A Night Of The Proms concert is an incredible moving experience! Apparently it was tried once in UK but us British being too reserved, it didn't take off. However the Belgians REALLY get into it all! It's amazing to watch!

As soon as we got into the massive 15,000 venue, there was already a large crowd who occassionally would start chanting or singing. Some people were dressed up - there was one group of people all in brown sack cloths and another in red clothes, while two people were dressed like Snoopy! Other people had flags!

Promptly at 8.20 the 50 voice choir came on stage and sat at the back. Although they are all young people they were really well rehearsed and immediately started leading the crowd into a Mexican wave and movements with their hand held lights! In fact throughout the whole show the choir were moving in synchronicity. They all had headsets to give them more room to move.

At 8.25 the 72 piece orchestra came on stage. Unlike the UK orchestra for our Promenade concerts (which are purely classical music) some of the members of this orchestra really got into it and were bopping up and down in time to the music. The percussion guy was hilarious as during one tune (that everybody but me knew!) he kept running from his place at the back of the orchestra to the front with a mallet and counting people into singing “ohhhh”! His facial expressions were great!

The concert tonight was a total sell-out and it was packed! We were standing but when we first got there, we just stood at the side until the twenty minute interval when we made our way into the middle. Although we were only a couple of rows from the front, I couldn’t take many photos of Kasim as there was constantly a camera in front of him!

The set list for the concert was different and better tonight as it flowed more. They put Martin Fry (of ABC) on earlier as he really wasn’t a great hit either last night or tonight. Fortunately though he must have realised how great Kasim looked in his suit last night so he wore a white shirt and black suit instead of his awful gold coloured suit!

All through the evening a guy, who I think is called Carl Huybrechts, kept coming on stage and getting the audience to sing verses of Michael Row The Boat Ashore, but thankfully not as many times tonight as last night! He was the compere of the concert.

Tonight they moved John Miles into a later slot which worked well as he reversed his set list to sing ELO’s Mr Blue Sky and then his hit Music (Was My First Love). That sounds so great with a full orchestra.

Probably the biggest hit of the first half of the show was a Belgian guy called Marco Borsato - he really went down a storm! He sang three songs (that I assume are his hits) and almost everybody was clapping and jumping up and down in time to them!

The second half was too heavy on the classical music for my liking, but we did have the treble dose of Kasim which compensated for it!

Again Bonnie Tyler was announced as the special surprise guest and she came on singing Total Eclipse Of The Heart. Kasim had previously moved to sit with the rest of the Electric Band between the orchestra and the choir and when she started to sing It’s a Heartache, he stood and played the acoustic guitar in it!

Kasim then left the stage while there were two (long!) classical tunes before he returned with Meat Loaf, Patti Russo, Mark Alexander, John Miceli and Pearl Aday. The set list was (disappointingly) the same as yesterday but the arrangements were slightly different which it made it flow better.

They started with Home By Now / No Matter What but they didn’t start it too well as Mark started too early so he stopped and Kasim was counting him in but Meat then started too early too which totally threw the orchestra and made the conductor turn around quite sharply!

Next they sang You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth but tonight they didn’t have the Red Rose speech. Also Meat didn’t accuse someone in the audience of not singing (as he did last night) but instead all the band came to the front of the stage and did the clapping part (which was just as well as a lot of people in the crowd weren’t clapping in time!). I liked that part!

Next they went straight into Anything For Love before disappointingly opting for Paradise By The Dashboard Light again instead of Bat Out Of Hell. Tonight they kept Paradise flowing more rather than too many theatricals.

After they left the stage we all sang the marvellous Land Of Hope And Glory before everybody came back to sing Yellow Submarine again. Most of the stars of the concert sing a verse each but for some reason Meat doesn’t but Mark and Patti do instead (even though Mark didn’t sing during the set itself tonight).

Two concerts down, forty one to go!

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