Sing-along night at the Big Dome

“You see,” Engelbert Humperdinck said in his spiels halfway through his SRO concert Sunday night at the Big Dome, drinking from a bottled water, “I just want to have fun tonight. Let’s have fun!”

He didn’t really have to say so because starting at 8 o’clock, the audience had been having fun, from his first song to his last, both of which, including the other songs in-between, drew heart-warming applause from the enthusiastic crowd composed, I’m sure, of baby boomers.

Now 71 but hardly looking, with his famous signature sideburns (with only a few white strands) in place, Humperdinck more than made up for his no-show this time last year when, while in Malaysia, he canceled the rest of his Asian tour and rushed back to the US when he lost his voice due to shock after he was informed that his older brother Erwin Dorsey had been diagnosed to have brain tumor as big as an orange (he’s okay now; the tumor was benign).

For one hour and 40 minutes, Humperdinck presided over what turned out to be a happy “sing-along” (or, ehem, “seniors” prom without the dancing?) as he encouraged the audience to sing along with him such enduring Humperdinck hits as Am I That Easy To Forget; Spanish Eyes; There Goes My Everything; After The Lovin’; To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before; Cuando, Cuando, Cuando; and, of course, if you’re a baby boomer, you should know what else.

As he promised, he dedicated his third song, Till, to his Filipino fans who didn’t wait for more than a year for his comeback in vain. It was his fourth time to perform and, who knows, his last — Till the moon deserts the sky, till all the seas run dry, till then I’ll worhsip you...You are my reason to live, all I own I would give just to have you adore me.

The voice remains the same, still plakang-plaka, and Humperdinck sang them with as much gusto as he perhaps did the first time he sang them, but this time accompanied with a “live” display of the body language (unhampered by a few unwanted pounds and slightly-visible love handles) that made him a favorite sexy balladeer.

Unlike some singers who simply sit on a stool and, that’s it, sing and sing, Humperdinck is a great performer, spicing up the show with funny stories told with wit and humor, throwing in light-green jokes (nope, not the low-brow Rico J. Puno variety) about, you know, holding his legs apart, as he said the late Elvis the Pelvis had “advised” him, to let his “tinkerbells” breathe; and how he noticed the ladies going to the restroom stealing flirtatious glances at him (he mimicked how the ladies daintily walked) while the men, resisting the urgent call of Nature, would hold on to their, uh, crotch with an embarrassed smile.

At one point, Humperdinck invited a lady from the audience to go onstage and only one plucky (lucky!) lady obliged. Humperdinck made the lady,  whose said her name was Cynthia, sit on a chair and, to the audience’s amusement, let her hold the idiot board while he sang You Don’t Know Me. Was that all he asked of the lady, hold the idiot board? Guess again. Halfway through the song, Humperdinck actually on the (ecstatic?) lady’s lap and continued singing, while the audience cheered him right on, exploding into a defeaning applause.

He very kindly said thank you to the lady and, after kissing her on the lips,  gave her a flaming-red scarf as souvenir.

Then, he called onstage two men who turned out to be brothers named — “Can you believe it,” gushed Humperdinck — Engelbert and Humperdinck and, again, gifted them with red scarves each.

Yes, dozens, maybe hundreds, around the world are named after him.

End of surprises? Wait a minute.

A man walked up to Humperdinck and handed him a box which contained, you never guessed it, a bikini panty. The act was a throwback to the early years when women would get so excited during a performance that, according to “urban legend,” they would take off their underwear and actually hurl them at Humperdinck. Nobody did that at the Big Dome that night, thank heavens.

Cracked Humperdinck as he jokingly scanned the bikini panty, “I don’t think it fits me,” adding, “ I expected her to write ‘Am I that easy to forget’ but she did not!”

For his last number, Humperdinck reserved the song that made him who he is today and the 40th anniversary of which he’s celebrating in this concert tour that will bring him to other Asian countries like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia — yes, Release Me!

But the audience just wouldn’t release him as they sang along with him, waving their arms in the air in a touching tribute.

For his encore, Humperdinck sang My Way  — And now the end is near and so I face the final curtain... — with the audience still singing along with him in perhaps the most memorable sing-along at the Big Dome ever, beating those at the concerts of such oldies-but-goodies as The Lettermen and Andy Williams.

More, more, more?

Humperdinck had disappeared into the backstage and when he came back, he was putting on a bathrobe, shadow-boxing and stationary-jogging, blowing kisses and throwing a few more red scarves to the audience while the Big Dome big boss Jorge Araneta (seated on the front row with his wife Stella Marquez-Araneta) led a standing ovation.

Nope. Engelbert Humperdinck is not that easy to forget.

Briefly Noted

• Best wishes to scriptwriter Maria Luisa Fatima “Baby” Nebrida who’s getting married to Gene Charles Ballesty on Sept. 1 at the Christ The King Parish Church in Greenmeadows, Quezon City.

• The UP Open University will hold the First Independent Film Festival in its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, from Aug. 22 to 24, open to the different members of the scientific community, local officials in neighboring towns, students and other stakeholders. The main focus is the concerns pertaining to gender. Films to be shown are: Inang Yaya, Aug. 22; Mudraks and Kubrador, Aug. 23; and Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros and Rome & Juliet, Aug. 24. The filmfest is headed by UPOU Chancellor Grace Javier Alfonso, with the assistance of Dr. Victoria Bautista (vice chancellor for Academic Affairs), Dr. Jean Saludadez (chair of the Cultural and Arts Committee) and Dr. Arminda Santiago (consultant). The festival is co-sponsored by Microdata, LG, Coca-Cola, UNILEVER and UP Center for Women Studies. (For inquiries, call the UPOU at 632-426-1514.)

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