Church Charity Concert

Last Saturday I attended a charity concert at the River of Life Christian Church in Santa Clara. A couple of friends, Tiffany and Andrew, were part of the performance and invited Mike, Lisa, and me to attend.

Dinner

Before the concert I had dinner at Red Robin. I arrived at around 6:10pm. When I arrived there were empty tables and the waiting area was cleared quickly as customers arrived. Lisa and Mike arrived after 15 minutes and in that time the waiting area became completely packed and the hostess/host had started a waiting list. Luckily the hostess remembered that I had arrived before the waiting list started and she put us at a higher priority. We were seated quite quickly within a couple of minutes.

I tried the Burnin' Love Burger but it wasn't very spicy at all. I guess the fried jalapeno peppers were mild that day.

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The service was a bit slow so we had to rush to the concert but arrived in time. There were still many people streaming in after we found our seats.

Concert

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The two main singers were SiEn/Vanessa and Samuel Tai. I've been told that Samuel was very popular in the early 1990s. He also is my friend's cousin's cousin's cousin.

The ushers handed out glow sticks and people occasionally used them now and then during the concert. I think the atmosphere was pretty tame since the venue was a church but there was some audience interaction. During one of Samuel's songs a guy suddenly went up to the stage and gave him some flowers. Samuel gave him a small hug on stage while continuing to sing and later commented that he gave the hug because it was the first time he received flowers from a guy. Later during a transition between songs a few girls yelled that they loved him and Samuel replied by saying he loved them too, even though he didn't know where they sat. We were treated not only to a concert but also an impromptu stand-up show as well! For one song SiEn convinced the audience to join her party by standing up and dancing and singing with her. I think everybody enjoyed the concert.

In the following photo Samuel and SiEn are the two on the right. I think the girl in the purple dress is a member of the church and she sang during the concert as well.

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Tiffany was on percussion and her hands were red and a bit swollen from all the banging on the drums. She's the one in the front:

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Andrew was playing drums but unfortunately we couldn't see Andrew performing from our vantage point. After the concert we met up with Tiffany and Andrew. We got to go 'backstage' and Lisa took pictures with Samuel and SiEn.

Here are a couple of videos that I found on YouTube:





I also found SiEn's blog.