A Fabulous Night in Utrecht! By Rob van der Vaart Wednesday, March 16, 2011 5:30 PM Last Monday March 14, 2011 we had a wonderful, fabulous night with Gilbert performing in Utrecht!! I don't want to envy you but it was great!! It was a 2.5 hours lasting mixture of golden oldies and new material. It was 'Nothing Rhymed', 'We Will', 'Clair', 'Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day', 'Out Of The Question', 'No Matter How I Try' and 'Alone Again (Naturally)' and marvelous live performances with band of beautiful new 'Gilbertville'-material like: 'Can I Leave The Rest Up To You', 'Here's Why', 'All They Wanted To Say', 'Private Eye', 'The Allergy Song', 'Where Would We Be (Without Tea)' and 'I Wanna Know'. How is it possible that he has come up with these melodies?! They sound to me like they have always been there... In between there was 'Don't Let It Get To You', solo on piano and one of my all time favourites!! I like both his straightforward performances (like 'Happiness Is Me And You', 'Who Was It'. 'Miss My Love Today' and 'Nobody') standing in the middle of the stage and accompanied only by flute or guitar, and his hard rocking classics like 'You Got Me Going' (I did not like it when it was released on single in the 70's, but what a great live-version it is!), 'Stick In The Mud' and 'Or So They Say'!! 'Why Oh Why Oh Why' was completely re-arranged to reggae-style and 'Hold On To What You Got' (simply played on 'By Larry') was top-level country-music live, with the Stanford string quartet in the lead! Gilbert masters all music styles of the world! Also the band (11 musicians) were great: the Stanford-sisters on violins and cello, Julian Webster Greaves on saxophone, flute and harmonica, and Mick Parker as musical director on stage. In between the songs Gilbert didn't feel the need to tell too many anecdotes, but that was no problem as the crowd of 1.100 came for his music, his melodies and his lyrics. It was clear that also Gilbert himself enjoyed being on stage, having no reason at all as a 64-year old to retire, but having that same energy and creativity he had over the past 40 years. So the encore with 'Matrimony' and 'Get Down' couldn't leave anybody stuck to his chair, and after the show a huge crowd awaited The Man for a photograph and/or signature, and all CD's available sold like hot cakes! Wishing you all the best with the work you do. Hoping that - one day - you'll see Gilbert perform live at your side of the pond. Photos courtesy of Rob van der Vaart