Yellow Submarine
Martin Fry had obviously been to his separate storage facility for his suits too as he wore his shiny turquoise suit for only the second time on this tour - the words “bad” and “taste” come to mind!
Tonight John Miles seemed to receive an even bigger round of applause than normal, plus there appeared to be more handheld lights than usual (despite getting there on time, I STILL didn’t get one!).
The orchestra are getting more and more playful as the tour winds down! As well as all the leaping around, a couple of the guys on the double basses have taken to wearing bright yellow wigs and head banging in parts of Meat Loaf’s set! There’s also one guy who dresses up in Arab type headgear and conducts parts of the orchestra to stand during Albert W. Kietelbey’s In A Persian Market! In the finale he had changed into a Superman T-shirt!
Michael Borsato was on in the first half tonight and really ends that section with a bang! He mainly just walks to and fro across the stage (and encourages the crowd to clap and “springer”) but his songs are so great that nobody really notices! Not that he can be heard too clearly over the crowd singing along but I do feel sorry for his sound guy as for part of his set he’ll hold his microphone by his mouth and other times It’ll be by his chest!
Of course the second half was the better half for me as Kasim Sulton made three appearances on stage! From where I was sitting, I could see that he and Bonnie Tyler had a brief chat on the stairs leading to the stage before he made his way to sit with The Electric Band. The crowd clapped to It’s A Heartache (Kasim stands for that track) and most of them stood too.
After just a one song break, Kasim was back again for No Matter What / Home By Now! Have I ever mentioned how great Kasim’s vocals sound in that song?!!
After You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth, they sang Anything For Love which it seemed that most of the crowd joined in with too. Unfortunately Meat Loaf doesn’t sing it exactly as the recorded version so often the audience singers would be ahead of him!
The second half of their 43 minute set was Paradise By The Dashboard Light! As usual Meat Loaf spotlighted Laurie Wisefield’s amazing guitar playing and then Mark Alexander on the piano. Of course we didn’t sing the word “Light” loud enough so it was mass walkout time again with Kasim even getting as far as the stairs off the stage! Meat Loaf came back and we sang it again but tonight when he sang the words before it, he hit the note spot on so he did a little dance! While Meat Loaf was asking all the audience if we were ready to sing, Kasim sat at the piano for a minute or so and then played a couple of notes quietly on it!
As they did last night, they went straight into the baseball commentary part so Kasim didn’t have as long as he used to in the orchestra but now he tends to stay back a while once Patti starts singing (but he still gets to his microphone before he’s due to sing).
After just a one song break, Kasim was back again for Yellow Submarine. There was one guy in a blue shirt who appeared to join the orchestra on violin just for that song and I noticed Kasim go over to him and turn the music the right way up!
Roll on tomorrow night…..!
Tonight I was a good distance back from the stage. I wasn’t able to make out the faces of the people onstage too easily, but I thought it was still just as amazing a show as what I’ve seen prior.
Martin Fry brought out a new suit, it was new to me at least. I can only describe the color as fluorescent/bright turquoise. I didn’t need the video monitors to spot where he was onstage! This suit was a quirky one though, it was the bright turquoise in person, but on the monitors it actually looked like a really nice light/bright blue suit - no one else’s clothes did this, but Martin’s did! “That’s a horse of a different color!”
I SWEAR I saw the back of Bonnie’s head again backstage before she came on several minutes later. Maybe it’s the woman’s choice in blonde hair color, but I don’t know why I was spotting her so easily. She sounded a little different to me tonight then prior, but I think it also might have been due to the location of where I was seated. She did wow the crowd however.
Marco Borsato had the same effect on the crowd, as he always has, and so did Meat, Kasim and the gang. Those two sets are the one’s that really get the crowd going, at least in Antwerp. Meat and Patti have stopped the play acting in Paradise, right before the play by play part of the song, but it seems to still be just as long a song as its been! There’s one thing I’ve noticed more and more now that I’ve gotten to see this show a few times. The backing vocals for Meat’s songs are very well done. During Home By Now, Kasim, Patti and Pearl really harmonize so well, and Kasim also seems to be getting some extra backing vocals to Meat at certain spots in all of the songs.
I’m not exactly sure what happened during Yellow Submarine (couldn’t see it well and the cameras don’t show everything), but I do know that one of the orchestra came out with a wig and googly eyeglasses and bopped around the stage a bit. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. This is the last show I get to view as a member of the real audience; I’m going to miss being a part of all of the fun!
Back to Kasim Sulton at Night Of The Proms