Day 3: Sunday 13th July 25: André Rieu’s concert in Maastricht
We had upgraded our ticket to be in the centre block at the back of the square, in C2.
It was only when we were given our tickets did we realise that we were on the front row of the block, result!
To get into the square we had to go through a ticket check and a security check. I had decided not to bring my full frame camera but to bring my much smaller camera couple to an old EF-S 55-200mm lens. This was because I wasn’t sure about bringing in a big camera and an equally large zoom lens..
About 30 minutes before the concert start there was a very large brass band marching around and also through the square.
The houses at the top of the square had a grandstand view!
I made a conscious decision to never stand up to take pictures and to spend as much time as possible listening and watching. The following concert images are the ones I did take, but heavily cropped to remove the folk’s heads in the block in front.
Selfie sticks may have been banned but this did not stop people from sitting there holding up[ their phones to video the concert. This guy did this for over 40 minutes until the man at the side of me had had enough and went and told him to stop and put his camera down. My image here shows his phone wasn’t exactly recording the action on the stage!!!
I have to admit that I did get up and ask the lady in front to take her phone down. Moving to her left she could have videod without blocking the rest of us behind.
Then we had a 20 minute break. The orchestra played “the Bridge over the River Kwai” theme to hurry folks back to their seats when it ended!
THEN we had lots of dancers come down the aisles and waltzing.
Then there was another guest on stage.
The Blue Danube
The whole square was then bathed in blue light for the Blue Danube waltz.The dancers were back and dancing in the aisle in front of us.
B&W images as neither the camera nor the iPhone were enjoying the light. After a pause I was persuaded to join in.
Encores…
Then the whole square went crazy! We had streamers, we were showered with small gold streamers, we danced the Macarena (with the original Spanish guys on stage), Zorba the Greek etc etc. The dancers in front of us joined in with the audience into one fabulously crazy celebration…
The celebrations were going on around the restaurants and on all the streets around…
Coach back to Helmond
We left the square to head back to our coach.
We had walked this route a few times during the day back to the Market Square.
And there were the coaches.
Tomorrow we would have time to explore Helmond before our trip to Utrecht in the afternoon.
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