President Benigno Aquino III is a busy man. It is said that one of his favorite recreational activities is listening to music, including watching concerts.

Serafin Pua of the old Birds of the Same Feather/Birdland club in Quezon City tells us that he used to see Mr. Aquino sometime in the late 1980s relaxing in the jazz venue. When he became the country’s chief executive, Mr. Aquino’s hectic schedule allowed him only a few luxuries like watching shows at Dusit Thani hotel (Hotdog reunion) and Smart Araneta Coliseum (America, Dionne Warwick).

Last week we heard that he wanted to watch the latest reunion gig of members of the Circus Band and New Minstrels, two of the hottest musical groups that played in nightclub row of Roxas Boulevard in the ’70s, and in hotels.

President Aquino was said to have bought 10 tickets to the show at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

A few minutes before show-time last Thursday, however, there was no sight of the Presidential Security Group at the concert’s venue—which meant that President Aquino wasn’t coming. Obviously there were more important matters that demanded his attention, or perhaps he was just too tired that day.

Highlights

But if he made it, he would have had a few hours of fun tripping on the sounds of his youth, along with the full-house crowd at PICC.

The show had several highlights:

Basil Valdez doing the lead vocals on “The Harder I Try (The Bluer I Get),” with Hajji Alejandro, Jacqui Magno, Tillie Moreno and Pat Castillo on backup. The song, one of the tracks in the Circus Band live album that we first heard when we were 16 years old, was a cover version of the original by The Free Movement, an American R&B group.

Basil’s pipes were in fine shape, and the backup vocals sounded smooth and flawless. It made us feel good, no matter if the song is about a breakup.

Alejandro’s spot number of his own hits when he left Circus in the mid-’70s—“Panakip-Butas,” “May Minamahal,” “Nakapagtataka,” “Tag-Araw, Tag-Ulan,” and the song that ushered in a golden age in Pinoy pop, “Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika.” His voice sounded like he never aged.

Moreno and the Minstrels’ Ray-An Fuentes reprising their duet of “Umagang Kay Ganda,” still refreshing as the day it wound up as a finalist in the 1979 Metro Pop Music Festival.

Chad Borja, a member of the fourth-generation Minstrels, interpreting “Kahit Na,” a song identified with Zsa Zsa Padilla, but which he owned that night with his terrific range that hit the high notes spot-on.

Fuentes, Borja and the rest of the Minstrels—Louie Reyes, Ding Mercado, Eugene Villaluz and Joey Albert—shining in a Burt Bacharach medley; the group was said to have followed Ryan Cayabyab’s original arrangement, including the difficult counter-pointing vocals. It was marvelous.

The disco medley by the Circus-Minstrels women, especially the “Shake Your Groove Thing/Boogie Oogie Oogie” part that took us back to long summer days listening to these tunes on 99.5 RT and dancing at the InterCon’s Where Else?

Another dance medley, this time by all the 11 headliners, consisting of Earth, Wind and Fire classics that had many in the crowd rushing near the stage.

Genuine talent

The beauty of this long-running reunion series (we first caught one of its shows six years ago) is that it demonstrates the versatility and genuine talent of Filipino music acts of the ’70s.

They could do note-for-note covers of foreign songs and, at the same time, prove that they deserved the fame and fortune they enjoyed as individual artists who recorded some of the best original Pinoy pop tunes of their generation.

We have a feeling that the show’s promoter, Viva, will keep doing it in the next few years because the crowds keep coming back. If so, we hope the backing band will have a horn section, too, because last Thursday’s show lacked the full-textured sound that the music of Bacharach as well as Earth, Wind and Fire, required.