Raymond L.

 A wise man once wrote (or in this case, a wise woman by the name of Odette Quesada): With all my friends behind me, how can I go wrong this time?

I was pretty nervous all the months leading up to my concert last November 23. No wait, I think you deserve full disclosure: I had butterflies partying in my stomach for a whole year! Hahaha. 

Just Got Lucky was, after all, not just my 40th anniversary concert, but my first major concert in Manila in what feels like forever.

My mind battled thoughts like: Would people come? Could I hold an audience as the main artist in a big theater after such a long time? Then I realized all the less than positive thoughts that were weighing me down were selfish because they were about me. 

What really helped me calm my nerves was going back to my core objective for the show, which by God's grace, became my mindset: 'This concert isn't about you, Raymond,' I told myself over and over. 'It's about saying thank you to the audiences who've listened to you for 40 years and making them as happy as possible.' And whether 20, or 200, or 2000 people showed up, that's what I was going to do.

I also made it my prayer that people would somehow see, through the show, what a great God we have. And that they'd hear Him in every note I sang.

And God is truly good! The minute I stepped on stage, I saw a theater filled with beautiful, smiling faces looking back at me and I knew everything would be alright because it wasn't my concert. It was His!

Then as I turned to one section of the audience, there they were. Their faces beaming with love and support. My dear friends for life, the Bagets. Aga Muhlach and his lovely wife Charlene, Herbert Bautista, looking sharp in a suit, lovely ladies Eula Valdes, Yayo Aguila, and Chesca Laurel, who haven't aged a bit, and my brother from another mother Monching Gutierrez, with Boss Vic Del Rosario of Viva Films, no less.

You know you're good friends with people when, even if you don't see each other for a while, the next time you do feels like you were together just yesterday. And that's the kind of beautiful friendship we share. A friendship for the ages!

And these friends of mine were a rowdy bunch that night, applauding like crazy, screaming I love you, and cheering me on from beginning to end, which the rest of the audience loved because, they were the Bagets after all, in the flesh and in the house!

And when it was time for me to sing Just Got Lucky, I just HAD to have them on stage with me. They didn't know I was going to call them up but they gamely joined me. Herbert jumped from the foot of the stage all the way to the other side. Aga grabbed a mic to sing with me as all the others danced the very same dance steps we used to do on TV. What a sight! There we were again, reunited on stage after 40 years!

Thank you, my dear friends for life, for being there for me, and for making the audience really happy that night. 40 years of me also means 40 years of us—The Bagets!

So going back to the very wise Odette Quesada and the lyrics she wrote 40 years ago: With all my friends behind me, how can I go wrong this time?  

Odette, my friend, you couldn't have been more right! 

Photos by Jorem and Sheila Catilo