Yesterday night’s performance by Sebastian Tan was great.

In the same way Emma Yong and Pam Oei had their own little song recitals at the Esplanade Recital Studio in the last few years, Sebastian Tan staged his own show over the last two nights as a follow-up to last February’s Broadway Beng (which I didn’t go for).

I didn’t go for Broadway Beng back in February last year because I didn’t know anything about Sebastian Tan at that time.

But after seeing him in the minor comedic role in Forbidden City (together with Hossan Leong), and after seeing him carry off the lead role commendably in Jack and the Bean-Sprout, I decided that I knew enough about his talent to go catch him doing his own show.

Just Sebastian was a short little performance of about 60 minutes, and it was basically Sebastian singing some of his favourite songs…songs which he grew up with, and songs which he likes till this very day.

The performance was held at the Esplanade Recital Studio, which is a very small, cosy, intimate setting with just a baby grand and the mike.

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The Gang’s All Here

Notably present at the studio that night were Sebastian’s fellow theatre luminaries, sitting at their usual area (i.e. the back row nearest to the entrance).

They were there probably as a show of support to Sebastian.

I recognized people like Selena Tan, Emma Yong (I think that was her), Robin Goh, and Chua En Lai.

They were quite a hoot, and were definitely the most vocal section of the audience that night.

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Elaine Chan

The accompanying pianist for the night was Elaine Chan, my favourite pianist/keyboardist/composer in the local theatre scene!

I’ve been a big fan of Elaine’s works since 2003 when I heard her original compositions for the Christmas pantomime Cinderellah!. 

Some of the songs in that production are fantastic! (I have the CD.)

Elaine Chan has been very involved in many of W!ld Rice’s musical productions over the years.

She’s not only a great composer, she’s also a fantastic pianist.

And she seems like a very nice person too.

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But anyway, back to Sebastian.

He sang a variety of familiar hit songs, in English, Mandarin and even Hokkien (cos he’s the Broadway Beng after all!).

He sang a Teresa Teng medley, a Beatles medley (as an encore), some Hokkien tunes, Dick Lee’s Single In Singapore (from the musical Beauty World), Dick Lee’s Bunga Sayang, Rick Price’s Heaven Knows, Quando Quando (this one he asked Elaine to sing lead), and a few others which I can’t remember anymore.

Sebastian’s got a really good voice, which is best suited for slow-tempo, soothing ballads.

That’s where he excels at.

He did a few jazz numbers too, but they didn’t really come off that well because you need to be a bit stronger in the lower range and have that little bit of snarly growl in order to pull it off…which he didn’t really have.

But he was really good with the oldies, the Teresa Teng numbers and the like though.

His voice is a discernably trained one, and is a natural fit for the musical theatre stage. 

It’s not overtly strong a la Michael Crawford or Michael Ball, but neither is it thin.

There is a hint of a pleasant, soothing vibrato in that high tenor(?) voice of his.

Granted, his voice didn’t really soar at the required parts in terms of volume (you feel like it’s a few decibels lower than the ideal).

But overall, I would say he’s competent stage singer, and the one most striking quality about his singing is that it comes across as being earnest.

That you’ve got to give it to him.

He sings with earnest.

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So overall, I left the studio very pleased with the performance.

Thanks to the theatre gang’s instigation, the audience managed to drag Sebastian back for a total of 3 encores (2 of which he obviously didn’t prepare for).

So it was a wicked good time.