The Clash champion Golden Cañedo beguiled the audience in her first performance on the big stage. She wasn’t the show’s headliner but she left an indelible mark, a strong reminder that while she’s taking the traditional path to the limelight, she’s more than ready to take on bigger challenges with her voice as her rifle.
The teen singer joined Julie Anne San Jose and Christian Bautista who bannered the successful Kapuso concert dubbed The Sweetheart and the Balladeer: Fun Night Only at the Iloilo Convention Center. They had the double act Donita Nose and Super Tekla as special guests giving the show some comedic twists.
The concert, which was meaningful and genuinely memorable for all of the right reasons, was held last month in time for the culmination of the annual Dinagyang Festival.
The evening began with Donita and Tekla setting the mood for audience as they first hit the stage. The duo cross-talked and exchanged banters to the delight of the audience. They even sang a few songs and impersonated some popular names on the local and international music scenes. You see, they wanted to prove that apart from doing comedy, they could perfectly hit some high notes, too.
Then the main stars of the show opened the concert proper. The setlist was a mix of love songs and pop ditties from Beyonce to Ariana’s megahits and from theme songs of The Greatest Showman to Bohemian Rhapsody. They handled the show so well, a mark of already seasoned performers who could confidently dish out varied songs in succession.
As a pre-Valentine concert, Julie Anne and Christian didn’t fail to mesmerize the audience with their duets but what put the crowd up on their feet was when they did a cover of Shanti Dope’s “Nadarang” and Ex-Battallion’s “Hayaan Mo Sila.”
It’s also good to note that Julie Anne and Christian treated the show differently singing songs like JK Labajo’s “Buwan” instead of the usual timeless classics most people hear during pre-Valentine concerts. From start to finish the singers interacted with the audience, too, with Christian even walking around the audience area of the packed Iloilo Convention Center.
“We always feel the extra warm reception of the audience whenever we do shows outside Metro Manila. You know, being a visitor to their city, they give you special warm treatment just like the way someone would welcome a visitor to his home. That’s what excites us to do regional shows,” Christian told Manila Standard in an interview a day before the show.
Then it was time for Julie Anne and Christian to introduce their special guest who is originally from Cebu but has become close to the people of the Visayas after representing the region and ultimately emerging victorious in one of the biggest reality singing competitions last year, The Clash.
When they shared the stage—a duet with Julie Anne singing “I’ll Never Love Again” and with Christian in “Rewrite the Stars”—the more experienced singers were obviously assisting the 17-year-old newbie. At one point, Julie Anne even asked Golden to move closer to the center of the stage as if telling the younger songstress to claim the spotlight.
And she had her moment. Going solo on center stage, Golden belted out “Ikaw Ang Pangarap,” a song Martin Never originated and popularized. It was the same song she sang during The Clash grand finals. This time, her conventional yet emotional version of the ballad had more power, it was a performance beyond worthy of lost storage on your smartphone.
The night concluded with a group production. It was a fitting finale of a successful concert that featured raw talents, amazing vocals and nothing but great entertainment—a kind of show that calls for a repeat.