British-Canadian singer-songwriter Matt Maltese held his first-ever concert in Manila last Monday, May 22 at the Samsung Hall, SM Aura Premier.
Filipino fans gathered early at the Samsung Hall in excitement to see Matt perform. The concert began with a set performance by Irish-Filipino singer-songwriter ANDREAH.
ANDREAH performed some of her own songs, which included “So Far Away,” and “I Just Miss You,” which is part of the original soundtrack of the popular Filipino series ‘He’s Into Her.’
Fans were not able to contain their emotion after Matt and his band walked onto the stage. Matt opened the concert with a piano tune, playing “Good Morning,” the opener to his 2021 album Good Morning It’s Now Tomorrow.
He then introduced his “handsome” band members Jacob (Drums) and Damian (Bass) before singing the bittersweet song,”Rom-Com Gone Wrong”, from the 2019 album, Krystal.
Matt ecstatically told a funny story about the time he was on an airplane, trying to record a song beside an old woman, whilst trying not to be loud, then sang “Curl Up & Die” and “You Deserve an Oscar.”
The crowd began to cheer loudly as he introduced the next song, which he shared to be about a funny and sad conversation he had with his mother, before singing the first single, “Mother,” from his latest album, Driving Just To Drive.
He also sang “Madhouse” and Bad Contestant’s “Like a Fish” and “Strange Time.”
As a concert tradition, they also performed a Bossa Nova version of “Strange Time.”
People then became elated when he performed “Everyone Adores You (At Least I Do),” and Matt made the crowd sing along when he sang the lyrics “At Least I Do”. This was followed by “Smile in the Face of the Devil”, “Less and Less”, and “Krystal”.
Matt asked the crowd to play a game where he shared three crazy stories about Damian, asking everyone to guess which of those were true, where he answered that all of them were, making the crowd chuckle.
They performed “Florence,” “Studio 6,” and the highly-requested “Little Person,” which they don’t usually perform at concerts, but did so at the time due to popular demand.
Towards the end of the concert, he described the next song to be about the “two times he’s been in a nightclub,” before singing “Nightclub Love.”
Matt ended the concert with the last song on the set being his biggest hit, “As The World Caves In”, before thanking the crowd, bowing with the band members, and leaving the stage.
The crowd shouted and cheered for an encore, which prompted Matt to return onstage to sing one last song, “When You Wash Your Hair.”