Together with our Flemish friends Gemma and Nand, my husband Ruud and I visited the last Andre Rieu concert of the year in HASSELT, Belgium. For the fans who did not know yet: Belgium is our neighbor country south of the border, where two (actually three) languages are spoken, the northern part speaks Flemish that is almost like Dutch, the southern part speaks French (and a small area in the east speaks German). The town of Hasselt is close to Maastricht, the home town of our Maestro, so he likes to finish the concerts nearby, before taking a Christmas break, and starting again on New Years Day in Cologne (Germany), also close to Maastricht.

From The Hague (Den Haag) it is a two hours drive to Gemma and Nand’s home in Belgium. Together we went to the Ethias Arena in Hasselt, another one hour drive. (Of course we had a nice dinner in a restaurant at the wonderfully lit market square in the center of Hasselt, before visiting the concert!). We had seats in the 2^nd row in front of the stage. Before the start of the concert, we met Franco Vulcano and the other Italian guy (Luca??) sitting in the first row, chatting to the service ladies and to us. Half an hour before the start of the concert they went behind the screens to get dressed in their JSO suit!

We missed Mireille Brepols, but Glenn Falize was there. In the choir we missed Nicolle Steins and Celine Saleh, but to our big surprise Carla Maffioletti and Suzan Erens were there!! Carla sang "Juliska aus Budapest" and Suzan sang "I belong to me". She was wearing her beautiful Sisi dress and the stars woven in her long hairs. We missed Lin Jong, but her husband Ruud Merx was there. Frederic Jenniges was funny as always. I wondered: Should he really crack his fingers every day so loud?? Isn’t that injuring his articulations? Isn’t that bad for playing the zither??

We knew that the snow would fall down during the White Christmas song (and we brought a little umbrella), but the snow curtain was falling just behind us, to the 5^th and 6^th row…..

Manoe Konings played the pipes with "Old Lang Syne". Always impressive!! To my opinion the Hasselt audience is not so enthusiastic, they did not react in a warm way. They just started to warm up a little with the encores.

During the encores, in front of the stage (Gemma en me started to be the only two, later on came more people), we met two French fans: Nadia and Françoise, who were in Vienna in July and who intend to come to Brussels in March and to Maastricht in July 2007. They told me they had visited both concerts in Hasselt and yesterday the audience was even worse….. The Ethias Arena in Hasselt was filled with 6.000 people yesterday and 10.000 today.

So I don’t like to go to Hasselt again, next time I prefer the New Years celebration in Cologne!! (Ticket sales already started for New Years Day 2008!!!)

To avoid the traffic jam at the end of the concert, we went to the buses, hoping to be able to wish Andre and some JSO members a relaxed Christmas break. We were four, plus another senior couple, that made six persons, waiting at the stage door. A security person told us not to ask for signatures and he rolled out a red/white police tape between the door and the bus entrance to protect Andre against 6 very peaceful and quiet waiting senior fans….. Thank God we kept our humor for it was really laughable! Every other JSO member that passed by waved and we said: Hello, goodbye, Merry Christmas, have a good time, or something like that. Just nice and normal! When Andre and Pierre appeared, Andre gave us photos with his usual silver colored signature, we had not even asked about that!

The bus left, we waved.

We spent the night at Gemma and Nand’s home. Wonderful friends thanks to Andre! Next day we returned home to celebrate Christmas with our family.