Along with Liza Bautista Diño-Seguerra, Ice’s wife, they welcomed us to a post-concert lunch, with all the staff, family, friends and some artists who joined Ice in his concert. It was an intimate setting that caught us by surprise, it initially felt like we were outsiders. Even with the exhaustion from the concert and their hectic schedules, Ice’s face still glowed; a glow that could only come from a successful concert.
“We’re just so happy,” Ice and Liza said when asked about how they are after the concert. The four of us settled on our seats, and the pair started the chronicle of the birthing pains of the concert in Cebu.
Days before the Cebu schedule, Ice revealed that he lost his voice. Completely. “A week before, I completely lost my voice” Ice said, followed by a light laugh. From a concert in Manila on Feb. 10, Ice and Liza flew back to Cebu, and then flew back to Manila on the 14th for a concert, and then back to Cebu on the 15th for the Waterfront concert.
At one point, one of them thought, that ‘oh, maybe we have to reschedule,’ when their ticket sales did not really pick up early on their release day.
“From a producer’s perspective, it’s worrying. Oh my, God, we have already been open since January,” Liz shared. Ice added that he felt like there was a disconnect, seeing the people who would go to the fan meets, but the ticket sales were not really reflecting it at that time.
It was only three days before the concert date that the ticket sales started to pick up. Anxiety and doubt weighed heavily in Ice’s and Liza’s mind, leading both of them to a point where they had to ask: Maybe it’s not yet a good time?
“After ten years, it’s the first time I’m doing another concert here, I asked: ‘Love, is this a sign?’ Maybe we should postpone, to give people more time…” Ice shares, along with Liza, the points where they became paranoid, thinking of all the possible reasons why the ticket sales weren’t really picking up.
All their doubts were dispelled in the end.
Ice sang, and the people of Cebu were mesmerized on the concert night. The ballroom was filled. People cried, laughed, and shared the nostalgia as Ice went through the years of his career, the highs and all the lows, from the time he was dancing as a child star, to the days when he felt like he no longer had a place on the stage, to the journey he made that led him to the Ice that he is today.
Throughout the conversation, something stood out to us; Liza and Ice—together, were just warm. Sometimes they would finish each other’s sentences, and it felt like we were seeing two perfectly synced gears just moving the way it’s supposed to move.
Perhaps this is what made them click; Liza being the structure of support to Ice as an artist, and Ice completing all the gaps between them. Admittedly, directing and being the artist of your own concert is not a walk in the park, and throughout the journey, Ice always had Liza to carry the load with him.
Being able to do the “Becoming Ice” concert was not just another concert for Ice — it was his chance of telling—or retelling, his story the way he wanted to tell it—not the way someone else recalls it.
“I’m just telling you my story. If you get something out of it, then I’d be very happy. If nothing, at least you still get to enjoy the show. This concert is very personal to me, it’s my story, and how these challenges have helped me, and actually molded me to become better,” Ice shared.
He also saw it as an avenue to sing along with local musicians, when Jerika Teodoriko and Oh! Caraga joined him onstage at the encore of his concert.
Before becoming Ice, were doubts; he lost his voice and almost postponed everything. At the end of the day, the Cebuanos were there to live through the stages of Ice’s life story; and in Liza’s words—“we delivered.”
Ice is set to have another leg of concerts in Davao City on April 28, still on becoming Ice and sharing his story to his fans, and the world.