Fantastic Belgian times...

Excellent three concerts in Belgium at the end of last week... following our CARA award nomination for Best Classical Album last week!

Firstly Hold That Tiger! at Opwijk, where we were last at Christmas 2011.
Lots of vocal groups were paid tribute to, and a great time was had by all...
Splendid singing form the crowd in The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

Excellent view from my hotel window (tho' I did have to lean out a bit!)

More great Lion singing the next morning at St Bavo school in Gent (or Ghent, if you like).... a huge crowd sang along in both that and the flag-waving land of Hope & Glory, as we gave them a shortened version of Best of British (well, they did have to go to some lessons as well that day).
The most enthusiastic joiners-in we have ever had, but there were 500-ish of them and they are full of youthful energy!
Steve marshalled the Flemish speaking with aplomb, of course.

Then it was off to Geel for a full Best of British show... and glorious it was.

.... indeed, another beautiful Belgian city:

For both the B.O.B. shows we were joined by pianist Paul Plummer - lovely to see him again, and great he was free for us amidst his travelling musician life!

Three wonderful concerts with Sarah-Ann... great times are ahead!

Ghent (Gent)

Very splendid evening in Gent at the Capitole, a fine Christmas evening with a throng of merry people!
Joined by the wonderful Andy Massey at the piano (who was happy to put up with onstage abuse - all part of the act I assure you!), we had a wonderful time.

Lots of CDs and songbooks too flew off the selling table after the gig... hoorah - quite a few Songs of Cricket, as well as the more obvious Christmas albums...
Great that our tireless Belgian agent Thomas was there too...

Andy rose wonderfully to the challenge of See Amid the Winter's Snow (excellently arranged by Jonathan Rathbone) - I won't spoil it for those who have not seen it! - but he was great!  Chris Hatt will have a go next week...

Andy, Mike and I enjoyed a number of Christmas Leffes (and De Koninck too); when in Belgium etc...

Gent is a fine place to be just before Christmas.

5 Gents & a Lady in Ghent

Let me take some time out from watching the unravelling of the Metropolitan Police and the demise of News International to tell you of...

Ah, the delights of open air concerts in the Summer.... altho' supposedly it never rains during Gentse Feesten - when the squares of Ghent in Belgium are alive with music for some sunny Summer days...
...on Saturday, it was British Night; and our tireless Belgian agent, Thomas Van der Spiegel had both us and the ever-pink Rosie Ashe involved... all of us accompanied by also tireless Paul Knight [he of the long evening...] TLQ went first for our hour plus, then Rosie followed up with hers...
The rain was on-off-on-off as it has remained here and will continue all week, which hampered our sound checks and made it difficult for the audience, who unlike us, were not covered from the rain, in the main. There was belgian beer on hand to help the inner health, but being wet inside and out does not help being an audient.... amazingly many stayed to watch us all... [and also, the rain did in the end stop!]
British Night was a great success, and there's review to prove it [if you can speak Flemish!]... a great shame it was not quite the glorious summer night in a wonderful old city that was hoped for... but the hardy Gentmen and Gentwomen made the evening a lovely splendour.

Belgian beer [and wine and Cava too] were taken by all; as was the terrific Eurostar there and back...