Marco Borsato received an amazing reception again tonight (probably even more so than Bonnie Tyler) - I’m sure that Chris de Burgh won’t get the same reaction in Holland. He sings three songs; his new single Binnen (which means Inside), Ik Leef Niet Meer Voor Jou and Dromen Zijn Bedrog and almost everybody (even the stuffy corporate area) sings along!

Actually the British are quite heavily featured in this concert too with both John Miles and Martin Fry from England and Carl Jenkins from Wales, plus again tonight we had Bonnie Tyler from Wales as well! She received a warm welcome with most people singing along to both her songs. Kasim sat through Total Eclipse Of The Heart 9as he doesn’t play it) but stood (in a spotlight!) during It’s A Heartache. He plays acoustic guitar and was wearing a black suit with a black matching shirt tonight.

Just one tune off stage and then usually Kasim leads the band out for Meat Loaf’s set but tonight for some reason he stopped to speak to the guys on the sound board and then Meat Loaf joined in too.

Meat Loaf totally messed up the beginning of Home By Now tonight but thankfully Kasim saved the day!! Meat Loaf missed the first line totally and only picked up when to sing when Kasim started singing it for him!! As he said on a few occasions on the StoryTellers tour that it’s his third favourite song, I’m surprised that Kasim knows it better than he does! Thankfully he got back on track and the rest of the set went well! And I know I’ve mentioned it several times before but Kasim’s vocals come across SO strongly in that song!!

From the first NOTP concert on 26th October, they’ve really speeded up You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth so it flows far better now. The first night they had the Red Rose speech, then there were a few concerts of Meat Loaf ad libbing a lot but now it’s almost straight into the strong clapping part (which unfortunately means it allows Meat Loaf longer to play around in Paradise). Tonight Kasim, Patti and Pearl sang a few “It must have been while you were kissing me”s while clapping and then just did the clapping (with the choir continuing the singing) but I noticed that both Patti and Pearl were watching Kasim for when he stopped singing so that they knew when to stop (Kasim’s microphone is sideways onto the stage).

Anything For Love was as strong as ever tonight and, as usual, the crowd went wild as the Paradise By The Dashboard Light intro was played. Predictably Meat Loaf’s play acting with Patti Russo during that song seems to be getting longer and longer each night. It was while he was prancing around tonight that it really dawned on me that it’s such a waste that Kasim has to just stand there and play guitar when I think he should be the one that’s centre stage…..roll on his 2002 solo tour!

After the stirring “community singing” of Land Of Hope And Glory (why is it that all the people who sing flat, always sing so loud?!!), Kasim was back on the stage again (tonight he accepted a bouquet of flowers!) for Yellow Submarine. Thankfully Kasim was given a microphone again tonight so he joined in the descant part with Marco Borsato and one of the background singers which sounded wonderful!

Roll on tomorrow night…..!

Back to Kasim Sulton at Night Of The Proms