Bobo's at Boom

Friday night in Amsterdam 20 October at Boom Chicago was a special Late Nite show to celebrate Horace Cohen and Ruben van der Meer's 35 years of friendship. Tickets were only available to us no-bodies via the Boom mailing list email, and only if you reacted quickly enough. Most of the seats Friday night were occupied by friends and family of Horace and Ruben's and it felt like we had crashed a private party.

Before leaving home for Boom that night we watched Het Gouden Televizierring Gala which is the Dutch equivalent to the People's Choice Awards in the US. The final award was for best TV show. The 3 nominees were "Dancing with the Stars", "Gooische Vrouwen" (Rich Women), and "De Lama's". At the beginning of the awards show "Dancing with the Stars" was winning the votes. We couldn't have that! So we got out our mobile phones and sms'd our votes for "De Lama's". We love them. We watch them every week. Granted, they HAVE stolen some of their routines from Boom Chicago, as any Boom fan can attest to, but that's ok, there's plenty of laughs to go around.

In the end, "De Lama's" won the vote! Since one of the Lamas happened to be Ruben van der Meer, I expected him to show up late and possibly drunk, to his Boom event. After all, there was another celebration going on at a theater just a mile away from Boom now in progress.....

We arrived at the Boom theater about an hour before the show was to begin. As I said earlier, it felt like we were crashing a private party. And not just ANY private party. This party was full of bekende Nederlanders. DB spent the night telling me who was who and what they are famous for. This one a singer. This one a writer, etc. We were standing at the bar when Ruben showed up, right on time, smiling from ear to ear. As he walked past I said "Gefeliciteerd!" and he said "danke je wel". He was beaming.

The show started slightly late since Ruben was walking through the audience being congratulated by everyone he knew, which was most of the people there. Greg Shapiro tried in vain to tap his watch and point to the stage. Eventually "3 minutes to places" was called and the show began.

I have seen Boom Chicago at least 10 times in the last 4 years. I've lost count really. This is the 4th Late Nite show I've been to and it was by far the best ever. Ruben and Horace took the stage and were funnier than the first time I saw them together at Boom. They were more relaxed and were obviously having a good time. Horace won the "Da Do Run Run" game, but only because the Nazi General spared his life. During the Idols sketch Horace and Ruben dressed up as each other and Ruben's English has improved enough that he could do a reasonable immitation of Horace. Michael Diederich impersonated Horace's mom (was it really accidental that he picked her out of the audience?) and won the Idols contest. The players were really on that night.

There were moments of seriousness. Horace read a speech to Ruben that nearly had the audience in tears and I could swear I saw tears in his eyes as well, as he told about their 35 years being best friends. Ruben came out later, not having prepared any such speech, but not wanting to not say anything, improvised his own words to Horace. But just then the stage was taken over by Treintje Oosterhuis and Edsilia Rombley who sang toghether "That's What Friends Are For". The whole audience joined in. I thought the place would errupt into one giant group hug. And then the rest of De Lama's burst in and jumped on the stage. Ruben Nicolai jumped onto our table and walked the length of it to the stage, the table wobbling and shaking and spilling drinks. The show was over and the party began! Boom's fearless leader, Andrew Moskos, took the mic to direct everyone how to move about while tables were cleared to make way for dancing. De Lama's jumped up and down and sang "Kampionen" showing off the prize they had won that night.

I really hope that Boom was filming all of this as it was something special.