Hot new pop star gives Filipino fans a Chance

Greyson Chance PHOTO BY JUDE BAUTISTA

American teenage pop star Greyson Chance endeared himself more to his Filipino fans when he turned up wearing a jacket with the Philippine flag pinned to the  back at his concert Sunday night at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Chance is the 14-year-old singer-songwriter TV host Ellen DeGeneres signed up as the first artist on her record label, after watching his video on YouTube and inviting him to guest on her show.

Although Chance is said to pin on his back the flag of each country he goes to in his current tour, his manager, Staci Yamano, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the artist considers Asia, particularly the Philippines, special. “He wants to work with local bands because he knows there are a lot of talented musicians here.”

Incidentally, the remixed version of his debut single, “Waiting Outside the Lines,” features a duet with US-based Filipino singer Charice.

At the Big Dome concert, Chance was brimming with energy and personified the consummate musician—earnestly reaching out to the audience from all sides of the stage, running and jumping to the beat of his songs, and accompanying himself on the piano on several numbers, including the tune that led to his discovery on YouTube, Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi.”

Most of his songs reflected his age and concerns. “Unfriend You,” for instance, apparently refers to a falling out between a couple who met on Facebook, the speaker sending out a distressed message: “So it’s over/Yeah we’re through/So I’mma unfriend you/You’re the best liar I ever knew.”

Wholesome

Chance has such a wholesome disposition it doesn’t look like he has been going through rough times of any sort. And the way he sang his other songs including “Heart Like Stone,” “Light Up the Dark” and “Little London Girl,” it was obvious  he was having the time of his life onstage.

“I want to be recognized as a musician,” he told the Inquirer in an e-mail interview a few days before the concert. “Many people tend to look at young artists as just ‘figureheads.’ My goal is to show people that I am a real musician. Songwriting is the most important thing to me.”

That’s what makes him tick. Good looks aside, he is poised to stay for a long time in the music biz because he writes his own songs. He may still need the assistance of cowriters and other collaborators at this phase of his budding career, but it was obvious at the concert that he has been learning a lot.

Midway through the show, Chance sat on top of the piano and, with guitarist Hayden Robert Maringer on acoustic, did a faster country version of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” The result was refreshing and very different from the tiresome note-for-note renditions often heard on local TV and clubs.

Baller color

Though it was not clear if  Chance’s young fans appreciated it, the kids were so enamored of the singer’s every move, it seemed that every little thing he did had an enormous bearing on their lives.

“Oh my God!” gasped one ecstatic girl in the front row, “His baller (bracelet) is the same color as mine!”

The crowd at courtside went nuts each time Chance waved at them.

Chance singing “Waiting Outside the Lines” was pure joy to them, the tune sounding like the perfect pop hit for starry-eyed girls to swoon to.

But perhaps the more serious music enthusiasts thought Chance had the makings of a future rock star. In due time, he could be another Elton John or Billy Joel.

At one point, he went up to drummer Jamal Moore and banged along on the cymbals. Not content, Chance proceeded to stand on the bass drum, as if provoking Moore to go for broke and hit the skins with all his might.

Originally posted: April 23, 2012 | 3:07 pm