Farewell to Arno: “C’était vachement bien”
Arno was born on 21 May 1949 in Ostend as Arno Charles Ernest Hintjens. He was passionate about music from an early age. At eighteen he left Ostend to travel through Europe and parts of Asia, alone with his guitar. He made his money by singing. Three years later he washed up again in Ostend, where he founded the blues group Freckle Face with Paul Decoutere, which later became TC Matic.
“Oh la la la”
TC Matic grew into a group with a completely unique sound and a strong live reputation. As a result, they also ended up on the Torhout-Werchter poster in 1981. The band’s songs such as ‘Oh la la la’, ‘Putain putain’ and ‘Elle adore le noir’ became classics. When TC Matic called it quits five years later, in 1986, Arno resolutely opted for a solo career. He gradually grew into one of the most respected rock artists in Belgium. He also became very popular in France. With each new album he released, he became more popular and the respect for him grew as well. In 1993 he actually had a hit with the Adamo cover ‘Les filles du bord de mer’.
pancreatic cancer
At the beginning of February 2020, it will be announced that Arno has pancreatic cancer. At that time, he had just completed three sold-out concerts in the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. Arno will perform one more time, at the Le Trianon concert hall in Paris, before going under the knife for major surgery. That surgery is going well and plans are being made to perform again, but the corona virus is throwing a spanner in the works. “I would like to be on stage again as soon as possible, otherwise I will go crazy. Making music, that heals, that heals you. Adrenaline gives the body a boost, I really miss that,” it sounds in June. At the end of April 2021, Arno will be hospitalized for some examinations. According to acquaintances, he has lost a lot of weight in recent months and does not digest chemotherapy well.
“Cowboy movie”
He will play his first concert after months of forced rest in January 2022 during the Radio 1 Session. He then acknowledged that it could well be his last performance. “I missed the stage,” he told the radio station. “But we’re in a cowboy movie now. Everything is possible and everything can change. I live today and accept what happens to me.” After that he is on stage five more times, three times in the AB in Brussels and twice in the Kursaal in Ostend. His last concert in the AB in mid-March is cancelled. In February, King Filip receives Arno. Then the monarch called him “an icon of Belgian rock music”.
How Arno himself wants to be remembered? “As a person who has lived,” he said in an interview in De Standaard a few days before his 65th birthday.