Party musician and ‘hero of the third half’ Paul Vlaar celebrity in West Friesland

Paul has settled down in the canteen of football club Grasshoppers from Opmeer. Outside, the derby between the home club and VVS 46 from Spanbroek is still going on. A lot of people stand along the field. Inside Paul probably plays his first set to warm up a bit. A group of teenage girls jump when Paul ‘Leeft’ by André Hazes Jr. starts playing. “This is still a little bit of income,” says Paul. “When the game is over and they’ve had enough to drink, things really get going here.”

Get the taste

As a child, Paul loved music. At eleven he took organ lessons. “After I had mastered some songs, I went to the market in the village with a friend. That was so much fun and we were successful. That’s how I got a taste for it,” laughs Paul.

Paul is now almost 50 and he has been earning a well-stocked sandwich for years by working as a party musician. He is a ‘one man band’. Over the years, the organ has been replaced by increasingly modern keyboards. But the enthusiasm he had as a boy has remained.

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Later in the evening it will become apparent that he also knows how to destroy the Grasshoppers’ canteen with Dutch hits such as ‘Atje voor de milieu’ and ‘Bacardi lemon’. With all his experience, Paul also sees a difference in celebrating between the south of the country and West Friesland.

“In Brabant and Limburg they go crazy straight away and they are on the tables in no time. Then it slowly sinks in,” says Paul. “In West Friesland it is the other way around. There they start quietly and as the evening progresses they go all out.”

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If you ask Paul about his best performance, he will come up with a surprising answer. “That was a performance in the nursing home in Schagen where my mother is,” says Paul. “My mother was in the front row and she enjoyed it so much. That was not the biggest party, but very dear.”

Paul and his wife Truda have three children. His eldest son is now taking piano lessons and seems to be following in his father’s footsteps. Would Paul recommend that he become a party musician? “If he would enjoy it as much as I always do, I would wholeheartedly recommend it to him,” says Paul with a wide smile on his face.