**Thu 18 Aug 05**
MY COUSIN MiG / POSSIBLE WORK WITH BRIAN MAY
Interesting article by MiG Ayesa's cousin. It is highly possible that there will be collaboration between Brian May and MiG.
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Philippine Daily Inquirer
19 August 2005
Page A2-1
Suzette Legarda Montinola
Inquirer News Service
WHEN Mark Burnett’s new reality show “Rockstar INXS” premiered on Star World, I sat riveted in front of the TV set—awed and terrified in equal parts. I had never been a reality show fan. It was fantastically surreal for me now to be watching a career that I had followed my entire life reach yet another all-time high.
I held my breath as the airplane landed at the LA airport, and then as the 15 finalists vying to be the next front man for the rock band INXS disembarked.
When Brooke Burke welcomed them to the Hollywood Hills mansion where they would spend the next three months, the one at the head of the pack was my first cousin Miguel.
Miguel Alfonso Ramon Legarda Ayesa, now known around the world as MiG (yes, that’s with a capital G at the end, like the MiG Jet Fighter) literally followed me into the world. The joke in our family goes that, just as my mom was being wheeled out of the hospital with me in her arms, his mother Tita Uko had gone into labor and was being wheeled in. He has always referred to me as “Older Cousin Suzie.”
MiG, his brother Andrew and their parents migrated to Australia when we were 4 years old. When I look back, however, it is almost as if they never left. My lolo, Alejandro Roces Legarda and GG (for Glamorous Grandmother as she liked to be called) Ramona Hernandez Legarda, were staunch believers in keeping family and family ties together. Every school break found Andrew and Miguel on a Qantas plane bound for Manila.
This happened every Christmas and Easter. We played war games and card games. We took trips together, built playgrounds in the backyard and threw dirty socks at each other. We sang Christmas carols in the car, exploded firecrackers on New Year’s Eve and prepared lavish programs for our elders.
MiG and I were 8 years old during our very first group performance with other cousins on our grandparents’ 40th wedding anniversary. We danced to Gloria Gaynor’s current hit at the time, “I Will Survive.”
As we got older, the programs got more sophisticated. Favorites included “Greased Lightning,” “You’re The One That I Want,” and “Summer Nights.” MiG always played the lead role of Danny Zuko.
The rest of us never made it beyond my grandparents’ patio, but MiG -- it was always his passion to sing and dance. MiG always had a band. He continued to participate in school plays and musicals. For him, what started out as simple piano lessons we were all forced to take, blossomed into a life of writing, composing, recording and performing.
In 1990, he co-wrote the song “Looks Like Love,” for Martin Nievera’s album, “Time.” It was this song, in the original MiG recording (scratches and all) that we used as musical background for my brother Manolet’s wedding video 13 years later in 2003.
MiG was already famous then. He was in the Ray Ban commercial. He had a part in the Australian TV movie “Top Secret: Mission Impossible.” He constantly impressed us. We were just waiting for the rest of the world to discover him, too.
In 1991, we were 21 years old. MiG landed the role of Richie Valens in the Australian production and tour of “The Buddy Holly Story.” He quit school to take the job but he said it was worth it. The part led to an offer to play the same role in the London West End Production. There, he first performed for Queen Elizabeth. I was studying in Switzerland, and MiG and I got to spend some time together in London.
“The Buddy Holly Story” is an adrenaline-filled, lively and fun show with great music, but it wasn’t until MiG strutted on stage, singing his heart out, that the audience actually clambered up their chairs to dance and sing along. The energy was unbelievable. I was sure he would be a big star.
MiG’s career also included many parts in Broadway productions all over the world, including Angel in “Rent,” Joe Vegas in “Fame” and, of course, Danny Zuko in “Grease.” Mig was also a Brooklyn Vampire in “Queen of the Damned,” Joe King in “The Ferals,” and was beside Elle Mcpherson at the Sydney 2000 Olympics opening.
MiG last came home for a family reunion in 2001, with then girlfriend Simone de la Rue. They were married a year later and moved to London, where Mig landed the lead role of Galileo in “We Will Rock You,” a West End Production featuring the music of Queen. His performance was so powerful, that Queen’s original guitarist Brian May took an active interest in MiG’s work. The two are now collaborating on a project using MiG’s original music.
I last saw Mig and Simone in New York last October. It was a bit of a juggle with our schedules, but our grandparents always taught us there was a way to keep family together, and we had found it.
Little did we know that, six months later, he would be in the show biz capital of the world, Hollywood.
“Younger Cousin Miguel” is now one on the last eight finalists. The entire family is thrown into agony with every elimination episode. But no matter how the competition ends, trust that whenever and wherever MiG comes out to sing, his family would be dancing and rocking and cheering him on.
