“We didn’t know what to expect,” Pors says over the telephone from his home town of Rotterdam. His naturally lilting, melodic voice lends itself to the boyish excitement of the tale perfectly. The Dutch accent is pretty cool too: the V is pronounced as an F (‘travel’ becomes ‘traffel’) and vowels are rather odd (‘back’ becomes ‘beck’). “The first show we were like, all a bit excited. We flew 24 hours almost, and you are tired, and a bit of jetlagged, and then the intro of the show starts and we’re like, ‘Okay, here we go’, because you don’t know how the people are going to react.” That was in January of this year, approximately ten years since the band were last in the country. “Well, the curtains opened,” Pors says. “And the crowd just went… crazy! We just looked at each other and we were like, ‘Oh my God’. Now I know why we flew 24 hours. And every show we did? Was like that.”
A couple of months after The Vengaboys’ tour, pop compatriots Aqua arrived in Australia to hugely appreciative crowds. It’s difficult to say whether the late ‘90s throwbacks cause a greater beatitude in Australia over anywhere else, because of course, The Vengaboys have enjoyed success the world over for 15 years now. “We have the same energy from the crowd in a lot of countries, but I do have to say that in Australia it was kind of different,” Pors says thoughtfully. “Because maybe it was like, such a long time since we were there, because in Europe you know it’s not that strange that we are in UK or Italy. I think that’s why every year we want to come to Australia now.”
Unfortunately Pors then dashes my decoratively imagined fantasies of Aqua and The Vengaboys hanging out in some Norwegian paradise, saying that they don’t know the Danish band very well. “But actually I think we have to do a duet with Aqua,” he says to try and cheer me up, breaking out in song like a matinee idol: “Like, ‘I’m a Barbie Girl, Boom boom boom boom, I want you in my room Barbie Girl!’”
The vocal prowess behind this party band is actually rather impressive, and reflects the fact that glittery glamour doesn’t necessarily denote phoniness. They’re unabashed which is a lot more real than some rock acts who fake sincerity. There’s no room for cynicism on the party bus. Of course, they love to put on a show, and Pors tells me about the disciplined routine the foursome have going on to ensure the best possible performance. “We just finished the new songs, two new Vengas songs and two covers. That’s quite a lot of workout,” he says. “The show is one hour, hmm, maybe a bit longer. Well, we have to dance and sing at the same time. Sometimes that’s quite hard. So I have to work out every day, and the girls as well, so we are like, working out and making the dance routines now on the new songs. So actually we are quite busy! With that! Now! For you guys in Australia!”
The new songs have been added to the set to “give something extra to the crowd”, and Pors is mega animated about them. “Yeah, I’m really excited about the new stuff we are doing,” he enthuses, “because you know, we have performed Boom Boom and Ibiza a million times, and I still love to do the songs and the crowd love it. But we need to work a bit harder than normally, for Australia. And we do, [we are] preparing ourselves for summer in beautiful Australia.”
The band are playing a string of beach-side venues for their summer safari, including The Espy. “I hope I can go to the beach kind of thing, during the day, and then afterwards doing the show,” says Pors. “There are beautiful, nice little Italian restaurants up to St Kilda. It was great, I want to come back,” he says in his sing-song voice.
Hopefully the St Kilda ocean’s bacteria count won’t be prohibitive come early January, but if the beach is a no-go there is another way for us to impress this band, who have put so much effort into impressing us. “It’s nice to hear someone try, because Dutch is really a difficult language,” Pors says kindly when I test a couple of the phrases that still lurk in my synapses from my time studying in the Netherlands. “The funny part is, if you go to Spain or Italy or these kinds of countries, they don’t speak English… at all. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, you don’t even know what a menu is? You work in an international pizza house and you don’t know any English’. We, here in Holland, we love to speak English.” And we love to hear your English, preferably against the backdrop of an anthemic Euro-beat.
BY ZOË RADAS
