As if we had doubts.
We’ve seen Gary Valenciano perform live numerous times already and he always delivered.
But he is 59 now.
And he has faced a number of health scares, including a recent bout with pneumonia.
Can he still hack it?
This was foremost in our minds lining up for “Gary V: Back at the Museum,” recently.
To cut the long story short, we are only too happy to report that Gary is still very much the passionate and fiery performer as he was all those years ago.
But how?
Was it the intimate venue?
Gary admits he feels very much at home in the Museum where he had already played almost a hundred concerts.
He is actually counting.
He told us mid-performance that it was the 96th time he performed there.
He shares, “Music Museum is important for me not only because it’s a huge part of my history as an artist but because it allows me to get up close and personal with the audience and that suits my performance, my songs.”
Was it the crowd?
His audience was a mish-mash of energetic titos and titas, yuppies, not a few teens (and (children!).
Everyone was into it – dancing, singing along, cheering.
Gary told us, “I always feed off of that. There are times that I feel so tired already but when the audience is all fired up, you can’t help but respond to that energy.”
As to the material, well, Gary and his team made sure he got all the bases covered.
He did his classics, a number of excellent covers, he even allowed requests from fans as with lengthy medleys.
“We pour a lot of effort in creating the repertoire,” he says. “We don’t want to just keep on repeating ourselves.”
Gary admits some of the numbers that made it to the set list are a huge challenge to perform and we could only agree.
We tried singing along to some of the numbers and we were already catching our breath several songs in.
But Gary is still very much Mr. Pure Energy.
This was made much more obvious with the stage designed in a way to show videos of him performing the same tunes in past concerts.
It’s like déjà vu.
The Gary of today performs with as much power, force as he did when he was younger.
We kid you not.
Of course, you have to see it to believe it.
“Gary V: Back At The Museum” will have a repeat on Oct. 27 and Nov. 3.
It supports the Shining Light Foundation – a non-profit organization provides medical aid to indigent families; and scholarships to deserving children.
