Yellow Submarine
I’ve seen Kasim at The Ahoy in Rotterdam on two previous tours but the arena seemed smaller than I remembered it. It’s an oval shape so maybe they blocked off more of the seats for the large choir and orchestra. The crowd are segregated as they enter the arena with two separate doors for the ground floor (standing) and the seated balconies. It was almost sold out so when first got in there, it was packed but then I realised that we all enter on the left side so the right side was relatively empty. I wandered across and it was great as there was loads of space - people even had room to waltz during one track!
The first half was the same as always but Martin Fry’s stage presence has improved a lot IMO since the beginning of the tour so he received a better reaction. John Miles always brings the house down with his Music (Was My First Love). People are given hand held lights at the venue so the hall always lights are with those during that song! Actually I feel quite victimised about those lights as looking around me tonight probably one in five people was given a light. To date, I’ve been to all but one of the concerts on this tour and I’ve never been given one of the lights - maybe I don’t look as though I know how to work one!!!
At the front of the orchestra there is one violinist who is absolutely hilarious - I always spend a lot of time particularly watching him! (We nicknamed him Charles II because of his long wavy hair.) He’s the one who always starts the sitting and standing of the orchestra and in one track he literally jumps in the air off his seat in time to the music! Thankfully tonight the guy who used to sit next to him in Belgium is back again too as they make a great pair.
Chris de Burgh’s set went down well again but he still is yet to hit all the notes in Lady In Red. He sings the chorus (badly) the first time around and then cleverly gets the audience to sing all the high notes in it the second and third times! He ran into the crowd again during High Emotion and got some people to sing some of those words. At the end of his set he always grabs conductor’s spare baton and then dramatically falls on his back to finish!
We had the same guy compeering as in Belgium (Carl Huybrechts) so we sang Michael Row The Boat Ashore again. I’m not sure if they were special guests or whether they were a listed act but in the second half a Dutch group of three girls and three boys came on - they were like a Dutch version of Hearsay, SClub7 or any other of those numerous groups that are popular at the moment.
Meat Loaf’s set went down a storm tonight! There was some discussion on the NOTP official website after his concerts in Germany that it was too theatrical, too long and not suitable for NOTP but the Dutch loved it! Apparently his set lasted 38 minutes the first night and, according to German radio, it was 44 minutes on Sunday night. As I’ve been asked, I timed it tonight and it was 43 and a half minutes long (at least that was how long Kasim was on stage!). As tonight was the first of twelve shows over twelve nights, there is some concern about Meat Loaf’s voice but he sounded very solid tonight and didn’t hold anything back as he held onto some notes for a looooong time! He also did his rolling somersault on stage during Paradise so he must have been feeling in a good mood!
The hall was ablaze with lights during Home By Now / No Matter What and Kasim’s vocals sounded particularly good tonight in that song. You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth was longer than normal tonight as Meat extended the clapping part - most of the crowd were already clapping before the band had even started! They all went berserk at the start of Anything For Love and were clapping really loudly so that Meat indicated for them to be quieter so that he could do his silly refusing to sing twice part at the beginning of the song!
Although I would prefer Bat Out Of Hell (not that I’m expecting to hear it on this tour now!), Paradise By The Dashboard Light brought the house down again tonight! We had the long intro at the start with Meat Loaf highlighting Laurie Wisefield, John Miceli, John Miles and then Mark Alexander. There is always so much activity to watch on stage during that song! As well as what Meat is up to and watching Kasim moving all around the stage, the choir never stop all the choreographed movements throughout the whole song, plus now even the conductor , Robert Groslot, conducts the orchestra into swaying one way and then the other and sometimes all standing until the next part of the music! It’s a great presentation!
At the beginning of Paradise, Kasim had meandered around to the left side of the stage (the audience were all around the stage so he was making them feel part of it as they would have often only seen their back view) and then Meat Loaf went across there too. They were both walking backwards or sideways at one point and bumped into each other! Meat Loaf then got Kasim to help him put his ear pieces back in as the cord was twisted (obviously the Musical Director has to do the dirty jobs at times!) but Kasim obviously didn’t do it correctly as later Meat went over to Pearl for her to sort it out!
When they got to the part when the crowd sings the word “light”, I actually thought that they didn’t sing it that badly but, of course, it wasn’t good enough for Meat Loaf so he started to walk off stage and indicated for all the orchestra to join him too! From the floor, I couldn’t see if Kasim was sitting and standing with the orchestra tonight.
Yellow Submarine was great as always tonight! When Meat Loaf is introduced, he always runs across the stage and then comes back slapping everybody’s hand (I think Americans call it a High Five?), I’ve noticed that for the last few of shows a couple of the orchestra have joined the line-up but tonight even more joined in and with all of the Dutch group there too, it took him quite a while for him to complete it!
At one point in the song, Meat Loaf pushed Kasim to the front of the stage and dragged across Chris de Burgh and had his arms around them both which would have made a great photo if only my camera wasn’t 70 miles away!
Roll on tomorrow night…..!
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