David Blaine in Manila: 6 unforgettable moments

“This is a show with no smoke and mirrors, no boxes or strings.” That’s how David Blaine, world-renowned magician, illusionist and endurance artist, began his show in Manila, the final stop in his world tour dubbed Real or Magic?  

Here are 8 unforgettable moments from the show:

Want more David Blaine? View all the photos from his show here.

1. Fire and water

He started by drinking a glass of water. Then another glass. Then he drank a liter of bottled water. Then another one. And another one.  “There’s actually such a thing as overhydration,” he said, well aware of the irony in his words and his actions.

Next, he took a swig from a glass filled with petroleum hydrocarbon (basically gasoline), blew into a lighter and set fire to a standee with his symbol (a double ace of spades).

He then regurgitated the water he just drank and used it to douse the flames, like a human fire extinguisher. You have to wonder how long it took to train himself to do this trick, and if he’s risking any permanent physiological damage by consciously, er, throwing up liquids he already ingested.

2. Card tricks

David Blaine is well known for his card tricks performed in close contact with people, often in the streets. In fact, earlier in his visit, he performed for residents of a depressed community in Quezon City – view the pictures here. He also did several card tricks while doing media guestings prior to the show. 

For his first card trick, he asked an audience member to sign a card she picked out of a seemingly regular deck. David asked her to show the card to the audience and put it back in the middle of the deck. 

No matter where she put it though, the signed card always managed to end up on top of the deck. Cameras zoomed in on the stunned spectator, eliciting laughs, but many in the audience couldn’t figure out how the magician pulled off the trick, even if he tried to explain it by saying it’s all just “an optical illusion.”

In a variation, David asked another audience member to join him onstage and pick out 10 random cards. He made her count the cards one by one out loud just to be sure. 

He then moved away, made her place all the cards on her chest and asked her to pick out a random audience member to call out a random number. The second spectator yelled out three. Flipping the rest of the deck in his hand, David said three cards were added to the ten in the girl’s hand. True enough, when she counted them again, she had 13 cards.

He repeated the trick, this time with two random audience members calling out the numbers five and two. In the end, the girl magically ended up with an additional 10 cards, all while holding them close to her heart.

3. A puzzler

David’s next trick was a puzzler, literally. There was a glass box filled with 2,000 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He asked an audience member to mix up the pieces, sift through it and pick out six puzzle pieces. 

He made a show out of making sure that even though the puzzle pieces kind of looked the same, they were all completely different. He even asked the volunteer to hold up the pieces to the camera for everyone else to see.

Next he asked her to pick just three from the six and asked her again to make sure that all three were very different from each other. She said they were. Finally he asked her to pick just one puzzle piece. 

After she settled on her choice, they walked to one side of the stage where they unveiled a separate version of the puzzle, this one assembled and framed. It was a map of the world, and it was missing one piece.

The gasps and screams of disbelief reverberated throughout the Big Dome when the audience member placed the piece in her hand – what everyone thought was completely random, picked out from the 2,000 pieces in the glass box – in the puzzle, completing it. A nice touch was that it was a piece of the Philippines, the last stop in David’s world tour.

4. Ice pick trick 

David’s next trick was not for the squeamish. He brought up a family of three onstage—mom, dad and daughter—and made them hold up an ice pick with the handle partly sawed off to show off to the rest of the audience. 

He said it was to make sure that the ice pick was real. “You’ve seen this trick before and you can tell that the pointed part just retracts into the handle, and that’s just BS,” David said. The first part was an amusement part trick where he slammed his hand into two of three paper cup towers, one of which hid the ice pick with the pointy end up, making some in the audience involuntarily squeal in nervousness.

Next he took out the ice pick and made the daughter hold it up. He then asked her to stick the ice pick into his palm, literally stabbing him until it seemed to tear through his skin and flesh. 

However, no blood gushed out.

He asked the daughter to keep driving the ice pick further into his palm until audiences could see it almost poking out the other end, a mound of flesh and skin visible where the pointed end would have been. And just to show that it was real, he placed his hand palm up, with the ice pick sticking out, pointy end attached to his skin. It was enough to make you wonder if the guy was even human.

5. David’s colleagues perform

David took a break and asked three of his colleagues to perform for his audience. One performed a routine that showed off incredible agility and dexterity, moving and twisting his body in time to music that made it seem like he didn’t have bones or joints.

The next performed a humorous routine involving strings of ropes and torn-off newspapers. And the last guy, who was also the emcee, performed tricks that impressed the audience, including a few that showed off his skills in solving a Rubik’s Cube.

While they were all entertaining, many in the audience couldn’t wait to get more of David Blaine. Apparently, he was backstage preparing for the night’s biggest act.

6. The record-breaking finale

David’s big finale involved holding his breath…for a while. There was a tank of water, complete with swimming fish, at the back of the Coliseum. With barely any theatrics, just a brief reintroduction by the emcee, the illusionist lowered himself into the tank and the time commenced.

The host asked everyone in the audience to play along, to hold our breaths just to see how we could keep up with David.

I tried it and tapped out just one minute and 16 seconds into the challenge. At about the 5-minute mark, a girl took the plunge and joined David in the tank, but she barely lasted a few seconds. 

“Ang galing naman niya!” (He’s so great!) I heard someone behind me say as David passed the 7-minute mark. The host explained that the magician ended each of the legs of his tour with a breath hold, but instead of becoming easier, it was actually becoming harder as David had to contend with fatigue and jetlag. 

The record on the current tour was about nine minutes, so everyone cheered when David passed it. Finally David surfaced and the clock stopped at 10 minutes and 29 seconds. The host said it was a new tour record. Over 10 minutes underwater? Think about that and see how long YOU could your breath. 

After the show, David took to Twitter to thank his fans, and wrapping up his visit to the Philippines, headed to General Santos to visit boxing champ Manny Pacquiao. 

Were you at the show? Tell us your favorite bit in the comments below. – Rappler.com