Third Time's a Charm for Archuleta

David Archuleta has indeed placed one foot over the other, allowing nothing to break his stride towards success. Despite facing a few setbacks in the past few months, including news about his departure from Jive/Sony, he has remained resilient, reminding his fans that there's no need to worry. His constant positive outlook and persistence allowed him the opportunity to tour Asia. Not many artists get to tour such a large part of the world, which makes this a very big step in his music career.

David dropped by the Philippines for the third time during his Asian tour on July 18 to perform in his very own concert at the Araneta Coliseum (mostly famous for Ali's "Thrilla in Manila" fight). Opening his concert was GMA talent Julie Anne San Jose. She was personally chosen by David to front his concert. She wowed the audience with her big voice, performing songs from Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Paramore and Nicki Minaj. After Julie Anne's opening performances, there was quite a long intermission. The audience was clearly ecstatic, as they were constantly screaming even when David wasn't even on the stage yet.

David finally stomps on the stage with one of his songs entitled, Stomping the Roses. The audience just goes crazy, as he performs the song with full energy. He has indeed shown a lot of growth and improvement since American Idol. He is clearly more confident and less hesitant when he performs. He then performs many other songs from both his debut and sophomore albums with the same amount of energy. Songs like A Little Too Not Over You, Something 'Bout Love and Crush garnered a lot of audience participation, as these songs soared the charts in the Philippines.

David, of course, had to perform a few of his favorite songs. He did an excellent cover of the Tears for Fears hit, Everybody Wants to Rule The World, which was met with loud cheers from the much older fans. He also sang Daniel Bedingfield's, Gotta Get Through This, brilliantly adding some Message In A Bottle into the performance. On the piano, he performed one of his all time favorite songs, A Thousand Miles, which he said reminded him of his mother. He stumbled on a couple of chords on the piano, smiling nervously in the process, but eventually recovered to finish the performance with a bang. He also performed Ben E. King's classic, Stand By Me, which he notably performed on American Idol, mashing some of Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls into the song.

David also performed some new songs that were never heard of yet. He mentioned that they were part of the rerelease of the Asian edition of his album, Other Side of Down. The songs, for future reference, were called Love Don't Hate and Everything and More. Although almost entirely unknown to the audience, the songs were met with very loud cheers. These songs were clearly going to be hits, at least in the Philippines.

David ended his set with an energy filled performance of beat driven single, Zero Gravity, which was greeted with a lot of audience participation and singing. After the performance, the crowed yelled desperately for an encore. After a few minutes, David got back on the stage and said that he would sing a couple more songs. The crowd just went wild. He performed his popular cover of Heaven by Bryan Adams, which he did on American Idol during the earlier audition rounds. As mentioned, he also performed his very first single, Crush, as his last number for the concert.

It is very clear that David still has a lot of star quality in him. He may have been overshadowed in the United States by the likes of Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and other similar artists, but he is still a leading light in Asia, specifically in the Philippines. The Philippines just loves this guy. He should seriously consider moving to the Philippines and start a mega music career over here.

David's next stop in his Asian tour is Vietnam, after which he makes a stopover in Malaysia.