The Australian Federal Police pipe band was the only band touring Australia with Andre, but the University of Ballarat Pipe Band was picked along with the Victoria Police Pipe Band, Hawthorn City Pipe band and Rats of Tobruk Pipe band to perform in the Melbourne concerts held at the Telstra Dome. We marched in playing Scotland the Brave, starting in two groups on the stadium ground, marched to the front of the stage, climbed up the steps to the stage (trying to avoid tripping on balloons and flower planter boxes and face-planting right at Andre’s feet), and I walked along the left side of the stage and up the steps to the ‘ballroom’ floor, standing on the balcony in the front row. For those of you watching the replay on DVD, I was directly behind the bass drummer with the leopard skin on the left.
Once on the stage we joined Andre and his orchestra playing Amazing Grace, which nearly had me in tears, then the rest of the cast came on stage and sung a song in a different language, we sang Waltzing Matilda, danced a funky dance with maracas, and then played Road to Gundagai as everyone else left the set. It was an awesome experience to be standing on stage looking out at 40,000 people in the audience, and one that I’ll remember for a long time.
With our ‘Guest Artist’ passes we were able to access most of the stadium and watch most of the performance, and were able to go to the after-party each night, the one that die-hard fans paid $1,200 each to attend. A few of us from our band spent a bit of time talking to Andre’s son Pierre, who is the Production Manager and designed the whole set, and we managed to get autographs and photos with some of the big stars, including Andre himself.
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| Meeing Andre Rieu and his crew |
Fingers crossed that we’ll be able to perform in Andre’s concerts when he returns next year!!
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