The construction of Groots met een Soft G has begun, it has been entered in the Guinness Book of World Records and the rehearsals are over. Guus Meeuwis and his band are fully prepared for “The Last Great” nine times. “It will be a marathon, but I don’t dare think about the last marathon yet.” And the singer does not dare to think about the future after Grotz.
A marathon, is how the Tilburg singer describes Grotz’s last nine concerts. For this you need good training.
“I train for physique and voice. You have to dose. You actually want to give it everything all the time, but then you can’t keep it up. Guus Meeuwis has already learned this lesson in the previous sixteen editions.” “It’s kind of like a football match: you have to do your best, but make sure you get to the end.”
“There’s life in seventeen versions of Groots, I think that’s special.”
Meeuwis still didn’t dare think about the last of the Groots on the evening of Wednesday, June 26th. “Everyone thinks I’ll be devastated or sad because it’ll be my last, but most of all I’ll feel relieved. I feel relieved that everything went well.”
“Only when I am on holiday will I realize that this was the last, and that this will not come back.”
Since 2006, June has been all about greatness for Guus Meeuwis. But also for his band and crew. One of them is singer JW Roy. “We set up in May for seventeen years and then we do shows in June. During that time kids are born, people get divorced, people get married, songs are born. There’s life in seventeen Groots releases, which I think is special.”
“I have no idea yet what I’m going to do.”
That will change completely next year. “I have no idea yet what I’m going to do,” says Gus Mewis when asked what June 2025 will look like. “I let myself be surprised. Maybe I’ll go to Roland Garros, maybe I’ll ride the Alpe d’Huez, or maybe I won’t do anything. There are no plans for the future yet. ‘Last first.’
A week before the start of “The Last,” he was surprised at Phillips Arena by a world record: never before had a solo artist performed so many times in front of more than 10,000 people in one venue. Guus Meeuwis did this 63 times and at the end of the month the record reached 72 times.
“Unbelievable, I’m really amazed,” says the Brabant singer. “I know, of course, that what we’re doing here is a lot of fun, and it’s probably very special that we’ve been doing this for a long time. That’s more my feeling. But I never thought this would be a world record.”
The man who holds the Guinness Book of World Records came directly from Norway, where he was setting a chess record, to Eindhoven. “He said he had been watching videos of Grotz for months to officially make the record,” Meiwes says with a wide smile. “He’ll also be coming to see the latest Groots.”
More about the world record
Guus Meeuwis’s world record with Groots concerts: “A big surprise”