A Mentalist, two singers and an awestruck audience

MBOMBELA – When local singer Vasti, mentalist Riaan Loubser and born entertainer Arno Fourie combined their talents on Wednesday in Hoërskool Bergvlam’s boma, the audience was in for an evening of fun and games. The three local artists entertained and enchanted the guests at a fund-raiser in aid of Waterval Boven and Belfast’s old-age homes.

The first entertainer to charm the crowd, was Vasti, with her unique version of Theuns Jordaan’s “Soos Bloed” attracting much attention. She explained how the fund-raising initiative was born, “In December last year, Koos Schoonraad, Elmarie van Deventer and I drove to the old-age homes to visit and entertain the elderly. While there, we realised that some of their needs were not being met and that funds would have to be raised to help them. We approached mentalist, Riaan Loubser, who was eager to help us out, and Arno who was also willing to perform.” All of the artists got onto this local stage for free.

Riaan’s show elicited gasps and shrieks from a mesmerised audience. What makes his shows so fascinating is the fact that he explains how he does what he does, before he does it. His shows revolves around mind games, manipulation and the reading of body language. By carefully scrutinising a person’s body language, Riaan can take a good guess as to what the person is thinking.

Volunteers from the audience took part in a number of entertaining routines. Highlights included someone opening a book, picking a word and Riaan having to guess which word it was. By asking the volunteer to recite the alphabet a few times, Riaan could make a guess as to which letters featured in the word. He was correct and eventually figured out that the word picked was “footsteps.”

A “pick a card” trick flaunted his skills again. He provided three women with a pack of cards and offered them the chance to each pick a card. Without having seen the cards or the rest of the pack,  Riaan guessed that Pauline Moller picked the queen of hearts, Tracey Russell the six of diamonds and Elsie Fourie the three of spades. The mentalist scored three out of three.

His most impressive act was performed with local couple Marius and Lana Nel. After getting the two to focus on each other completely, Riaan asked them both to close their eyes. He touched only Marius on his shoulder. “Who felt a touch on the shoulder?” he asked. Both Marius and Lana raised their hands. This happened more than once.

Riaan’s performance was followed by a fun-filled music session led by guitarist and vocalist Arno.

After singing a few songs, he engaged the audience in a few rounds of Noot-vir-Noot’s intro game. Arno would play a bar or two of a song’s introduction and allow the audience to guess what song he would be playing next. The audience had tons of fun and begged him for more. Proceeds of the ticket sales totalled more that R3 780, as estimated by Elmarie. “We’re very happy. Any money raised for this cause, is worthy of celebration,” she said.

Also read: Riaan Loubser, die mentalis – kan hy selfs vroue se gedagtes lees?

Were you there?