"A camera, not something he was a fan of, ‘cause he was ‘not a pretty girl any more, but did used to be, long ago, before cola zero’. Yet I was still allowed to film him on every visit to his living room, his AB."

by Peter Deckers / © Michelle Geerardyn

Those countless fantastic concerts, sessions and interviews. Because 'gi zie broave' and also on a couple of conditions: That we’d win an Oscar with it and that he could come pick up a ‘deeveedeetjen’ the next day for 'ip z'n teevee'. And then if I called him to let him know that his DVD was ready, he always answered the phone with 'allo pizza', asked if I was sure the edit had kept the show raw enough, and then turned up a half hour later in AB. With his plastic bag. And after having viewed it, modest as usual, would say that you shouldn’t expect a cow to give champagne, and how amazingly lucky he was 

The mischievous glint in his eyes was ever present with those one-liners and the humour that so typified him. Except for when there was recording happening. Then, the fun and games had to make room for seriousness, because 'tmoe hoe zin ee..' (‘it has to be good’) You see, music had never cheated on him and so he couldn’t cheat on it. So he sang with heart and soul for Linda, Mustapha, Jean-Pierre, Fatima, Michel and Paul, you and me and Mr Nobody. A splendid chanteur de charme loves everyone, you see. Because ‘everyone has two holes in their nose’.

So we've collected many, many hours of footage from which we’ll long be able to draw, when the time is right. It was a true honour to be able to capture all that beauty on film, because Arno is like that film itself: for ever.

Thanks for everything, Nonkel.

Peter Deckers