NOTP Fanpage

Archive for August, 2011

Few knew Charlie Siem: first he performed two Caprices of Paganini in the middle of the arena, then he walked to the stage for the presto from The Summer of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Technically, this is not a very hard piece, but a good violin player always turns it into something special. Charlie is less of a show-off compared to David Garett but his technics are very very sharp. The rhythm is faster than normal but remains perfect to enjoy, even now.

For more than 30 seconds, Nile Rodgers only plays 3 chords on his guitar, but with an irresistible beat! While the audience is warmed up, the orchestra is falling in to the worlf-famous bass line; how I wished to be able to play on that bass! Most definitely from 3:45, when Nile takes over from the singers and starts singing “Rapper’s Delight” from Sugarhill Gang. The party on stage is so catchy that the crazy Coconuts of Kid Creole are dancing on stage at 5:00. This sounds best with the volume set to max!

After the Ouverture Willem Tell, Michael Mc Donald, dressed in black and with his white hair, climbs the stage at the left side and asks the audience for some support. The orchestra plays the intro for Sweet Freedom and Michael is taking place behind the keys. After the first chord he sings ‘No more running down the wrong road, dancing to a diff’rent drum…’, and a bit later Trevor Murell is indicating the beat on his drums. This is a very relaxing soul hit for the orchestra, specially the wind instruments, and the backing vocals. And the audience? Well, it’s impossible to stand still with this song: ‘O sweet freedom, carry me alone, we’ll keep the spirit alive on and on’ ! Michael Mc Donald only came to Antwerp; let us hope he will also bring his joy to the other NOTP shows.

	The press conference with the announcement of the complete fall program is scheduled for Friday, 9th of September 2011! Maybe (and hopefully) there will be some names announced before. But on that day, the NOTP fan is finally relieved from his misery! The German fan still has to wait for the press conference on the 13th of September in Hamburg.
	Until then, we’d like to inform you about the latest news we could gather.

In September, there will be a new DVD released. This fifth NOTP DVD will mainly contain material from the latest shows, amongst that will be Seal, Chic and Sharleen Spiteri (Texa). In Germany, the annual CD will be for sale from the first show, containing mainly recordings from before in Antwerp.

In the Electric Band, there will be a big change. Trevor Murell, for many years the sympathetic drummer, will step down but keeps involed with the Night of the Proms. At the shows in Fredrikshavn and Kiel in the spring of 2011, he was already replaced by Simon Ferry (drummer of The Urge, the band with John Miles jr.). In the fall, the drums will be played by Hans van den Hurk.

Here, you can see Hans playing the drums with Geert Keysers. The guitar player of the Electric Band remains Leendert Haaksma; in Kiel and Frederikshavn he was replaced by Tom Van Stiphout.

David Garrett, with his torn jeans, cap and shining smile, provoked lots of sound from the audience (mostly the female part) when he climed the stage. The first classical performed who, like a moden guitar player, went flat on the stage to make clear that even Monti’s Csárdás can be cool music: classic, it rocks!
David has lots of class and his contribution to the Proms went on with the combination of classical / pop, and with succes.

Sinéad O’Connor didn’t sing Troy since 1990, but Jan managed to get her to sing it. Lucky for her family, she had to practice very hard at home to get used to the inflections in this song again. It isn’t an easy song, but Sinéad performed fantastically.
It was her first song of the show and the arena was overwhelmed by it.
The pers was putting up a picture of her being someone with a difficult character but during the complete edition, she was very modest, friendly and clearly felt at ease. Calmly sits in your chair and enjoy this performance.