Oorbeek was scheduled to play at the the Vondelpark Openluchttheater tonight – the outdoor theatre in the park, together with the dance group Bodies Anonymous of Jack Gallagher: http://www.openluchttheater.nl/ and http://www.bodiesanonymous.nl/. The weather forecast was: 90% chance for rain. We were supposed to perform on the dancefloor outside, (so not under the roof on the podium), and for that it had to be dry. To dance on it, it would have to be completely dry.

Well, we set up out equipment on the podium. Knowing the chance for rain was simply to great to put amplifiers out on the dancefloor (that had been the plan). At 6.30 it began to rain. Then it started pouring. And then: lighting and thunder. First we’d still hoped to play, now we even had to turn off all the electric equipment. It was 7.30. It kept on raining. No soundcheck. We were supposed to start at 8.30. The group after us – the much more famous dance ensemble Leine and Roebana – would play from nine on.

We heard that the dancefloor had not been used yet. Every friday since june the 3d they’d put it there, and every time they had had to cancel due to rain.

It kept on pouring. Even if the rain would stop at 8.30 there was no chance the dancefloor would be dry. There was like a few centimeters of water on top of it. The rain was torrentuous.

And then, when finally the moment came to decide what to do and everybody – and surely the people of the Vondelpark – thought the programme would be cancelled, Jack said: “I just wanna do my thing, rain or not, water or not.”

The Vondelpark people were happily surprised. The soundman was off to his booth and quickly turned on the mics for Maarten.

And at 8.30 Jach Gallagher was out there in the torrentuous rain on a horribly slippery dancefloor, and we were on stage with our instruments, and the lightmen turned on the stagelight, it seemed as if the sun was coming out to shine, we gave the sign: he danced, slided through the puddles of water – finally the dancefloor was used – and we played.

About 40 people had come out to watch.

It was wonderful.

We played for just 10 minutes, and Jack danced.

Funny to think, that one lives for such moments, those 10 minutes to do one’s thing.

Leine and Roebana had already decided to not play, but when they saw that we played, they decided to come out and do something too. Not the whole performance (the dancefloor was unusable, dangerous – what Jack did was extraordinary), just two Rennaissance songs, accompanied by theorbe and dance from their star performer.

That was beautiful. Breathtaking. (Is it allowed to exaggerate a little?)

The rain did not stop for one moment.

Serge made at least one little movie. When he’s uploaded that to Youtube I’ll post the link.