APO HIKING SOCIETY- Take Two in Toronto!

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August 10, 2004.  Unlike their April 17, 2004 Toronto concert at the International Center where they performed to a capacity crowd of close to 3,000 screaming and applauding fans to kick-off "The APO Strikes Again Spring Concert Tour!", the Apo Hiking Society's  comeback show last Saturday at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto (dubbed "Balik Saya") was performed in front of a lot of empty seats prompting band member Danny Javier to comment at the beginning of the show:

"Saan pa naman kayo hahanap ng concert na pwede pa kayong mahiga at humila-hilata?" (Where can you find a concert like this where you can even lie and lounge comfortably down?).

The second Toronto concert was not in the original plan. It was hastily arranged and finalized by the organizers of the Philippine Independence Day Council (PIDC) of Toronto about a month ago while the Apo were cooling off their heels in Manila after their grueling Spring Concert Tour that lasted for 74 days and took 26 plane rides to 13 different cities in the United States and Canada.  Buoyed by the success of the April 17 concert, the PIDC worked out a last minute concert for the Apo as an added attraction to their "Mabuhay Philippines! Toronto Summer Festival" that was held in a venue adjacent to the Ricoh Coliseum. Because of the short amount of time to promote the concert, a lot of Apo fans in Toronto were not aware of the return engagement. A last minute publicity blitz in the local community newspapers came too little, too late as most Torontonians by then had their much coveted summer week-ends booked for something else.

The choice of a 10,000 capacity hockey arena as the concert venue turned off some potential concert ticket buyers fearing that they could end up with a seat that would need a binocular. As it turned out, only half of the arena was used for the concert in a horseshoe layout. The stage was in the middle of the arena. Holders of the priciest ticket were seated in the floor level facing the stage while those who bought tickets in the upper and lower stands were sitting on either sides of the stage, most of them on a side view angle to the stage. Seats on the center of the lower stand which have better view of the stage were empty. As soon as the concert started, people sitting in the upper stands came down in droves and occupied those empty seats thereby giving them a frontal view of the stage to the disgust of the people holding more expensive tickets but facing a sideway view (and a possible stiff neck!).

Despite the disappointing turnout and a not so great venue for a concert, the versatile trio still gave their best and lived up with their pre-concert promise to the people of Toronto of an even more memorable concert. People in the audience who watched their April concert were not disappointed because the Apo performed an entirely new sets of gimmicks, concepts and songs. A Swedish-born friend of mine who saw a concert of Apo in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia eighteen years ago, drove 500 kilometers from Montreal with his Filipina wife in order to see the concert. He said he didn't understand 90% of the jokes because they were spoken in Tagalog but he still had a good time and found the long drive, the hotel bill and the cost of the tickets all worthwhile.

Accompanied by a five-piece band that they brought with them from the Philippines, the trio performed most of their classic hits interspersed with jokes and gimmicks on a non-stop two and a half hour performance that kept the audience on their feet, laughing, singing along or simply mesmerized and teary eyed especially when the group performed their hit song "Batang Bata" (Too Young) against a backdrop of a photo slideshow of Apo's children.

"Batang Bata" is a song that band member Jim Paredes composed twenty-five years ago when his wife gave birth to their first child, Erica. Last June 7, 2004 while the Apo was performing in Miami, Florida, Erica gave birth to a baby girl in the Philippines. Jim wrote in his web blog that day:

"Ha ha ha! Hee Hee Hee! Whooooooo!! Yipeee!!!! Heeeeeeeyaaaaaaaw! Doo doo doo, a-dah dah dah! Forgive my limited command of the English language right now but the right, smart lines to express this momentous occasion in our lives truly escape me as I write. I can't tell you what a mind-blowing, earth shaking, paradigm shifting thing it is to have an apo (grandchild). I AM A LOLO (grandpa)!!!! Listen, world! I wanna make sure you got that!".

Jim then shared the good news to his Miami audience that night before they performed the song "Batang Bata" to a thundering applause.

Their jokes were hilarious and Boboy Garrovillo, the third member of the group,  took the brunt of most of them being the shortest among the three. Danny told the audience that for a singing group to survive long in show business, they must have a gimmick.

"Maswerte kami dahil meron kaming unano (We are lucky because we have a midget in the group)," Danny told the audience, while gesturing towards Boboy.

Some of the jokes dealt with the "hippie" years of the 70's and the young generation in the audience (whom Jim referred to as the Generation X during the concert) didn't quickly comprehend why the trio were speaking in slow motion while narrating their quest for a singing group to pattern their style with when they were just starting. Their parents had to tell their inquiring children that was how people high on drugs talk during '70's.

The trio started their singing career with a bunch of their classmates at the Ateneo de Manila High School (AMHS).  They were then called "Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society", using the same acronym of their high school.

"We put 'Hiking' since Apolinario Mabini was a paralytic," Jim wrote.  "It had a 'double take' effect on people. It was our way of being irreverent in a tongue-in-cheek way. It was also a rebellion against the other singing groups that had serious anglo-sounding names."

"During the martial law, we dropped 'Mabini' since we were getting letters from the government to change the name. The fans eventually cut it down to APO Hiking Society. Now, I prefer to be just called APO."

That the group has been performing together for over three decades is evident in their present day  rendition of the hit song "Pumapatak ang Ulan (The Rain is Falling)".  The original lyrics of that song -  "at kung meron kang tatawagan, trenta sentimos ika'y makakaltasan! (and if you need to call someone over a pay phone, it'll cost 30 centavos)" - had to be changed because it now costs 500 centavos for such call. The new lyrics thus went: "at kung meron kang tatawagan, phone cards na lang ang makakaltasan (and if you need to call someone over a pay phone, you'll need a phone card)".

After the show, Jim, Danny and Boboy went out of the coliseum to sign autographs and pose for pictures with their adoring fans. They flew back home to Manila the following day.

The Apo plans to return to North America next February on a limited run. They are also planning to tour Europe and the Middle East this coming November and December with stints in Amsterdam, Rome, Milan, Vienna, London, Dubai and possibly Geneva and Zurich. Jim is excited with this forthcoming tour, especially the Dubai visit. He wrote in his web blog: "It's an Arab country that's quite liberal, but still exotic. With all the travel we will be doing this year, we can be classified as real OCWs (Overseas Contract Workers)!"

The official homepage of the Apo Hiking Society can be found at: http://www.apohikingsociety.org

Jim Paredes' web blogs can be viewed at: http://www.haringliwanag.pansitan.net/

To read the transcript of the author's October 27, 1996 Chat Interview with Jim and Boboy, go to: http://ww.newsflash.org/chat/apochat01.htm