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André Brought
Maastricht to Canada
Finally!! Our
turn!! André Rieu in CinemaLive is here in Canada!
I was unable to
join my friends in Maastricht for the 2012 concerts, but Andre delivered his hometown almost right to my door. Andre Rieu in cinema, it is not
a movie, it is not just a 2hr entertainment. In my case, it turned out to be a
company event ...
First thing
first … I bought tickets online for me and my parents for the 1st showing, then more tickets for the 2nd showing. I also
emailed my relatives and friends across Canada to inform them about Andre in our
local cinemas, and to make the event more appealing, I have good help from the
beautiful fresh-from-the-oven photos taken by fans in Maastricht, posted in The
Parlor.
To my pleasant
surprise, my boss was the first to respond to my email. He was out-of-town then,
but he found the price of the tickets “unbelievable, reasonable” (general
admission $16.95, seniors $15.95), and he kindly offered to pay for our staff to
go enjoy the show. Sorry my friends, I heard some of you had to
pay a lot more for a ticket, like Aussie’s paying AUD40?? almost 2.5 times more
at current exchange rate. But look at the bright side, because of
Blue Eyes’ popularity, Australia has a lot to offer for Aussie market, while in
Canada, we just have to patiently wait for a fire to come and spread like crazy,
so a “reasonable” price would attract more audiences, and in our case, it
certainly did!
July 25,
Wednesday
So … to get into
the Andre concert spirit, I wore my Andre T-shirt to work. Normally we only do
casual wear on Fridays, but SO WHAT I wore a T-shirt on a Wednesday, besides, AR
is a brand name and my black 30th anniversary T-shirt matched
perfectly with my black pants. If I had plaid pants on, that could be a
different story … if you know what I mean ...
As usual, there’s
not much advertising on the event, so I worried that our group of 12 would be
the majority of the audiences. I didn’t expect it to be “crowded”, but if that’s
the case, “goooood”, as it means people come for Andre, so getting to the cinema
15 minutes earlier should be fine.
We got into the
cinema around 6:45pm. My mission was to get 12 seats together, 6 in a row, so
it’s easier to share popcorns, as per my supervisor. Whow! Check that out, those
scrolling digital signage board at the door had “Andre Rieu” going round and
round and round. We walked through the door, into the dimmed auditorium.
WHOA!!! Glad we were not too late!! Some 50 people were already in their
seats for Andre-Who concert. NICE!! With my eagle eyes, I saw the
only rows we could block 6+6 seats were far far away ... the 2nd and
3rd last rows from the very top....on the other side....Go!! Attack!!
Go!! It’s a blessing my almost 84 yr-old dad and almost 80 yr-old mom managed to
walk up the stairs without handrails. We went prepared, we had bags and jackets
to block some “First come first serve” seats, so we didn’t look too ugly. Good
thing we had 3 more people arrived not long afterwards, so 6 people blocking 12
seats...think we looked very decent... When the show started, there were about
80 audiences.
The moment they
started the aerial view showing River Maas, I was quite annoyed, I thought “Oh
No! I knew it. They’re gonna miss the Grand Entry!” But instead of
starting with the concert, they showed sceneries of Maastricht (Second Waltz in
the background), and CinemaLive hostess interviewed several fans from around the
world. While I was keeping an eye on any heads popping out in the dark near the
auditorium door, I caught my friends on the big screen, including sweet Mrs. Ed
and Liz. Whewww! Almost missed the ANZACS 5 (not exactly the 5-in-a-bed ANZACS,
but there were 5 alright)! Soon we saw Andre left the Theatre steps and walked
pass Gauchos, with Pierre and Johann escorting him. One person in our group was
still not here...hmmmm. Fortunately, 11 of us were there when the 76 Trombones
started. Here he comes!! Bigger-than-life-size Andre !!!
On the big screen,
we could see clearly that the restaurants serving Andre Rieu menu were more and
more packed every year now. Sooo many audiences, I could barely find my friends,
but then suddenly I saw big faces of Richard and Linda. I’m not sure if other
friends were next to the UK couple, maybe I missed our beautiful face from
Malta, but hey, it’s not easy to see everyone when each of their faces was 8
feet wide.
During encores,
about a minute before Y Viva Espana, a guy on wheelchair was stomping his right
foot ... miracle!! Father Abraham performed 2 songs that he wrote, The Smurf song
and of course The Red Rose Cafe. I’m surprised that so many audiences still
remembered the lyrics to a cartoon song ... I mean, not just the la-la-la-la
part. Trio St. Petersburg had only one song but it was a good one.
Andre had started to do his “Go home! Bedtime!” trick and
many audiences were laughing like crazy. He didn’t say “I go drink” anymore,
maybe Boss had to be on diet and really had to behave well. It was funny enough
when we watched DVDs at home, and with the big screen and big sound, it seemed
like Andre was really shouting hard and loud “GO HOME!!!” LOVE it
when people kept saying “NO”! Now I know why Berys was able to catch such a
great fun photo of Andre in Adieu, he literally went down sidewards and paused
for a good few seconds, that was just the funniest photo.
Marina ... marina ... marina ... with fireworks almost more than what we got
for Canada Day. Super! A Happy Grand Finale!!!
Oh well...
Everything has an end. As Queen Beatrice said, “Too short”!
...the credits at the end finally scrolled out, but before we said Adieu
to each other, we still had a mission. All the females went into the women’s
room. I brought several Andre T-shirts with me and my colleagues put them on for
a photo. It was a funny scene while I pulled out all my stuff, T-shirts, scarf,
bear...from the Andre bag, plus the noises we made. A couple of
ladies seemed to be enjoying what we’re doing in the washroom, I asked “Do I
look like I’m selling merchandise here?” “Yes, you do, you do!!” We all laughed
even harder! The rest of our group, mostly men, were patiently waiting outside,
they had to anyway. While we’re taking our group photos, other
people seemed to be amazed by our Andre spirit with a variety of Andre
gear.
“When he comes to
Vancouver again, we’ll go see him”... yes, we have people converted this
evening ... they thanked me for arranging this, and we all took off
happily.
Jul 28,
Saturday:This would be the
day I could take a better look at what I’ve missed. I took a few more pics of
the cinema to get you a better idea of how they presented our Andre, not bad but
it’d be nicer if they had a Cardboard Andre as well. Today I went with my family
and a colleague from work. There were less audiences today, about 50, I think. I
had my camera ready this time for the ANZACS to appear, the pic was a bit
blurred but when I saw the pic afterwards...OMG! How could I have missed our
Royal Queen Bee the first time, and Mrs. Ed made her appearance again with Kiwi
Kathy. I also saw Mr. Don’t-know-what-to-call-him-anymore security guard just
before the 76 Trombones (again, the name has its story from my previous
reports). And I confirmed that the one sitting next to The Oswicks was indeed
Anna, except Anna appeared to be just about 6 feet wide and not 8, as she’s a
bit further away from the camera.
After the concert,
we took pics and again, we drew some attention with our Andre gear.
There was a group of enthusiastic fans who wondered where I got those
T-shirts from, and while we chat, one lady said she’s from Limburg. I told them
I’d be writing up something for a fans website, and asked if they’re interested
to take a picture together and I’d include it. Next thing she said “I’m from
Maastricht”. “WHAT??? Well ladies, you’re definitely going into the picture.”
Wasn’t it amazing that we could meet up with some strangers just like that?? And
took a nice picture we can treasure for a long time? Hello Brigitte from
Maastricht, if you’re reading this and found our group photos, congratulations,
you have just discovered the most popular Andre’s English speaking fans website.
And again, it was soooo nice meeting you.
Well folks, are
you all doing okay??
This thing is getting lengthy again,
but hope you’ve
enjoyed reading it,
and I hope to see Andre and my friends again in
2013!
Adieu!!!