I don’t use the word perfection often, but what I witnessed on this night, was perfection. We were invited down to the OVO Hydro in Glasgow and took our seats. Bang on 7:30pm the lights dimmed and it began. I wasn’t sure what we had signed ourselves up as the venue filled with ‘Entry of The Gladiators’. Out came our musical magicians from the back of the crowd. Andre Rieu leading the pack and his Johann Strauss Orchestra marching right behind him. The men all done up in tailcoats, and the women looking much like Disney duchesses in their vibrant princess ball gowns.
Now that all 60 members are on stage, they begin filling the room with smooth sounds of strings, crashing clashes of cymbals and bursting blows of brass. A few songs in and you can tell the enjoyment the band have when they’re together. In-between songs there would be Andre Rieu poking fun at the latecomers in the crowd frantically trying to find their seats even putting them on the big screen for concertgoers to chuckle at. Funny it may have been but as soon as the professor started playing, you sat in silence, and class was in session.
Stillness in the crowd, the idyllic sounds filled the air with renditions of ‘Nessun Dorma’ from The Platin Tenors, and a delicate performance of ‘Das Kleine Glöckchen’ from the orchestra’s four percussionists on the glockenspiel. The one that blew me and everyone else away was by 16 year old Emma Kok, with her version of ‘Voilà’. The whole night I was sat there thinking how they can produce they kind of sounds from their voices.
The four percussionists of the orchestra bagged themselves the front of the stage when they started playing ‘Circus Renz’ which required four xylophones. The piece gradually gets faster and faster and going back to the humour aspect of the gig, all four xylophones start to smoke during the end of the song from their thunderous hands thrashing away at the wooden blocks.
Another hysterical point in the night, was before they played ‘España cañí’ Andre Rieu would look around the audience and pinpoint anyone wearing red clothing. He spots a lady wearing a red dress in the crowd, he then says it should be alright. It was not alright. A bull comes skipping out from the back of the arena and being quite pleasant to the crowd, until the bull spots the lady in red. He darts towards the lady in which the woman hops out her seat and sprints round the arena.
A special part of the night was when Andre Rieu started playing ‘The Second Waltz’, the crowd stood up, the orchestra began, and everybody partnered up. It was like the puppeteers were talking, and the puppets were listening, resulting in swaying with each other.
During the final pieces of the night, we were treated to a version of Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’. Whilst the emotional tune played, the room filled with bouncing stars from the crowd’s phones dancing on your eyes. When that finished playing I could guarantee everyone had teared up a little bit.
The night finished off by Andre Rieu insisting it was his last song of the night, the crowd wanted more. Rieu gave them more, with songs such as ‘I Will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor and Opus’ ‘Live is Life’. And so, with the crowd definitely well fed with sound and visuals, the concert came to a close.
All photos by Evan McGill