Boyfriend and I get to Aliw theater early, around 6 in the evening, to avoid the expected traffic and parking difficulty. He is grumpy and shaky with hunger (he hasn’t eaten all day, I don’t know why, don’t ask me) so the first thing we do is eat dinner. I see a couple of high school batchmates, go through the mandatory hi’s and hello’s, where-are-you-working-now crap, and since the boyfriend seems to have exchanged my existence for a bowl of steaming nilaga, I proceed to eat my grilled chicken as well.

After around 30 minutes, people start to pile up. All around me I see girls in halter tops or backless blouses or tank tops, all made up to look their best, in the slim chance that maybe, maybe some cute guy will spot them and introduce himself. Maybe even Duncan Sheik himself. As if.

I spot my ex’s ex, walking towards the theater wearing her best red backless halter top. She sees me, but we ignore each other. I point her out to the boyfriend. Look, it’s my ex’s ex!, I tell him. We snicker, make the obligatory dissing-the-ex remarks. And then we smoke some more. And people-watch. All these hot chicks in high heels. All these cute guys in tight shirts. The boyfriend and I start pointing out good-looking people to each other.

Look at her shoes! I want her shoes!
Uy nakita mo yun?! Tumingin sakin yung hot chick na naka-green!
Ganda ng pwet nun a!
Ganda ng legs nun a!
Bading yun, feeling ko.
Sino, yung ka-holding hands nung chick na naka-blue?
Si Amy Perez, o!
Si Robby Mananquil, o!
Sino??
Why are all the girls dressed the same?
Look at the cleavage on that one!
White is NOT her color.
Ruffles is NOT her style.

Someone should pay us to become fashion critics. Like Joan and Melissa Rivers. Only we’re better looking by far.

I haven’t seen that many beautiful people all in one area since Fete de la Musique. Or maybe I just haven’t been going out enough.

So anyway we eventually get in, and our seats are at the rightmost part, the exit doors are practically next to us. The boyfriend sort of complains (I picked out the seats) because we can’t see the big screen thingie they set up on the stage, you know, where they show close-ups of the band and stuff. But we’re six rows from the front so the stage is really, really near. But then you can only see the profile of the performer. Oh well.

Paolo Santos is the first act, and you can hear the girls practically scream in near-orgasmic decibels as he starts playing the songs he’s most famous for around the bar circuit: “Moonlight over Paris”, a couple of covers I don’t recognize, an unreleased track from his album, and finally his single, which apparently is enjoying airplay these days in some stations. I first saw Paolo Santos in Ipanema in Eastwood maybe a year ago, he wasn’t Paolo Santos yet back then. I was on my way to the bathroom, and then there was this guy singing “Power of Two” like a girl for crying out loud, so I didn’t really pay much attention.

I saw him again in Tapika late last year, and by that time he had been achieving some degree of fame, but I didn’t like him because he kept covering John Mayer, copying his style down to the last guitar chord and vocal pattern. He even covered John Mayer’s cover of Sting’s “Message in a Bottle”, which kind of seemed stupid because if you’re going to cover a cover you might as well make it sound different from the cover and the original.

Anyway the girls just swoon over him, and I must admit he’s a pretty mean guitar player, and then he introduces a couple of guys from Stephen Speaks, and the girls start screaming again, this time in orgasmic decibels, when they play the opening riff of that abominably overplayed song, “Passenger Seat”. Rockwell Ryan, the vocalist, plays barefooted. He also pulls his pants up from time to time. If any of you guys are wondering why I’m doing this, it’s because I forgot my belt, he says, and the audience laughs.

He then proceeds to cover Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be”, which promptly makes me think that someone probably gave him a sheet of “The Top Ten Songs to Make Pinays Swoon All Over You”, because as soon as he sings, The strands in your eyes…, the crowd goes wild, and the girls are ready to throw themselves at him. Then he attempts to do a rock version of Britney’s (last name not needed) “Baby One More Time”, sings a song from his upcoming solo album, spices it by inserting the whole chorus of “Waiting for You”, wrongly credits that song to Karl Marx, until finally someone from the audience yells, “Richard Marx!”, and then apologizes for mixing up an 80’s pop songster with the author of “The Communist Manifesto”.

After what seems like ages of cutesy remarks from the Stephen Speaks boys, the voiceover guy calls for a fifteen-minute break. After hours of making us wait, I don’t know why they have to call for another break. It’s nearly ten in the evening and Duncan Sheik hasn’t started playing. I’m about to finish my pack of cigarettes. Boyfriend buys a pack of local cigs for forty frikking bucks. These monopolists, I tell you. And then the boyfriend spots another friend’s ex, whom we again greet in the usual hey-how-are-you-it’s-been-a-while manner, complete with beso.

And the main show begins, but first the voiceover guy has to willingly embarrass himself by saying, “And now, presenting… Britney Spears!… just joking”. No one laughs.

Duncan Sheik enters the stage with his entire band and launches into “She Runs Away”, and the screaming is beyond orgasmic, it’s a tonsil-showing, solid wave of sound and spittle. I curl up in a fetal position and rock myself back and forth, half-sobbing like a lobotomy patient. I don’t know why, reason is beyond me. Herd mentality, I guess.

After a couple of songs, the boyfriend pulls me close, and says, I think he’s stoned. Was it because of Duncan Sheik’s weight gain? Was it because, after tuning his guitar, he’d said, Now I’m happy… dreamily? Was it because of his bassist’s chicken-dance antics while playing, or the redneck-looking guitarist’s spasmic performance? Sure, he messed up a couple of lyrics while covering Oasis’ “Wonderwall”, but that’s hardly cause for concern. Everyone fumbles up. Maybe he’s just naturally calm and collected. He didn’t stir the crowd as much as the Stephen Speaks boys did, but he doesn’t really need to, he’s Duncan freaking Sheik.

In any case, semi-stoned or not (I guess it takes one to know one, Boyfriend), the crowd is in the aisles by his second-to-the-last song, “On a High”. These rich-looking kids with 7650s defy bouncers by going up front to take pictures. And by the time he does “Barely Breathing” (how else could he have ended the show?) before retiring for the night, people are on a high, singing along, dancing, nodding their heads in time with the music.

We eventually find ourselves in Miggy’s Visayas, ordering pseudo-Mexican food from an androgynous-looking male with large titties. Titties I said, not boobies. And then this really good-looking couple comes in with a bunch of other good-looking boys who look like they were roused from sleeping, and they all look younger than us, probably college sophomores, and while the boyfriend and I are ogling the hot chick and exchanging comments, we realize that we are fine, we are fine, it’s all how you see it, no there never will be no conspiracy of happiness.