‘ME AND MY GUITAR’ Ruel returns to Manila to thrill Filipino fans anew

By Patrick V. Miguel

Indeed, it is enough as his Filipino fans waited years for this. Ruel shared that he had a wide following of Filipino fans, particularly on Facebook which he noticed one time. “I never used Facebook in the past 3 years but everytime someone texted me and was like there’s so many on Facebook from the Philippines,” he said.

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Ruel performed at the Grand Venice Canal last Saturday, February 18, prior to the release of his upcoming album “4th Wall.”

Reflecting on his last concert in the Philippines, Ruel shared, “It was an incredible experience and it’s such a strong memory.”

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According to him, he was excited to be back and could not wait to do a “proper show.”

With his performance at the Grand Venice Canal, Ruel happily enthused, “It’s just acoustic. It’s just me and my guitar and all the people, and I think that is enough.”

Ruel also expressed his gratitude the first time he came to Manila and saw his fans waiting for him at the airport. He narrated, “At the airport there’s a bunch of people waiting at the first Manila show and that was really cool to see everyone again and yeah, I’ve been chatting with them a little bit.”

Before his show at the Grand Venice Canal, Ruel was asked what he expects to happen at the show. He candidly shared, “It’s just me and my acoustic guitar and just trying my best to not forget any chords cause I’m not a great guitarist.”

“I’ll give it my best shot but yeah, it’s fun doing the guitar and you can just play whatever you want, so I’m excited,” the now-20 year old singer-songwriter added.

Breaking the ‘4th Wall’

“4th Wall” is Ruel’s upcoming and long-awaited album, eyeing for a release on March 3 this year.

He is initially known for his 2019 song “Painkiller” with 265 million streams on Spotify as of writing, and this time, he is ready to release new hits with “4th Wall.”

Ruel shared that “4th Wall” was inspired by films, particularly ones that broke the “fourth wall” such as The Truman Show (1998) and Fight Club (1999).

“Those two (films) are like ones that really inspired the album and those two kinda show my whole visual idea of the album,” he said.

Asked on the hardest part of finishing the album, Ruel revealed that it was in fact “finishing it.”

“It was just hard to get everything in place and to make sure everything felt like it was the right thing to do and to think that the music is great,” he explained.

He added, “I still wanna make it to portray where I wanna go next musically and what it looks like.”

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang