Editor;
The Dutch Swing College Band, a famous band from Europe who plays jazz at a high level, were Thursday evening in Central Place. We visited this event and arrived around 6.20pm. A Thai band was making ‘music’ but the sound mixer had a different hearing and it was much too loud. The music was louder than the singers. It was really awful to hear this noise.
After 30 minutes they finished. There were two Thai hosts to tell a lot of things…but mostly in Thai and the audience was more than 70% farang (couples) and less than 30% Thai. This also takes 30 minutes and again the sound mixer made the sound too loud.
It is a luck the Dutch Swing College Band starts to play with a good sound mixer, exactly the right sound was to hear. Perfect! But I believe ‘Swing’ means dancing! But the most of the audience was sitting on chairs. Of course you can place some chairs for older people, but less chairs and standing tables was much better.
In the pause there was a performance from Tiffany ladyboys with feathers dancing and playback. Really the public which comes for hearing the Dutch Swing College Band are NOT interested in that kind of show. Those were the remarks I heard around me. They didn’t get any applause at the end.
It is a pity that a performance by the Dutch Swing College Band mostly sponsored by the Dutch government was a disaster by being organized by not professionals. Pattaya has a long way to go before they can organize events from top-class music bands. In my eyes the event was a disaster by the loud music before the event of the Dutch Swing College Band and they didn’t realize the quality of this group. Piet Beside: Most visitors of the event were 50 years up.
Piet De Jong
