MANILA, Philippines - Why do Filipinos love the Lettermen?

The American pop vocal group?s concert Thursday night at the Araneta Coliseum was its third in three years, not counting the dozens of times it has performed here since the 1970s. We figured people would get tired at some point. Easy-listening music tends to get boring in a big venue.

We were mistaken.

The Big Dome was almost full Thursday night, with a crowd that could?ve been a senior citizens? assembly, save for the few young and middle-aged?who were probably there to accompany their folks. Everyone was smiling.

The appeal of a Lettermen gig could be due to several factors. One is the timelessness of the group?s trademark three-part harmony singing, which the remaining original member, Tony Butala, has successfully preserved by hiring two of the best vocal talents he could find: Mark Preston and Donovan Tea. The trio not only showed flexibility in their high-and-low-notes interplay; they also demonstrated awesome power in solo spots.

Hearty applause

So while the elder couples swooned with smooth renditions of ?Love is a Many Splendored Thing,? ?Put Your Head on My Shoulder,? ?Shangri-La? and ?Traces of Love? in the early part of the show, there was a lot more enthusiasm and more hearty applause for: Preston?s majestic cover of ?If Ever I Would Leave You? from the musical ?Camelot?; Tea?s impeccable interpretation of ?Somewhere? from ?West Side Story? and ?Portrait of My Love?; and Butala?s jazzy Sinatra medley.

Another great feature of the show was the four-member ?Manila Horn Section? which kept the tempo of many songs alive with the sound of brass.

Still another crowd-pleasing element: the Lettermen changing near the show?s end to Barong Tagalog, to sing ?Hindi Kita Malimot? and ?Dahil Sa ?Yo.?

Snapshot march

But the part that was truly a unique facet of their performance was asking everyone who wished to have snapshots with them to line up and climb onstage. This happened, amusingly enough, as ?Graduation Day? was being sung.

If this has become the standard Lettermen act, then it was something that brought untold happiness to a lot of people at the Big Dome concert. We realized, too, that there will always be an older concert-going market eager to time-travel back to their youth.

Next: Petula

Promoter Renen de Guia, whose Ovation Productions has been at it for more than 20 years, has practically cornered this market. During intermission at Thursday?s gig, De Guia was already playing the promo video for his next show: Petula Clark.

But maybe De Guia should think twice about bringing back Pat Upton who, despite putting up a brave front, kept losing his focus, twice forgetting the lyrics. Besides, Upton?s old group, Spiral Starecase, has long disbanded.