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REPORTS/PICS/VIDS for MIKA LA Surprise Show 04-15-09


Blue Sky

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yeah was me! do we have a video that one of u took that u can actually see me on it maybe?!

 

yeah? u liked Doug? :D

he was really sweet... never thought he would come and wait with us all day... after we left he said he is glad he did it with me because he knows how important Mika is to me...

Hmm...no I don't have it on video. Sorry. :no:

 

 

 

That was sweet of him. :wub2: Nice guy. Funny too. :original:

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Hmm...no I don't have it on video. Sorry. :no:

 

 

 

That was sweet of him. :wub2: Nice guy. Funny too. :original:

 

oh oh well... maybe someone else got it? Hmmm

Zoots thought we r together for atleast 3 months.... lol its acually crazy we know just a week and a half...

 

im uploading videos!!! hope they will stay there :bleh:

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oh oh well... maybe someone else got it? Hmmm

Zoots thought we r together for atleast 3 months.... lol its acually crazy we know just a week and a half...

 

im uploading videos!!! hope they will stay there :bleh:

Yeah, I thought you'd been dating for a while. Good luck with your videos!! I still need to upload mine...:huh:

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Part Two - The Waiting

 

It was the shortest dash to the front of a venue that I’ve ever done. When we got in there were a handful of people there already; I think they might have been friends with Perez Hilton. Either way most MFCers ended up at the front of the venue, which was great. I think the venue security were doing a great job of making sure people entered slowly, because there was no shoving, people were really well behaved. Roxy staff even came around to take drink orders from people who’d gotten their 21+ stamp getting into the venue. I think that’s likely the second worst part of the whole process – once you get in and have secured your spot, the waiting starts to feel like such a weight on your head.

 

I spent some time looking around the venue. The Roxy has a kind of trapezoid-shaped stage, so it wasn’t like other venues where there’s a stage and everyone faces it directly. There was the floor space and then behind that, to one side there was a short wall with some leather booths and tables. On the opposite side of the venue there was a bar, and I think some more seating.

 

The stage was covered with a dark, heavy curtain, which I think in some ways added to my anxiety. I couldn’t resist peeking under it a view times. I couldn’t see much, just some equipment , and yet I couldn’t stop peeking under this freaking curtain! I remember looking under it, seeing the covered drum kit at the back of the stage, various cables running across it, and one of the monitors right in front of me, and thinking to myself “what am I doing? Why am I so obsessed with peeking at an empty stage?” Really, I think sanity escapes me during those last few moments. It was around this time that an older lady with camera gear elbowed her way up to the stage, positioning herself in front of Andrew. She said she was the photographer, and would only be there for the first two songs. It was kind of frustrating, since it meant Andrew didn’t have such a great view of the stage, but there wasn’t a press corridor for her to go, since there was no gap between us and the stage.

 

Finally, the music faded. I love that moment when the pre-gig music fades and this sense of electricity ripples through the crowd. The curtain lifts, and the stage is revealed.

 

It’s a tiny, tiny stage. In the corner, stage left, there’s the giant tulips Yasmine had brought in earlier. Standing on stage are two girls, one in a black corset, the other in a shimmery two piece costume. You’ve all seen the pics by now. Andy was up on a catwalk thing, filming the audience, likely hoping to get the crowd’s reaction. The music starts… and LA was in for, well, a treat. There’s a big black bull on the stage, with glowing red eyes. Not sure what it was made of – looked like some kind of thick foam, as the dancer (Ava) was sprawling out across it. Her dance got progressively more risqué – unzipping her pants, taking off her top, etc. I think people were a little stunned by it, since it was so out of left field. Especially when she undid her bra top, letting it fall to the stage, revealing stick-on sparkly nipple decals, AKA pasties.

 

Was it too risqué? I don’t think so. It was a little surprising, admittedly. As Zoots pointed out, this whole thing started so innocently. Giving that it had all started with Mika handing out ice cream in a park, and now his opener was nearly naked, I’d call that quite a contrast indeed. But it’s Hollywood, LA is a weird place to begin with, and in terms of what she did, she was quite good. We heard later that only one person had actually formally complained about it, and when you think it was just one person out of 449, that’s pretty good.

 

The curtain fell, and the waiting game resumed. I couldn’t help but peek under the curtain and watch the roadies move equipment around, uncover the drums, etc. At this point the anticipation was almost too much to bear. At my first gig at the Wiltern in February 2008, I remember the anticipation being kind of delicious. For some reason, at this gig, it was a kind of torture. Finally the music went quiet again, and the crowd went crazy. The lights started swirling, and the curtains were lifted.

 

Cherisse was at the back of the stage, and on stage right were the guitarist and the bass player. I think the guitarist is called Matt or something similar, and I think the bassist is Dan – I could be wrong, but I think he’s the one who played bass on some of the LICM studio tracks. Mika then walked on stage – a vision in white, white jeans, silver shoes, and a simple white t-shirt. On his head, a black hat, on top of casual, not over-styled curls. The stage was set in a way that took advantage of the Hollywood locale – big empty film reels, and old-school megaphone things. He takes his place at the keyboard, and launches into Grace Kelly.

 

He goes for that trouble note – what is it, a high G or something? And goes “here’s the trick note” as he smiles and tries to get it. It was so freaking cool to see him play that song seated at his keyboard, instead of bounding all over a big stage. The crowd loved it, and it’s kind of cool that now he’s got new material, he can start gigs with a huge hit like Grace Kelly to get everyone fired up right away. And, it worked. The Roxy was rocking after that. He greeted everyone, and thanked us for coming to help him celebrate coming out of retirement – that “gardening has been getting very boring, so he decided to go on tour”. Haha! His second track was Big Girl, which only served to get everyone even more fired up. It had a fun new twist on the bass line, a rollicking new beat that really worked well. I think it was during Big Girl that he actually knocked over the his stool and was on his feet dancing and singing while at the keyboard. He was on freaking fire. It was so apparent that he was getting a rush from being back in front of his adoring fans, losing their minds and hanging on his every word as though no time had passed at all. Freakin’ magical.

 

Then a new track. The setlist says “Good Gone Girl,” but the lyrics kinda sound like “Girl gone good.” So either Mika’s taking some creative license in his song titles, or whoever typed the setlist was having a dyslexic moment. :naughty: I think the balance may have been a little off, or maybe I was just hearing what was coming back from the monitor in front of me, but for this track in particular Mika’s vocals were much quieter than the guitars, making it nearly impossible to understand the lyrics. It was a fun, upbeat track, and such a treat to hear live.

 

I think the next track was Billy Brown. He obviously didn’t stick to his set list, since it has Blue Eyes as the fourth song, and that wasn’t played until the encore. Billy Brown was fun – the girls from Mexico all held up a sign that read “Mexico!” and screamed when he got to the line “he found an island off the coast of Mexico!” Mika turned to look at them, and I think it threw him off because he missed the lyrics to the rest of the verse. I’m quite certain he wasn’t bothered by it, though – he giggled, tried again, then laughed it off. The whole vibe of the gig was really playful, really relaxed. It was wonderful.

 

At some point during the show Mika made a point of telling the audience that it’s all about us, he can’t do it without us, etc. It’s the typical stuff you hear, but for some reason coming from Mika it sounds totally genuine. That’s one of the things I love about him.

Edited by lollipop_monkey
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Part Three - The Gig

 

I loved hearing Blame It On The Girls. I think this track is going to be amazing, and I’m so excited to hear the studio version. I think Mika’s songs have grown in some ways from LICM, both lyrically and musically. It’s really exciting to see the change. He came out from behind the keyboard quite a lot for an acoustic gig, and really interacted with the audience. He high-fived a lot of people in the front, including our very own Zoots. I don’t think she’s washed her hand yet. *naughty smile*

 

He was also giving a lot of eye contact, and because his hair was so casual, it was in his eyes through a good portion of the gig. The casual vibe, the curls in his face, it all contributed to a really cool, mellow-yet-electric atmosphere.

 

Stuck in the Middle was amazing, as usual, and he’s kept the bit where he interacts with the audience and gets us to sing it back to him. So much fun. We also got Love Today, which is another one (along with SITM) that I hope doesn’t get dropped from the setlist for a while yet. On the lyric “I look at you, you look at me, we bite each other” he kind of, well, barked instead of singing “each other.” Hehe. He also messed up the lyrics during SITM. I have the sense that often when Mika messes up his lyrics it’s because for a moment, his mind drifts – he’s thinking about his next move. Maybe what crazy thing he’s going to d next, such as picking up one of the old megaphone thingers and trying to sing through it, which he indeed did. I think it was during Stuck InThe Middle that he looked up at the guitarist and bassist and gestured at them, then at his own eyes – as if to say “watch me, take your cues from me.” He didn’t gesture at Cherisse, though – after more than two years of touring with Mika, she knows he’s running the show, and if he zigs or zags, they need to follow. And it works so well.

 

Toy Boy, as you all now know, was another great track. I’m not sure if this one is ever destined to be a single – I’m thinking it’s likely going to be too quirky for radio, but will definitely be a gig favourite. He introduced it by telling us that he’d set out to write some songs that were particularly for an acoustic setting. Then he goes, “it’s in…A?” There was a polished rawness that was so endearing. He did say he quite liked it, so I’m thinking it’s probably one of his personal favourites from the new album. He told us that we had to be quiet, ‘cause it’s all about the words, then said “sorry to be a dick.” So endearing. It felt like we were standing in his livingroom, hearing him perform something obviously near and dear to him. The whole vibe was just amazingly raw, casual, real… just, well, magic. He was so playful about it – his expressions when singing these lyrics were so fitting. Like when he sang “But your mama thought there was something wrong” he almost looked infuriated, forcefully spitting out the lyrics… but then when he got to “didn’t want you sleeping with a boy too long” he had a playful, naughty smile on his face, and sang the words through that smile.

 

On TV shows like American Idol, the judges are always criticizing contestants for not being real, authentic, believable – Mika was SO real and SO believable that I was just stunned. I don’t even know what to say, other than at the end I could barely even clap or cheer because I was just so damn shellshocked by that track. I had tears in my eyes, to tell you the truth. In fact, just thinking about that performance, I have tears in my eyes all over again.

 

*fangurl moment*

 

I don’t know how anyone could watch that performance and not be blown away. Mika just radiates such earnest, endearing, accessible talent - we’re not crazy for being diehard Mika fans. We’re just…blessed. That song is so beautifully crafted, so perfect, and his delivery so authentic. You can’t fake that. Maybe I’m being naïve, maybe every aspect of this is nothing more than commercial marketing, meticulously calculated to sell albums. And I suppose that’s possible – but I simply don’t believe it. I really feel that one just cannot calculate the “realness” of Mika, the sparkle in his eyes when his lyrics are sung back at him, the visible outpouring of himself that goes into these songs. I had this vision of Mika being a collector of, say, little glass globes. And each globe is a song, carefully created and then set out for display for the world to see. And at the Roxy that night, you could see him unveiling these new globes for the first time, excited to share his latest strokes of genius with the world, but at the same time slightly apprehensive. And Toy Boy, I think, is a particularly special little globe to him – one that he spent a lot of time creating, and one that now shines just a little brighter than some of the others.

 

This whole Mika world can be so surreal, and that’s part of the fun. But then he comes up with something like Toy Boy, and delivers a performance like that, and then fleetingly the crazy, escapist, surreal world becomes real for just a moment – and it just touched me on some inexplicable, deep level.

 

*gushing fangurl over*

 

Lollipop done acoustically was fun. When the music started playing he grabbed the Mexican girls’ sign and walked around with it before tossing it back to them. Adorably he started singing the first few words of “I Want You Back” before switching to the lyrics of Lollipop. This was great, although I almost had a heart attack when I thought he was actually going to do that cover (I freakin’ love that cover). He grabbed one of the giant tulips and tossed it into the audience, and was just putting everything into a really rocking version of the song. At the end Cherisse was doing a drum solo, then Mika came back in on keys, and the guitar and bass came in, and it was just rockin’. And then, the confetti! I can’t believe his tiny little acoustic gig at the Roxy still had confetti. That, I think, adds to the surreal-ness of these gigs. You’re in the crowd, on such a high from the music, then all around you there’s confetti fluttering down. Unbelievable.

 

The crowd at the Roxy were hungry for more. He came back, hesitated for a moment, then launched into Blue Eyes. This song affected me like Toy Boy – just gazing at him, utterly stunned at this display of musical genius.

 

*fangurl moment number two*

 

I know when I first saw him live in February 2008 I gushed about how lucky we are just to be on planet Earth at the same time as him – and over a year later, crazy as that might sound, I still stand by that. This whole Mika thing is just THAT special. Seventy-five years from now, there’ll be fans born in the year 2070 who will hear Mika’s music and wish they’d been born a hundred years earlier and could have been around to watch his star start to shine. And we get to. Some of us have been following him since the very beginning, some more recently, but we get to BE there. Not even at the gigs, per se. We get to wait on pins and needles for this new album, and we get to be right in the middle of the chaos and the magic and all of that when it finally hits shelves. Lucky, lucky us. And then, through MFC, we get to share in the magic as it happens in other parts of the world. We get to make friends with people who understand just how freakin’ special this is. Magic like this doesn’t happen every day. Maybe not even every lifetime. And we get to drink up every drop. *

 

second fanugrl moment over*

 

I think Blue Eyes was my favourite of the new songs. But, like with LICM I think that will change. I just loved the vibe of it. I can envision a bunch of people in skirts and flip flops dancing around to that song on the beach around a campfire. I’m also getting a kind of flamenco guitar, kind of Spanish-y vibe from it. This one, like HMDYLM, is one I’d be nervous to hear a studio recording of. But Mika’s performance was fun and breezy. If any of the video clips survive on YouTube, you can see he was putting both his arms out to the side and singing right into the microphone, all casual and playful. It was awesome. If Toy Boy was Mika in his living room pouring his heart out, Blue Eyes was Mika playing on a beach while everyone danced and sipped margaritas.

 

After that he hesitated for a moment as to what to play next – he hadn’t planned for an encore, so it was all on the fly. People were begging him to do Relax, some asking for Happy Ending. He then went “I feel like doing this one again, since I’m not going to get to do it as much.” I realized he was talking about Grace Kelly, and I yelled “Do it in French!” So he launches into it, and sure enough, he does the second chorus in French. That Los Angeles crowd was probably like “WTF”, but I almost died. I love it when he sings in French, even though I don’t speak the language. So freaking awesome. I spotted Greg Wells in the audience during Grace Kelly – of course he’d be there to see these songs that are likely his babies, too, in a way, finally performed live. So cool.

 

Mika went off stage, and unless my ears deceived me, his parting words were “Thank you Los Angeles! See you in June!” Now, don’t quote me – it’s possible he said “See you soon” or something to that effect. But if it was “See you in June”, it means we don’t have long to wait for more Mika.

 

The curtain fell, and again, I had a few tears in my eyes. Such a great show, and now with the new album on the horizon, it’s all starting again. So delicious.

 

They shuffled us out of the venue, and we walked past the ice cream man who was again handing out frozen goodies. It was a great gig, and I’d have been walking on air if that’s all there had been. But as you guys now know, the icing on the cake was still ahead of us.

Edited by lollipop_monkey
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Thanks for the report guys! :bow:

 

Ah Mana your second fangurly moment brought tears to my eyes :tears: It's made me realise (well I always knew) just really how lucky we are. To have him. To have this place. It's just amazing :wub2:

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I know when I first saw him live in February 2008 I gushed about how lucky we are just to be on planet Earth at the same time as him – and over a year later, crazy as that might sound, I still stand by that. This whole Mika thing is just THAT special. Seventy-five years from now, there’ll be fans born in the year 2070 who will hear Mika’s music and wish they’d been born a hundred years earlier and could have been around to watch his star start to shine. And we get to. Some of us have been following him since the very beginning, some more recently, but we get to BE there. Not even at the gigs, per se. We get to wait on pins and needles for this new album, and we get to be right in the middle of the chaos and the magic and all of that when it finally hits shelves. Lucky, lucky us. And then, through MFC, we get to share in the magic as it happens in other parts of the world. We get to make friends with people who understand just how freakin’ special this is. Magic like this doesn’t happen every day. Maybe not even every lifetime. And we get to drink up every drop. *

 

 

I had to quote this. No need to explain why.

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one more...

 

 

:bleh:

 

Thanks, Sivan, I don't know who this labyrinth14 is but was definitely clever enough not to write the song titles there for the record company to have these removed... and good quality, too:thumb_yello:

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Mana ....

 

You know ..... when I realised you were going to LA .... I was so happy .... cos' I knew we'd get this ..... :wub2:

 

Just love the way you write things ..... you've just taken me completely to Los Angeles with you .... not coming back yet .... I think I'll stay awhile :huglove:

 

:tears:

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Thanks, Sivan, I don't know who this labyrinth14 is but was definitely clever enough not to write the song titles there for the record company to have these removed... and good quality, too:thumb_yello:

 

LOL its ME! shhhhh

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