Letters to Italy

3. the concert

Our vacation in Italy was as amazing as I hoped. Wonderful, all those Italians riding on their cute Vespa's. But there was more. My brother showed us some places normal tourists wouldn't go. On day three, in the late afternoon, Jonas told us what his plans were for the evening.

"So tonight, I have something very special planned. I made some cool friends here." When he said 'friends', I immediately thought of Il Volo.

"And I want you to meet them too... or at least see them in concert because they're..."

"IL VOLO!" I screamed.

"Indeed, my smart sister, Il Volo is in Rome again and they will sing in 'auditorium parco della musica'."

"Waaaow, I'm so excited right now. This is the best thing ever! I'm finaly gonna see Il Volo perform live!" I gave him hugs and kisses, like it was a present especially for me, while it was also for my sister and parents, and of course the family of Carlotta will join us too. But it was like he knew what I was thinking the whole time. Well actually, he knew, because I wrote him a lot about Il Volo and how much I love them.

"I thought the best thing was, seeing ME again?" Jonas frowned and looked a bit unhappy. But I could see he was joking.

"Of course Jonas, of course" I said, laying my hand on his shoulder.

"Even though, I don't really believe you," he said smiling at me, " we have no more time to argue about that."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because we're going to eat something before the concert begins. You don't want to faint in front of them, do you?"

Dinner was delicious. Anita, the mother of Carlotta, had cooked a typically Italian dish for us, as always of course. After she made a copy of the recipe and handed it to my mom, we walked to the place where my dreams would come true. A part of my dreams of course. A very beautiful part. We followed Jonas who had the tickets in his hands. We walked in the direction of the stage.

"Are we really that close to the stage?" I asked amazed.

"Why not" he said. "I haven't seen my family in a long time. So I want to make every moment the best as possible for you guys."

Without saying a thing, I hugged him and didn't let go until Liene disturbed us. "If you weren't siblings, I would've thought you two were in love."

"Ha Ha", I said, trying to act like I didn't find that funny. But I failed, because nothing could make me unhappy, sad or angry at the moment.

"You DID find that funny. I see it in your eyes", Liene said.

We were talking and laughing for a few minutes. Even thought, I still thought about Il Volo of course. Nothing could make me forget them. Especially not now, not here. We sat on the third row. "That's very close", I thought. I've never been so close to one of my idols ever. I almost forgot about the fact that my brother was a 'friend' of them. "Well, let's see if it's true", I thought.

The last minutes I didn't talk to anyone. I was mentally preparing for what was going to happen. Suddenly the lights dimmed and I looked one last time around me, to check if this was all real. Then I focused on the stage. The musicians began to play a wonderful melody. I recognized it immediately, it was 'Grande amore', the song they just sang at the Eurovision song contest, right after my brother told me he became friends with them. But then it stopped. I heard another melody, it was from 'Il mondo', one of my favourite songs. Well, I mean, a favourite of the favourites of the favourites because I liked all the songs they sing.

My heart skipped a beat, Gianluca walked up on stage. He looked incredible, so beautiful, so real but at the same time so unreal. "Too perfect" I thought. Then Piero's voice came in my ears. Perfect, it was. And last but not least, Ignazio sung his lines. I looked and listened with my mouth open. Blown away by their magical voices harmonizing so beautifully. Voices of angels. And I heard them in real life.

Every song was perfect and before I knew it, the show was half over. Liene looked at me and screamed, "have you seen that? Gianluca looked right into my eyes!"

"Did he?" I said, trying to be happy for her, but actually being kind of jealous. I wish Gianluca just gives me one little look into my eyes too.

"Huh, what?" my sister yelled.
Oh no, did I say that out loud. "No nothing, I didn't say anything." Luckily my sister was too buzzy being happy about her 'look in the eyes with Gianluca', she didn't ask further about it.

The show continued, with in between Il Volo talking in Italian and being funny. But I didn't understand a word (I understood a few words but I couldn't make anything appropriate of it), so I couldn't laugh with them. But still I enjoyed seeing them laugh and having fun on stage. They're like brothers to each other.

The next song they sung was 'beautiful day'. It really was a beautiful day. This song will forever be linked to this day.

After that, Gianluca was singing a song on his own 'anema e core'. He just sat there, on a stool, with one leg over the other. But that was enough to make the whole audience melt. Some people only listened, others sang with him. I belonged to the first group. How could you sing over that beautiful voice. I wanted to hear every single note out of his mouth and not out of mine. But I had to admit, it was very beautiful when the audience sang 'ancora'.

When Gianluca sang the last words of the song, it happened. He finaly looked into my eyes. While he sang 'senza te', Gianluca's eyes were looking into mine. His hand lifted a little bit, like he was going to point at me too. It was magical, but I probably looked a bit weird to him. Because the moment was so short and I was so surprised, I didn't smile. I just looked at him with my eyes wide open to capture every millisecond of the moment and my mouth about to fall open from surprise. But still, I was very happy. Never felt better.

When the concert continued, Gianluca never looked into my eyes again. But he kept looking in our way and sometimes it was like he crossed my gaze but didn't want to stop and look me into the eyes again. But then he suddenly smiled a lot when he saw someone in the audience. I looked to my right and I saw my brother was putting his hand up to greet him. "So they really know each other?" I thought. Even though I really believed my brother, it came like a surprise.

"Maybe I have a chance to meet Gianluca after the concert" I hoped. But I realized, there could never be something 'romantic' between us. I lived in Belgium and he in Italy and the rest of the world. I was shy and introvert and he was very popular and definitely less shy than me. I was 20 and he was, well he was 20 too, but to me it felt like he was 30 or maybe a little bit younger. And I hadn't forgot the article from twitter, he was single. Who was I to change that?

The concert went on and I realized, I had to enjoy it as much as possible, because it would be almost over. I took some pictures and filmed a little bit of the song 'surrender'. So I would have something to look at as a memory.

And then it came, the last seconds. I only looked at Gianluca and tried to keep that image forever in my mind.