An Avenue most traveled
While other girls had dinner dates and held a bouquet of roses, what I had was a chance to attend a concert and the absence of flowers — in their place was a ticket to see Boyce Avenue play live last Feb. 16 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. I kissed restaurant menus and bouquets of flowers goodbye and said hello to the gigantic stage in front of me where Boyce Avenue would be performing on later that night.
To kick start the concert, Australianbased rock band, At Sunset, first took to the stage. With their songs blaring out loud and the feel of the beat drumming in everyone’s ears, they captured the hearts of every teenage girl in the arena. Up next was YouTube artist, Savannah Outen who started off with a couple of originals. After greeting the crowd, she sang covers of top-of-the-charts tracks, Hotline Bling and Sorry, all while putting her own twist into the songs. Soon after, Savannah ended her performance and took a quick selfie with the crowd.
Afterwards, the lights came back on and it was time to wait for the one and only, Boyce Avenue. The clock struck around 10 p.m. before the screams started erupting from all around the coliseum at random intervals. The screaming only got louder as the blaring of guitars began and the three Manzano brothers finally graced the stage. It was the moment the audience had been waiting for — Boyce Avenue is back to sing for their Filipino fans.
A lively atmosphere was created in their first performance, which was their song called I’ll Be The One. After this, they had switched guitars as they took a drive down the acoustic side with their new release, Imperfect
Me. With another original on the lineup, they, too, had mashed it up with one of their most renowned covers on YouTube, Wonderwall by Oasis.
Boyce Avenue stayed true to their word when promised they would be singing a few of their newly-released songs when they performed their brand-new track Cinderella from the debut album Road Less Travelled. Following the heartwarming performance was another guitar-switch and a change in the ambiance of the concert scene — it was time for the crowd to jump up and down as they covered Avicii’s Wake Me Up. The performance truly woke up the crowd despite the lateness of the night.
After another original, they changed their guitars once more and told the crowd they were switching back to acoustic. Before singing another song, they first introduced themselves — Alejandro, Fabian and Daniel, the talented brothers that composed our favorite, Boyce Avenue. Afterwards, the band had performed one of their first few singles called Find Me, which the crowd still remembered and sang along to. Following this were a few covers and among them were Shawn Mendes’ Stitches, Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car and Bruno Mars’ Locked Out
of Heaven (although it did feel like we were locked in heaven instead).
The band decided to do a throwback and belted out their own version of Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody, then brought us back to the present with Adele’s Hello. Later on, Alejandro warmly interacted with the audience, recalling their previous visit and spoke of how much they love the Philippines. The moment the words “Mahal namin
kayo!” left his lips, the crowd went crazy and screams resonated through the place once more. Soon, the lights did die when the band performed their song When the Lights Die as their “last song” as they returned backstage.
Of course, the crowd wanted more — the chanting of “More!” could be heard from various sections of the coliseum. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, Alejandro came walking up the stage once more with nothing but his guitar. He did a couple of intimate solo performances for the crowd, singing covers of Love Me Like You Do and Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud — the audience loved every second and sang every word. Alejandro called his brothers back up onstage to perform their last two songs, a cover of Iris and a performance of their brand-new song, Anchor.
With confetti flying overhead and a bittersweet goodbye later, the three brothers took a final bow. Truly, Boyce Avenue had given their Filipino fans the perfect post-Valentine’s Day gift and surely nothing could top that night — not even a dinner date or a bouquet of roses.