By Ruben M. Cruz Jr. / Online editor
It’s hard not to get sentimental after hearing Luchie Huang open this reunion gig with the initial strains of Patti Austin’s It Might Be You.
Even without its two original members (guitarist Ira Cara Cruz, who could not make it because of scheduling conflicts, and bassist Patrick Almonia, who has been living in the U.S.) braving hellish traffic to watch Passage this Friday night (26 July) is a pilgrimage well worth the sacrifice.
Passage proves that styles of music and the people that play them come and go, but a really good band can carry on, seemingly timeless, even immortal, and always worth seeing.
By Luchie’s own admission, it’s been over 20 years since she shared the stage with Andy Pinto (drums) and George Dimayuga (saxophone) of the original Passage, which had a string of memorable hits in the 90s. And it’s been 12 years since they officially disbanded in 2007.
Their first self-titled album (arguably their best), which contained jazzy pop ballads like Seasons, Temporary Love and You Won’t See Me Crying, the band’s most popular song, spawning many cover versions and earning the most plaudits, was produced way back in 1995.
Putting it further into perspective, Luchie told the SRO audience in 19 East that the originals and revivals from their albums, as well as the cover songs from the 70s to the 90s that they would be singing for this one-night-only, are all older than her kids, Nathan and Elise, the recently signed indie artists (Elise with Warner; Nathan and his four-piece band with Alex Samonte, Angelo Sison, Daniel Monong with Sony) who did the two front acts of the night (they had a crowd following of their own).
However, Passage’s decades’ long hiatus did not seem to affect the band’s unique musical chemistry. The addition of Gigi Arcay (guitar) and Oman Peradilla (bass) from the newer Passage, even seemed to complement the originals, who include aside from those already mentioned Mark Laygo (vocals) and Gilbert Espiridion (keyboards). It’s a nice coming together and celebration of the legacy of the band, indeed, a rite of passage on its own, pardon the pun.
Partially intact bands are more the rule than the exception nowadays, but this hybrid Passage coming out of hibernation more than measures up to a fan’s emotional and aural calculus.
For a band that had not played together onstage for years, they came through with song after song, swooning the crowd on nostalgia, their voices and musical foundations seemingly unaffected by time and all the vagaries of this world.
Mark sang Bobby Caldwell’s What You Won’t Do For Love, followed by Is It You by Lee Ritenour and Lou Pardini’s What Might Have Been, which Mark said is one of his wife’s favorite songs.
Gigi did El Debarge’s Time Will Reveal, an intensely difficult song that he breezed through, belting out the ultra-high pitches and wowing everyone.
More ‘Passagey’ ballads and love songs followed: Stay by Pauline Wilson, Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick’s It’s You, Seawind’s The Two of Us, their originals Temporary Love and Seasons.
The night had many crowd sing-alongs and out-of-our chairs moments (well, at least for those who managed to snag chairs), with Passage reminding everyone that all the big-label marketing in the world can’t make up for good voices and solid instrument-playing. The band had no problem replicating their greatest hits note for note–walang kalawang is what they call it in the vernacular.
They sang Forever (which they recorded as a single, written by Louie Ocampo and Martin Nievera for the Aga and Mikee movie of the same title), Till My Heartaches End (another single release, composed by Vehnee Saturno, original by Ella May Sayson), Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, Billy Preston and Syreeta’s I’m Never Gonna Say Goodbye, David Benoit’s Promise Me A Carousel, their cover of Perfect Combination and Heart to Heart by Kenny Loggins, which fully exhibited George’s lyrical, sax improvisations, belying all the years he had his sax stashed in the proverbial baul while working as a nurse after he quit the music industry.
Indeed, it’s hard to imagine bands now with their usual four chord progressions play these jazzy songs, songs like Incognito’s Beneath The Surface, The Real Thing’s You to Me Are Everything and Swing Out Sister’s Breakout, with their overabundance of notes-dense virtuoso solos, but Passage made them de rigueur and part of their standard repertoire once upon a time.
When Luchie sang the emotional but lung-busting Follow Your Road, I closed my eyes and I might as well have been in Versomina in Jupiter Street, Makati circa early 90s, where Passage had a weekly gig that drew people in droves.
Maybe it’s just the beer, but these lush, skillful compositions, these emotionally detailed songs, deft and downright well-played and well-sung by Passage is what helped define our generation. This is what we dated to, fell in love to, broke our hearts to, got drunk to.
This is why I love going to a Passage gig, because their set list can summon feelings from days I often can’t remember. This is why I so wish this reunion won’t merely be a one-night-only. This is why I wish I had brought my kids along with me tonight, so they who have grown up nostalgic for a past they’ve only experienced secondhand can hopefully savor this themselves, even ever just so slightly.
For their encore, what else is Passage going to play but You Wont See Me Crying, a song that’s all the more apt and perhaps also prophetic because of a line that goes, Tell me it’s not over now, will you?
Like the rest of the regulars who used to troop to the now-defunct Versomina to see and listen to Passage, more than a few of whom are probably here like me, I am truly hoping that this won’t really be the last time, that it’s really not all over.
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