As we arrived (deliberately) only just at the beginning of the concert, we stood to one side of the mass of swaying humanity for the first half but even so we were still involved with some dancers there. There’s one song where the crowd start singing and swaying - in Germany, the people hardly moved and rarely sung but in Belgium, everyone immediately starts swaying and most people sing too! Also, although it was crowded, some people still found spaces and danced the waltz to one tune!

Patrick de Smeet donned his red hat again for Jingle Bells before the venue was dazzled by Martin Fry’s gold lame suit! The next big “name” is usually John Miles but tonight the compere announced that there was a “surprise guest” and it was Rob Di Nise! Although he hails from Holland, he’s obviously popular in Belgium too and most people seemed to know both his songs. His first one is a catchy number with a addictive rift (I’ve even heard it on the radio over here a few times too) and then he sang Malle Babbe. (I understand that the orchestra heard a far better version of that song a few weeks ago!) The more times I hear it, the more I’m amazed at Kasim singing it phonetically! I just wish that there was a recording of him!

I wasn’t too sure if Michael Borsato would be playing these concert but thankfully they started playing his intro! Although I don’t have a clue what he’s singing, his music is really uplifting with a great beat! Most people sing along to his third song and I so wish I could join in too. I’m really glad that he’s back at these concerts!

John Miles was moved back to the second half of the show and tonight for the third round of his lyrics, when the orchestra stood, a few of the violinists (lead by Charles II) really clustered around his piano!

As Kasim and the band walk on stage for the beginning of Home By Now, the stage is lit in twilight zone lights so most people don’t actually realise that Meat Loaf is on stage until he sits on his stool at the front of the stage. Tonight for some reason, Patti didn’t come on stage with the others so when she arrived a couple of minutes later, Kasim jokingly looked at his watch!

I think my main complaint about Meat Loaf’s set would be that to me he seems to rush through You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth and Anything For Love in order to get to Paradise By The Dashboard Light. He’s now playing for about 45 minutes a night which I appreciate is longer than he was originally supposed to play for but I would prefer to hear the other songs for longer rather than a 25 minute Paradise!

That said, part of the reason for the long song is that Meat Loaf will let Laurie Wisefield take centre stage for quite a while. Laurie is an extremely talented guitarist (IMO more talented than Pat Thrall and Damon La Scott combined) and he makes the most incredible sounds emit from the strings. However (and I KNOW I’m totally biased) at this point in the set, if you watch Kasim, he is also doing some amazing string-work! That’s definitely an understated part of the show!

The second Bremen concert marked the conductor Robert Groslot’s 250th NOTP concert (the orchestra played Happy Birthday to him that night) so since then, when Meat Loaf gets the crowd to sing the word “Light” he tells us that this is Robert’s 252nd concert and he didn’t conduct 252 NOTP concerts to hear us sing like that!

Although it’s all theatrics which I don’t really like, Meat Loaf is actually quite amusing at the end of Paradise as he resorts to sticking his tongue out at Patti! It doesn’t sound much but seeing a 54 year old man do that does look really funny!

Each night I’m still amazed at the length of the line to slap hands with Meat Loaf! As soon as Michael Borsato was announced, half the orchestra had downed their instruments and were heading for the front of the stage to wait for Meat! Anyone would think that Meat Loaf was passing out five pound notes as he went along! It was also at that point that it became apparent to us that the reason that they switched the “special guest” to the first half of the show must have been that Rob Di Nise (of “he doesn’t do rehearsals” notoriety) had to be elsewhere as he didn’t appear for the finale! Poor old Martin Fry has to hang around dazzling all he meets in his gold lame suit for three hours but Rob Di Nise can’t just wait one hour - there must have been something really good on Belgium TV tonight!

Kasim was at the far left of the line of “stars” tonight so he hopped up on the piano again (thankfully Chris de Burgh wasn’t around!). He then actually lay down across the piano too (reminiscent of the Red Rose Speech on the StoryTellers Tour!). Thankfully he got off the piano before it disappeared into the floor again!

Roll on Tuesday night…..!

This was the first time that I got to see the entire show without having to worry about concentrating on getting any (hopefully good!) photos or being in the way of other photographers or even possibly annoying the artists onstage (OK, so no one else worries about these things but I do! Hey, it was weird being allowed to be as close to the stage as possible, even right up against it, not a lot of venues allow that), so I was able to observe more of the show and even partake in the audience festivities.

We arrived just in time for the start. We stayed to the side, near the middle, which was fine as it meant you could see everyone and everything onstage, when no one was blocking your view.

First artist up, Martin Fry, and I thought I was prepared for this sight, but I guess no images or descriptions can truly relay just how this is in person, but there he was coming out onto the stage in the gold lame' (it's actually gold sequin like items on it) suit tonight! Oh lordy, I have seen artists wearing shiny suits and such, heck Kasim even used to wear one at one point (and he had looked good in his, and I'm not just saying that!), but gazing at their suits would not cause temporary blindness, as this one does! Ack! It caught the overused and excessive Proms lights and reflected them far better then any disco ball ever could. It was scary!

One thing about the audience, the Antwerp crowd is bigger in size and rowdier as well. Even though we were standing on the side and not directly in the middle of the crowd just yet, almost every minute of the show we would be caught up in all of the dancing going on around us, and either joined in happily or joined in because we had no other choice! It was such a blast!! Once we got in the middle of the crowd near the front, later in the show, it was definitely harder to move, let alone dance, but people still managed. Smushed and I was still having a great time -- this show really is a lot of fun, more then I could ever describe!

Rob Di Nise was next. The crowd liked him, and that was fun (since I couldn't understand him!), but he seemed, to me at least, like he'd rather be anywhere but at the show. When he sang the Malle Babbe song, that Kasim covered for him during rehearsals, wow, that really blew me away; all those funky (to me!) words and Kasim actually nailed it! Lordy, Kasim still manages to amaze me even after all these years in so many ways. I was listening pretty well, and he has slow verses, and the words then are enunciated really well and slow, but in a way that anyone unfamiliar with the language would possibly get tongue tied, and I thought THAT was the hard part to the song, until he sped up and sang really really fast; unreal that Kasim could manage such a task on his first try so well (or so he's let us believe! Haa; I'm kidding!)! Oh, Rob had a shiny suit on too, but it wasn't a bad one, it wasn't blinding. Also, he looked almost like Michael Des Barre, if anyone even knows who he is -- it was almost his twin on some angles.

Marco Borsato was next and the audience just went nuts during his set; this was a dancing, singing, jumping and arm waving crowd, and I even joined in for all of it (I joined in before a lot but not like this)! I really like not worrying about how silly I might look or if anyone I know might see me -- no one (well ok not exactly, but those two lovies don't count in this instance!) knows me here, so I can mellow out and be "me" a bit more then I normally am at shows and such! It's so nice, as I don't normally let myself do that very often! Anyway, I couldn't understand Marco but his songs sounded great nonetheless.

John Miles came on after the break instead of before. His set went quite well, and Charles the violinist joined him again near the end but John stayed seated this time.

Next up, Meat and the gang! Set list was the same but some different things happened during the set, like with the orchestra and Meat and Patti and such. Kasim still isn't getting a much deserved solo during Paradise; Mark gets one, the amazing Laurie Wisefield gets one, even John is still getting drum solos, but no solo bass spots -- no fair! I think it's because Kasim is so good at playing his guitar, he would outshine the star; ok probably not the reason, but you never know! Pearl got a lot of exposure time on the video screens, but it was also nice to see that the K man finally got a close up shot too (it's either usually Meat, Patti or Pearl that get shown)! I know it's silly to most, but I always am so happy to see him get some sort of radio exposure, or time on TV, as maybe it's like some sort of recognition of him, for everything he does do, professionally (I wish he could get even more recognition). Kasim moved around the stage a lot (I didn't get to see this last night), and did pick an orchestra member to mess with, but I didn't see that far into the orchestra crowd, so I don't know what exactly he was doing. Whatever it was, must have been fun, as he was a few seconds late in cuing the sound guy for the Paradise play by play!

I do have to say that Patti really tolerates a lot of punishment from Meat during Paradise; at one point he does this Lambada like dance on her front, her side and then her backside as well (it was actually somewhat funny, but at the same time a definite "ewww!", to me), and the whole time she just stands there with a straight face! I really don't know how she does it!

Soon enough Meat's set was finished, and they were introducing the artists. I do have a little pet peeve about this -- for Meat Loaf and Patti, et. al. to come out on stage, it's the intro "Meat Loaf and Band" - but then the announcer also immediately says Patti's and Pearl's names and none of the guys! Hey, they bust their butts too, they could at least have their first names read as well! Anyway, for Yellow Submarine, the artists got decidedly more goofy. Kasim was laying on the piano like a lounge singer, but I noticed that what seemed to get him immediately off of it, was John was starting to go behind him set to do something to him it seemed (actually, it looked like he was aiming to goose his tushy ;) ! )! Meat danced with Miss Belgium (I'm not sure who she was exactly, but she was wearing a sash)and then somehow Kasim wound up on that side of the stage and took her for spin too. All the while, Patti, Mark, John and Pearl are acting silly in their usual spots. No high kicks or other odd scenarios this evening, but it was a lot more silly then the prior night's singing of the song, and I liked that. All too soon we made our way out into the bitter cold and on our way. It was a wonderful evening, and I can't wait until Tuesday!

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