Want to come to Charice’s concert? I’m the musical director,” my son Gino asked. “Of course,” I said. Never mind that I knew I would have to go alone on a Saturday night and my driver would have to get paid overtime. Never mind either that I don’t particularly enjoy going to concerts anymore. Not their fault. Mine. I am getting old. Never mind everything. All my usual boring hang-ups are swept away when one of my children calls.
So I got to the central entrance that I used when I went to FAME but that ignored the long line of people wanting to get in and the guard told me to line up so I walked to the end of the line. When I got there, the doors at the end opened and I could slip in easily. No great inconvenience. I found a place under the gray banners and texted Faye, my daughter-in-law. “I am here now. Waiting for you under H3.” Then I stood and stared at the crowd.
I stayed there just staring, waiting to see a person I knew or recognized. No one. Well, this was the show of Charice Pempengco, a local talent who was beginning to be successful in the United States. I had seen her on Oprah singing with Celine Dion. Maybe she chose Gino as her musical director because he studied music in the USA, went to the Keyboard Institute of Technology after being disappointed at Berklee.
Suddenly, to my left, I heard two men begin yelling at each other, maybe they were fighting over seats. My ticket was with Faye so I could not be involved. I just learned that was the gate for tickets that began with 5, 6, 7, 8 and the other door farther down was the one for lower numbers. Finally, Faye arrived with their daughter Maxine, who was wearing a mask. She had the flu but came over to see her daddy play. With them were Faye’s parents and her aunt Ardie.
By then it was already after 8 p.m., when the show was supposed to start. We went inside the hall and it was chaotic. There were usherettes, but you had to find them and they gave you vague looks. They always just directed you directionally but did not tell you precisely where to go. When we got to where our place was supposed to have been, there was no row 10. So we had tickets that were paid for at P1,000 each and no seats. I was quickly losing my temper. “If this continues I will leave for home at precisely 9:30,” I said to Ardie. “I cannot stand this mess.”
Someone got on the mike, apologized, and directed us to go to the right where there were many seats. We found seats there and at around 9 p.m. the show began. It was an hour late. Behind us, people were talking, blaming each other. I turned around, found three usherettes and a male discussing in loud voices. There was a show going on. Ardie shushed them. The male said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, we’re talking about something we must discuss.”
“Then do it outside,” I said bluntly. Fortunately, they did. There must be something extremely authoritative about my voice.
Now, finally, I could watch the show. There was my son sitting at the piano, being musical director. He looked totally present, totally engrossed. I could see he was concentrating. I remembered when I first saw him play the keyboards with Pido’s band, he looked a little that way. Then I remembered when I last saw him play with the same band. I chided him. “Gino, are you bored? You can’t do well if you’re so bored.” He might have listened because shortly after, he quit the band and went on his own.
Now, he was a musical director. My heart swelled, felt like it would burst with joy and pride. I found myself talking to my father in my head. “Look, Pappy, my baby boy has grown up, is a musical director, look, I am so proud. Did he get this talent from you? Maybe from his father, but I believe from you, too. Look. Doesn’t he make you proud?” My eyes welled with tears, kept welling up during the show. I was so proud of my son, Gino Gonzalez Cruz, musical director for Charice.
We should also be proud of Charice, who uses only her first name, because her last name has been mispronounced all over the USA. She is quite a singer. I — representing my generation — liked her version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, You and Me Against the World, a duet she sang with her mother, and At Last. The last song was sung by Beyonce; that’s what they said but I knew it to be an old song that belonged to my parents’ generation, an old romantic song by Etta James.
In the end, I must congratulate Charice, a magnificent singer in today’s style, good enough to sing with less screaming. But like the biased mother that I am, I congratulate my son, Gino Cruz, for being the one and only musical director who made me, his one and only mom, absolutely pop open with pride.
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