long, seemingly apart from the rest of the song, making the pain linger, and whispered others in a poignant plea.
Soliloquies
Spare and slight gestures—a shoulder shrug here, an arm wrapped across the chest there in a sort of half-embrace—put subtle punctuation to his Shakespearean soliloquies in song.
I had heard those songs many times before, but he gave them a new life without trickery; indeed, he gave them a new dignity, a further maturity, a consummate artistry. Toward the end of the concert, as we watched and listened in continuous ecstasy, he signaled his band to silence—lest we give too much credit to the great band—and sang a capella. And in case we now suspected the microphone, he dropped it, too!
Thus, the miracle of Tony Bennett became an earthly phenomenon!
And in grateful avowal of belief, his Filipino audience gave him his own apparent surprise. In one voice, in perfect time and tune, as if on cue, it began to sing along on the final song, and after a few lines he left his audience alone and listened up to the perfectly fitting end:
“… In other words, I love you.”
His repertoire comprised 20 songs, according to those who bothered to count. He rested his vocal chords now and then by having his brilliant band show off their wares, one by one. But he stayed on his feet throughout without the singer’s stool that performers much younger might have required. If he were not standing, he walked around, even did a few spins and danced some with pretty daughter Antonia, who opened the show for him.
I became even more impressed, and secretly embarrassed, when I felt my knees threatening to buckle as my husband and I stood waiting for the ride that took long to arrive. In any case, the wait was cheerful enough. We bumped into many familiar peers, all looking reinvigorated by the performance—by a man who was probably the oldest around.
I couldn’t help taking it out on Vergel: “Now, you have no more excuse!”
Arthur Manuntag, our own Tony Bennett, probably half the original’s age, appeared, still mooning, at our side with his wife. And with moistened eyes, he confessed, “I kissed and hugged him, you know; he’s… great!”
Aw shucks! Well, I had my date with him, too. But being old-fashioned, I don’t kiss on a first date.