I realised I never really posted my recap about Manila. So anyway, almost 2 weeks later, here goes. Warning: this is EXTREMELY long.

It was beyond 1 am in the morning on Saturday and I was still up. I had a flight to catch at 635am that morning, which meant that I'd have to leave my house by 4 am, but I was still up. Somehow, despite having taken Friday off, I wasn't done packing and I was still working on the poster. (I blame this on the fancon and all the various tv appearances he had on Friday. How was a girl supposed to keep up with all the videos and audio interviews coming out AND pack and do up a poster at the same time? lol)

So anyway, somehow, I managed to get to sleep at around 2am. As much sleep as I could get anyway. I was trying to fight off a fever. I knew with the H1N1 scare going on they might not allow me to take the flight, or into the hotel or the concert venue if my temperature was too high. So I tried keeping myself cool, with the air-con switched on at full blast and all. I didn't want a temperature to stop me from seeing David Cook live. I had been counting down to this day for the past 2 months. Nothing was going to stop me.

4 am came by very quickly. Still sleepy, but excited, I got up and immediately got ready to rush out to the airport. I left Fareeza a text to see if she was already up. I was so frantic when I didn't get a reply from her within 5 minutes I had to call her to check if she was, indeed, up. Thankfully, she was. lol. Thank goodness Changi Airport has one of the most efficient check-in systems anywhere in the world. We managed to check-in by 530am and decided to set off to grab a quick early breakfast as we didn't know when else we'd be able to get something halal to eat.

Soon we were on our way to Manila. This was the first time in the Philippines for both of us, so we really didn't know what to expect. One thing for sure though - our grins kept getting wider as we couldn't contain our excitement. We were finally going to see David Cook live in concert! After reading way too many recaps and watching way too many shaky youtube vids from other fans, we couldn't believe that we were really going to get the David Cook and the band-that-has-yet-to-be-named experience. Sleep was definitely the LAST thing on our mind.

Arrived in Manila sometime around 10 am. Hopped onto a cab to get to the hotel. First thing that struck us - traffic is crazy in Manila! It was the craziest I've ever seen - way more chaotic than traffic in Bangkok or KL and I thought those were crazy. I'd have died if I had to drive there. LOL. But somehow, there was a system that worked in Manila. There were hardly any lane markings on the roads, cars were weaving in and out and amidst all this chaos, there were vendors walking up and down the roads selling bottled water.

It took us less than 10 mins to reach our hotel. The location was a god-sent! Thanks to Fareeza for doing all the research. The hotel was only 10 mins away from the airport and literally 2 junctions away from the Mall of Asia. Perfect location (which would serve us well later that night). Dumped our things with the hotel's concierge and took off to explore the Mall of Asia.

Not trying to toot my horn or anything, but for what it's worth, I have a damn good sense of direction. *insert smug grin here* We had 3 aims at Mall of Asia that afternoon - 1) finding Krispy Kreme, 2) finding Gerry's Grill cos that's where the Pinoy Dashers were supposedly meeting and 3) checking out the concert grounds. Without looking at any directory, I somehow managed to find Krispy Kreme in less than 5 mins! (That was really a stroke of pure luck though) We managed to find Gerry's Grill soon after (the only thing we knew about it was that it was facing the bay) and also found the concert grounds within a relatively short period of time. The mall didn't feel that big once I had my bearings and knew where the important landmarks were.

Ooooh and the best part about the mall? They had DCTR (David Cook the Record) on shuffle! we were greeted with A Daily Anthem and then heard Avalance, Declaration and pretty much every other song on the album. I was so happy, I felt like I was in David Cook country. Plus they had all these Cook & Archuleta posters hanging in practically EVERY SINGLE shop window. We were plotting to see if we could steal one of the posters (Say, maybe after the concert?) but we soon found a booth that was selling the posters. Well not selling them per se. They were selling these green recycling bags - buy a set of 4 and you get a poster free. So of course we bought 4 recycling bags! We were rejoicing that we didn't have to resort to stealing a poster. LOL. So there we were walking around the mall with a bright green recycling bag (oh we saw loads of other pple doing the same, so we weren't the only crazy ones? heh).

It was lunchtime and there's hardly anything halal in Mall of Asia. So we settled ourselves at Krispy Kreme and got some donuts to eat. However, I think we were pretty much delirious at the thought of the concert being just a few hours away - so food was really the LAST thing on our minds. Managed to eat about one and a half donut each and that was about it. (Yes, I didn't finish my donut. )

Soon it was nearing 1 pm (the time that the Pinoy Dashers were supposed to be meeting at Gerry's Grill). We headed over to Gerry's Grill to see if we could spot them but we had no idea how they looked like. At this point, it totally slipped my mind that I actually had one of their numbers with me. I should have given her a call. Oh well, since we couldn't find them, we decided to go check out the concert grounds. We knew the venue was going to be huge but we didn't really realise how huge it was til we were actually there! We saw people already queueing up outside the gates so we curious as to why. It was only then that we realised that the Gold and Silver tickets were free standing, so pple were queueing up as early as 1 pm (under the freaking hot sun) to get the best spots possible! We were thankful that we had Platinum seats cos I don't think I could have weathered standing in line under the hot sun for about 8 hours.

We tried looking for the Pinoy Dashers at Gerry's Grill again but couldn't spot anyone remotely looking like they could be DC fans so we gave up. Decided to explore the mall a lil bit more before deciding to get back to the hotel for some rest before the concert itself. Remembered that there was a hotel shuttle scheduled to come soon so we tried to see if we could catch that (and we did!).

Was surfing through the channels on the tv in the hotel room and found Starworld, which coincidentally was running an AI8 season marathon. Left it on the background and I actually managed to get about an hour's worth of sleep then. I must have been really tired. But glad I got that little bit of rest to prepare me for the rest of the night. At around 430 pm, Minzhi texted me to say that he was already at Mall of Asia with Nis and Suffree. Since we were still lying around, decided to wait til later before meeting them. We were originally supposed to meet them at 6pm anyway.

So we finally got ready and headed off to go find the 3 of them at one of the cafes in the mall. (Again, I must say, my directional skills FTW! lol) They had apparently been making signs as well and they had managed to make a sign on 3 different cards saying "S'pore Loves Cook". Pretty cute. Minzhi passed us our tickets and we were so happy cos the tickets were finally in our hands! (Long story, but there were so many problems and obstacles we had to get through just to physically collect those tickets. So it was definitely a huge relief to be able to finally have the tickets in our hands.) 12th row platinum left baby! You couldn't wipe the grins off our faces even if you tried.

We were in the venue about 2 hours early. The place was filling up but it was still mostly empty. There were a few booths selling food from the sponsors (mostly from what I can recall, McD, Fish n Co, TGIF, etc). And then Fareeza spotted the elusive Cook Merchandise booth! Got excited for awhile before realising they only brought in very few items. No hoodies, no keychains. So we settled on buying the Cook orange and grey wristbands.

We quickly found our seats and geeked out for awhile when we realised that we were closer to the stage than we thought we'd be. Fareeza and I were separated from Minzhi & Co by about 5 seats, which were occupied by Archie fans who had flown in from China. That row felt like an international row. lol. We were literally surrounded by Archie fans though and started wondering where all the Cook fans were.

But you could feel the buzz in the atmosphere. Everyone was excited. I started unrolling my poster and got a few comments from the people around me. I got a few requests from others to take pics with my poster. Haha I felt quite honoured, even if they didn't really understand what my poster meant. For the record, my poster read "I LEAVE MY LIGHTs ON WHEN TERRY IS GONE". Supposed to be a play on words of Light On and it was related to Terry's (Dave's alter ego - the asst blue light technician) blue lights and non-appearance in Manila. The plan was to stick on my blue lightsticks on the poster right before Cook's set so that the lights won't go off so fast. I hadn't tested the lightsticks beforehand so I really wasn't sure how long they'd last. I had brought around 20 with me. LOL. (yeap, crazy much?)

It was already past 8pm and the place was filling up nicely. However, no sign of Archie or Cook yet. Archie's set was already in place on the stage. Funny thing was they weren't even playing any music to set the mood. There were some sponsor ads that kept repeating on the jumbotrons but that was about it. Oh! There were fireworks! I remember the fireworks, thinking that it wasn't part of the concert experience. Since we were right next to the bay, I just thought they were having some kinda celebration outside. But apparently, it was part of the concert experience as they had the fireworks again during the intermission between Archie's and Cook's set. The fireworks were sweet, indeed. Really got people excited.

Archie finally came on stage at around 820pm and started his set with "Touch My Hand". I can't remember his entire setlist but yeah, I knew about.. 5 songs? heh. Now, I've never been a fan of Archie but I must say, that kid has got a really impressive voice. Plus, he wasn't as robotic as he was on Idol last year. His stage presence has certainly improved greatly. Fareeza and I stood for most of Archie's set. People were mostly on their feet although we could see most of the Titanium section still sitting on their seats.

There was this black tented area on stage right (which happened to be right in front of where we were seated) where the crew were milling about and watching the concert from the side. I was trying to see if Cook was there since he's been known to watch other acts during a show he's on. I thought I spotted him early on during Archie's set but Fareeza was pretty adamant that it wasn't him. lol. Anyway, we finally spotted him, during Archie's second last song, Zero Gravity. It was definitely him - could tell from the built and the blond highlights in the hair. We got so excited we were shouting "Cook! Cook!" and started looking at Minzhi and co's direction. They had apparently spotted him too and were pointing at the tent excitedly as well. But Cook is a class act as always - he never once tried to take the attention away from Archie. He was just watching Archie silently from the tent, and never once acknowledged the fact that people had spotted him.

Archie soon finished off his set with "Crush". By this point of time, there were lots of fans who had surged forward to stand against the barriers. We didn't know such things were allowed in Manila, otherwise we'd have surged forward as well. We'd also thought that maybe, the Archie fans would move back once his set were over but no they didn't. (Another theory was that they were actually Cook fans and just surged forward earlier to get better spots, lol). So we made our way to where Minzhi & co were seated to group together. I started fixing up my poster with the blue lightsticks and giving out my remaining blue lightsticks to the other Cook fans standing around. I was starting to get a little dismayed as I realised that the people standing in front of me were really tall and that I am sadly, at 1.54m, very very short. The only way I could see the stage was if I was on tiptoes. No way was I going to be on tiptoes for Cook's entire set. I hadn't paid so much money to only see the top of Cook's head. So I did something that I normally wouldn't have dared to do back home. I stood on my seat! lol. I figured I was short enough that I wouldn't cause much blocking of views behind me.

Pretty soon Cook's set was set up on stage. We saw Kyle's drums and Andy's keyboard. We saw lots of technicians and crew moving around on stage testing the equipment. At one point Declaration started playing and we started singing along. Even when they stopped playing, we continued singing along. lol. Someone started chanting "David Cook" and pretty soon the entire crowd was chanting for Cook. I think someone in Titanium shouted for Terry. haha.. Minzhi and I joined in and then looked at each and burst out laughing since we knew Terry was not going to make an appearance in Manila. (Dave had earlier in the week said that Terry gets severe motion sickness and has a fear of flying. Go figure.)

And then we saw Andy. On stage! *woooohooo* the screams started and almost everyone was on their feet. You could literally FEEL the buzz and excitement in the air. Or maybe it was just me. heh. Amidst all the screams, Cook came out from UNDER the stage. Everyone was looking for him to come out from the side or back but we weren't expecting him to rise up from under the stage like the rockstar that he is. It was mayhem. He started singing "The World I Know" and my world, as I know it, is finally complete.

Cook's setlist in Manila:

The World I Know (Collective Soul cover)
Heroes
Mr Sensitive
Declaration
Life on the Moon
Always Be My Baby (Mariah Carey cover)
Kiss on the Neck
Straight Ahead (from his indie pre-idol album "Analog Heart")
Make Me (from his pre-idol band MWK)
Avalanche
Little Lies (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Come Back to Me
Light On
Bar-ba-sol
A Daily AntheM

I've been to a few concerts, but a David Cook concert is nothing like any other concerts I've been to. We were singing along to every single song at the top of our lungs - and so were most of the people around us. I was literally, drenched in sweat from his 3rd song and that was definitely not from the weather (it was a perfect evening with a cool summer breeze). That was how intense Cook's set was. Youtube videos do not do his concerts justice. Nothing beats watching him live. To finally hear that voice live.. it was priceless. It felt kind of surreal to think that he was actually performing in the flesh right in front of me. I was in total awe. I could see his every movement. I could see Andy rocking out on his guitar and keyboard. I could see Neal doing amazing unthinkable things on his guitar. I could see Joey's kicks and wild curly hair. I could see Kyle going crazy on the drums, flinging his hair all over the place. And best of all I could see David Cook, singing his face off and rocking out on that AC Les Paul. No need for the Jumbotron - we were close enough!

Flight tickets to Manila and back - SGD340
12th row platinum tickets - SGD200
Accommodation for one night at a 5 star hotel - SGD73
Watching and experiencing a David Cook concert - priceless.

After a few songs, I was asked by the guy behind me to get down from my seat as he couldn't see. So I did. Well, guess what, then I couldn't see since the people in front of me were so tall. I figured, if he can't see, he can get up on his own seat. lol. I looked around and there were many other people standing on their seats as well so I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. So I continued to stand on my seat for the rest of Cook's set. Perfect view, btw.

The entire crowd was extremely buzzed when he announced that he was doing Always Be My Baby (ABMB). Even Suffree, the fiance who got dragged by Nis to go to this concert, was excited. haha He was actually pretty enthusiastic throughout the concert, rocking out with his lightstick and shouting and singing along to the songs. You closet Cook fan, you! ABMB live was fantastic! Almost everyone was singing along the words to the song. Plus our contingent had our synchronised blue lightsticks hand waving. lol.

At this point I must say I have the utmost respect to the other fans who have been going to various shows and recording videos. It is NOT easy to hold a camera, lightsticks AND a poster all al the same time. (Not that I always had them all at the same time, la but you get what I mean).

When he started his banter about doing a song from pre-idol, I got super excited. We weren't expecting him to do any pre-idol or MWK material in Manila, since we figured most pple would not have heard them before. But he went on to do Straight Ahead! I lovelovelove Analog Heart and it was almost the only thing I was listening to for a few months last year. So I basically know all the songs by heart anyway. Straight Ahead was awesome, live! He did this little dance (god bless his cute behind) right before the song started. hehe.. So cute!

The best part about Straight Ahead, however, was when he went down to the audience. We know that Dave likes to be upclose with his fans when he's performing, so he probably wasn't liking the huge gap between the stage and the audience. He got up on the barriers right in front of the Titanium section and started throwing his picks into the crowd. He then urged the crowd the clap along. At this point, there were all these cameras right in his face. And then he did the cutest thing ever, he started taking random cameras from the crowd and taking pictures of the crowd AND himself. The crowd went crazy at this point. lol.

He got back on stage after that and laughed at what he just did. That boy is just too cute for words. He finished up the rest of the song and then started talking about he was in a band with Neal and Andy before idol. That is always his cue to start into an MWK song. We were excited since we were not expecting them to do an MWK song in Manila. I was personally hoping for Anodyne but we got Make Me instead. I was alright with that but Anodyne would have been really really haunting. Oh well, we can't always win. Most of the crowd didn't know the song so they must have thought we were pretty hardcore to be able to sing along. "Make me fall for you, as if I've nothing else to do". lol. But it didn't matter if you don't know the song at a David Cook concert - the energy will just take you over.

Pretty soon he played Come Back to Me - but not before getting Neal to accept a girl's proposal to marry her. Neal said "OK". Neal speaks! haha.. That was an epic moment in itself. Dave then said "In light of this new union, let's celebrate the newlyweds with the next song" or something along those lines. Come Back to Me is hardly my favourite David Cook song but hearing it live, it's not that bad. Of course Dave had to be snarky and touched and gestured to his hair during the line "picture you with the winds in your hair". I was laughing so hard at that - the boy is still such a dork.

I've followed too many concerts to know that Come Back to Me usually signals that the band will soon leave the stage before coming back with their encore which usually consists of two songs. So I was prepared when the band left the stage, since I knew they were going to come back anyway. But many in the audience thought that was it so they started chanting "Cook". Some Archie fans thought the show was over and started chanting "Archie". I was just amused.

Pretty soon Cook came back on with the rest of the band and started playing Light On. I was beyond ecstatic cos I thought that meant he'd be ending the concert with Bar-ba-sol, since they'd been doing LO and BBS as the encores lately. And I freaking love BBS. One of my favourite songs off the record, cos it truly shows Cook's rock side. Before the song, Cook said "this is probably the hardest song on our record and I want to see 40,000 heads bobbing along to this song". So that's what we did! I was bopping along so much that my video ended up VERY VERY shaky. Ooops? hehe..

Anyway, the BIGGEST and BEST surprise came right after that. Now at this point, I thought the concert was over. I was happy and satisfied. But wait.. what's this? Cook was still on stage. He's saying something. "The next song is dedicated to my brother." I literally screamed my entire lungs out. OMG. He was going to do my ultimate favourite song ever - A Daily AntheM (ADAM). I had been telling everyone who would listen before the show that I hoped he'd do ADAM. I knew I was being selfish and we had little hope for it anyway since he hadn't perform it since sometime in March. But I didn't expect us to get ADAM. THAT was a bonus treat. I was overjoyed!

"Break your neck for some substance, this is temporary sanity, an exercise in vanity" Can I seriously marry Cook's vocab? I lovelovelove his lyrics. I wish his management would release more of his self-written songs as his singles instead of pushing Light On and CBTM. The public and casual fans have NO idea what Cook's music is truly like. But anyway, rant aside, ADAM live, was beyond anything I was expecting. To be able to sing along, waving my hands in the air and doing the "oooh oooh whoaaaa oooohs" with him was fantastic. He got Archie to come out towards the end of the song and Archie actually inserted his runs into the "oooh oooh whoaaaa oooohs". LOL.

And then at the end, he got the band to stop playing and it was just US, the entire crowd of (reportedly) 115,000 people singing it back to him. THAT was freaking EPIC. It was literally a magical moment, I'm not even sure how to describe it. I was overwhelmed, the people around me were overwhelmed, Cook was overwhelmed. He was so touched he ended up squatting down with his hands over his heart. 115,000 people singing back your song to you, in a country halfway around the world, I'm sure it was something he couldn't have imagined just two years ago. It was the perfect end to the perfect concert. I couldn't have asked for more.

It was at this point that we realised how dehydrated we were. Man, Cook was the one performing and singing and WE were the ones who were dehydrated? How does the man do this every night? LOL. It was hard to get out of the place, what with the crowd. Every single eatery was crowded with people and there were long queues at the cafes. The queues for the cabs were also pretty long so we ended up deciding to walk back to our hotel. (Thank goodness for our hotel's proximity!)

We were still pretty high from the concert. Whatever fever I had felt the day and morning before, it was totally gone. I felt like I could do anything at that moment. That was how happy and high I felt. We had just experienced David Cook live in concert - nothing could take that away from us. We just needed water. lol. We then realised how difficult it was to cross the Manila roads. Traffic was still crazy at 1130pm. "How were we going to get back to our hotel in one piece?", we thought. We found some Filipino families and decided to tail them when they were crossing the roads. (There were no traffic lights.) It was like an Amazing Race obstacle - try to cross the roads and make it across alive. haha.. But we did it. Found a convenience store and bought all sorts of liquids that we could find.

Dragged ourselves to our hotel room and invited Minzhi & co to crash with us for awhile. We figured it'd be easier for them to get a cab from our hotel anyway. It was then that we realised how tired we all were. Our entire bodies were aching. I was still high though. I kept replaying the videos I captured in the camera over and over again. I think I watched ADAM about 10 times that night. lol. Fareeza and I shared a bowl of instant noodles and that was probably our lunch, dinner + supper all combined into one. Yeap, food was definitely the last thing on our minds. haha..

Oh we were so sticky and sweaty as well. Going to the concert was certainly an emotional and physical workout. (I can probably lose a lot of weight if I can go to more of his concerts. lol) By the time we got settled down and cleaned up, I think it was almost 4 in the morning. We had to be up by about 6plus that morning to catch the hotel's buffet breakfast before our flight back. What did I say about the lack of sleep? Yeap. Hardly managed to catch much sleep. Sleep can definitely wait when you've just been in Cook's presence.

So that was it - our adventure in Manila. Kudos to you if you had actually managed to read this far. A little bit sad that we didn't end up meeting the man himself, but the entire experience was still definitely worth it. We lost our voices, our hearing was gone and our entire bodies were aching for the next 2 days. But still worth it. For now, just waiting patiently til he comes around to this part of the world again. THE END.