PERFORMING LIVE IN THE PHILIPPINES: What Was The First Show Like?

This was it. All five of us were on a plane from Cebu to “The City of Friendly People”, Dumaguete, Negros. Tylan and Sumner were nervously chatting about how happy they were to be back in the Philippines. Every now and again, Connor would add his input to the conversation. While Davis listened to his music and tried to take his mind off of his growing anxiety, Jake tossed and turned in his seat, desperately trying to get comfortable and get a quick nap. In a few hours, the Hey Joe Show would be performing their first live performance in front of a Filipino audience. What would we say? What would we do? Would anyone even show up? Only time would tell.

The decision to return to the Philippines was an easy one for us. Since we all started the Hey Joe Show, we knew that we wanted to go back to the land that we loved and be back amongst the Filipino people. When the time came for us to go back in April, we could hardly believe that our dream was coming true.

After 18 hours of travel, we had made it to the Philippines. We all grabbed our things and made it to our hotel just in time to get a few hours of sleep. After getting hardly three hours of sleep, we prepared for the day and got ready for our interview with Rated K. As we discussed with our interviewer the reasons for starting Hey Joe Show and our goals for the future, each of us were overcome with love for every single one of our fans. No matter how tired we were; no matter how many things that we had on our mind, we were going to give our fans the best show possible.

After one last huddle and a quick prayer for help and good luck, we made our way into the mall. We never could have expected what we saw: From behind the stage, we could see thousands of screaming fans calling our names and giving us big smiles. With the assistance of the security officers, we made our way through the crowd and into a small waiting room behind the stage as the emcee announced our arrival. Our hearts were beating out of our chests. The plans that we had made for a smooth show were totally forgotten as we ran out on to the stage and tried to match the crazy energy that was being given to us by our fans. Honestly, the whole night was a blur. It seemed like someone had hit the fast-forward button on our lives because before we knew it, the show had ended, our fans had all gone home, and we were back in our hotel room, excitedly chatting about everything that had taken place.

Was our performance perfect? No, far from it. Had we been expecting anything even close to the crowd that turned up that night in Dumaguete? Not even close. That was one of the most incredible, unexpected, most terrific surprises that any of us had ever received. To this day, each of us talk about it from time to time and laugh.

We have learned a lot since that first show. As the tour went on, we learned a little bit more about managing the crowds and how to best interact with our fans. We learned how to handle unexpected things on stage. Most of all, though, we learned about how much we wanted to keep on doing shows and to keep on having fun with you all. Our 2015 tour wasn’t nearly long enough and it left us wanting more. So, this year, the Hey Joe Show is working on our second tour to the Philippines. Hopefully this year, we will be able to bring an even better show to even more cities and meet even more of our fans. As long as cities are willing to host us, we will do everything we can to get there.

If you attended one of our shows last year, thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, we cant thank you enough for your love and support. If you weren’t able to make it out last year, be on the lookout updates about our 2016 tour! It’ll be a party.

All our love,
Connor, Davis, Jake, Tylan, and Sumner

---

Take A Glimpse At Our Last Tour...