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NOTP 2011 = INNOVATIVE / SPARKLING / INSPIRING / ONE BIG PARTY !

Jan had told us before: Night of the Proms 2011 would be innovative, and it became true.

We’ll list some facts:

• a disco bar as artist
• elaborated clips and images are putting an emphasis on the visual part
• no Land Of Hope And Glory
• no real opening tune
• lots of exchanges between the artists (Div4s & Seal, Angie Stone & Mick Hucknall, Discobaar A Moeder & Angie Stone, Patrick De Smet & two volunteers, Discobaar A Moeder & Il Novecento)
• Fine Fleur is singing a capella, and full of movement.

‘De Ras’ and ‘De Schele’ of Discobaar A Moeder are delivering the mood to the Sportpaleis before the show, and end their performance with I will survive continued by the audience until both DJ’s are coming back on stage with Carl Huybrechts; Il Novecento is fading in with the Leichte Cavalerie of Franz von Suppé. That’s how the show starts.

Discobaar A Moeder is intervening often during the show, and it adds to the festive character of the show. It challenges Robert Groslot to find a match between classical and pop music, and Il Novecento and the Maestro are finding this match without a problem: this year they are on the Night of the Proms stage together for the 750th time and they never sounded more harmonic before. Artists labeled Il Novecento before as ‘rock’ and ‘funky’ but no doubt this year the label ‘soul’ is added. And this for a symphonic orchestra!

Fine Fleur is strongly present on stage, but not only for the eye. The a cappella version of Rolling in the Deep moves many, and
the artists clearly can find support at the choir. Of course, the audience knows Patrick De Smet; his collaboration with the two volunteers in The Typewriter is a nice intermezzo.

The surprise act at the premiere was Sioen. Meteor from his new CD, but mainly Cruisin’ are sounding very nice with the orchestra. He’s one of the better surprise acts that we’ve seen until now.

The classical pieces are mainly placed in the first part, in sound and vision: Jonas van Geel is expressing Mozart, and the work of Beethoven and Mozart from the movies The Shawshank Redemption, Amadeus and The King’s Speechare guided with pictures from the movies. The audience is listening and watching with passion!

But the visual parts is mainly conquering this edition. The way they reworked the new logo of the NOTP during Music of John Miles for example, is simply a masterpiece. Both the classical as the modern artists are getting their own support with light effects and images of a very high quality. Jacqueline de Carpentier has made a special collage from the images of the Lion King and the suite of Franck van der Heijden is fitting perfectly; it’s a triumph of a start of the second part with another perfect contribution of backing vocal Liv (it has to be mentioned again) and of John Miles.

When John Miles starts to sing Valerie of Amy Whinehouse quite unexpectedly, quickly followed by Div4s with their extended opera medley, it looks a bit messy. But the evening is getting better and better. And we conclude: this edition can’t be compared to any of the previous ones, it’s standing alone, but way above the others on our list.

Soul music and symphonic orchestra: the arrangements of Dominique Vanhaegenberg and Geert Keysers combine these two together. That is why even the rather unknown hit No more rain of Angie Stone speaks to the audience. And Angie, you can tell that you’re singing with pleasure! Let’s hope, ‘De Ras’ can bring her even more to dance in I wanna thank ya.

Div4s is singing beautifully and with their extended wardrobe they get quite the attention. We didn’t notice anything wrong to their performance. But except with Con Te Partiro the sopranos are always standing safe, but too far at the end of stage: get to the front, Denise, Isabella, Vittoria and Sofia, and admire the audience with its big spontaneity! Top singers but not yet entertainers.

And then there are the top artists. Mick Hucknall is acting as a real Brit: he’s standing a little bit restrained on stage, but his wonderful songs are sung loudly, even by the audience. With his typical voice, he only brings five of the world hits of Simply Red (we mainly missed Sunrise) but it’s clear that he alone would be enough as head line of the program. Fairground has a strong Brazilian rhythm but with The right thing they are bringing an even bigger hit. With that, the first part ended. Mick proves
his class in the second part with For your babies and especially Stars. Rotterdam, you will be pleased with him!

But with his strong performance, Seal makes clear that he’s numero uno in Antwerp. After the fat beat in Papa was a rolling stone he lights up the Sportpaleis with Killer . He’s skimming the catwalk, has direct contact with the fans and the
whole arena is standing up with Amazing and Crazy. This is top of the bill!

The edition 2010 we called Très grand cru. But 2011 is totally different, as if Jan & Jan used a new brand of grape for their wine. Exceptional, outstanding, or with other words: this is an edition to remember with pleasure.

Johfraël has posted 16 clips of a good quality on Youtube.

Our house photographer Bart Henseler has made all pictures.