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@Lara I think it is perfectly ok to talk about how you felt after the gig or how you have been treated. Others gave their perspective on how they thought it happened, so it may have even helped you. I have heard fans have similar feelings after a gig (not in the choir though), but they never said anything here and they may not see Mika again. Ingie and others have a point in saying that one can't expect Mika to approach fans with the same level of enthusiasm after each gig but when it comes to the choir what is it that he is offering them? His care and attention. It is about nothing but being near him for hours plus having one's picture taken and album signed. It developed into an expectation so if others got it or you had it on another night you expect the same thing to happen again. That is reality and the expectation will remain the same if he keeps trying to please fans this way.

i personally have a bigger problem when he sings parts of a song an octave higher than he should have to sound good. As this is not his song and for the radio, I think it is ok to read lyrics. He said it earlier that he doesn't remember his own songs he has not written and the lyrics to the other song you mention (Toy Boy) is clearly one of these. I don't mind it if it is because a particular song is a sudden choice that he can otherwise always perform with some cheat sheet to help with the lyrics. Same thing happened in Vienna. However, In case the performance is also lacking in something it could be judged negatively as performers are expected to respect the audience and come prepared for the stage. I think there was some discussion on this last summer.

weren't they the ones doing the backing vocals to Somebody to Love at the FM tribute concert as well?

I actually mentioned this as I wouldn’t exclude the possibility of him doing that on purpose. I don’t mean to annoy UK fans on purpose, of course, even though he seems to have managed to, but because he may have thought that the audience consisted of foreign fans mainly. At least that’s what I thought when I read Heather’s review (sorry, forgot the MFC name) and the story of Mika asking the choir how many of them were from the UK and heard that there was one person only. He may have concluded that this gig has attracted fans from all over the world so he could not and should not care . It is, of course the wrong conclusion, because his ‘hard core front row’ that follows him around several countries (and that keeps shrinking, actually) is not necessarily representative of the composition of the audience anywhere. He does try to please them / us for sure but he can’t rely on such a small group of people to keep his career going.

The two I was interested in, thank you

I fully agree on that. Rain and Relax were perfect show starters. I think a similarly good one could be Startdust as it starts restrained (he could even start it acoustic) and then make it all explode. You know, when I read your post I was shocked a bit but it made me laugh at the same time because I was sure that I will find many comments on this…. I am only through the first 2 pages and it is quite fun already. It is not the star but the age of fans the artist has. Bieber has almost entirely teenage fans, so no surprise they are stuck on him, following his every move. And of course, it depends on the personality of people as well. I am unlikely to turn up anywhere if I am not invited and especially not beg for favours. Thinking back, the only concert that I would have really liked to attend and I was in town already was an MTV Unplugged in London for my favourite singer in the nineties. I knew where it was filmed and I could have gone there but what for if I had no tickets? Perhaps if I had never seen the guy and wanted to catch a glimpse of him I would have done that. Other than that I personally find it rather odd for a grown up to do it and also for an artist as well to encourage that. It is good publicity for Mika to mention the level of insanity among his fans though, I have noticed that. I’ll read on now. I know it will be fun..

It was me who said this but not quite the way you remembered. In fact, what I wrote was that in order for a slow song to work as a show starter at a pop concert he'd either have to impress the audience with his voice (which he couldn't this time, due to his illness) or by the meaning of the song- something the British audience had no clue of. The reason it worked in France is exactly the reason why it did not in the UK. So, you basically confirmed what I wrote:teehee: If he did that song as a " thumb nose" to Londoners, like you say, it makes me question his sanity, to be honest. I hope you are not right about that.

..having read the rest of the posts and reviews, a few other interesting points I saw: Comme Soleil Mal Luné is the best French song on the French edition of the album. Better than some of the English songs. Still, I just don’t understand the concept. Starting a concert with a slow song is risky to begin with. You need to make the right choice. If it is an acoustic concert, it is fine, of course. At a pop concert you start with an exclamation mark that may either be the level of energy the song has (not quite this one) or the meaning of the song (about which the audience had no clue this time). Ultimately, it can be a breath taking vocal performance that I have yet to check although I doubt his vocal chords were in that condition yesterday. I am not English, so I can’t comment on the cultural rivalry not making it a good decision (I personally think that it should not matter), but last night was the case of an English speaking popstar singing to an English audience on a tour that was meant to promote his English album, so I guess the last thing they’d want to hear from him is songs in a foreign language instead of Happy Ending for example, or other great songs from the current album. In the continent it may not matter that much. In countries where EMD was a success (in mine it has never even been played) , he may want to sing that and at an acoustic gig he may want to sing that beautiful 'Comme Soleil Mal Luné, but I don’t understand the choice last night, really. It seems like he did not care. Yes, that is why I find it odd, too. On the previous tour he rehearsed lines in the language of the country to greet the audience, in interviews he has always added some comment that appreciates the culture of the country or shows his knowledge and interest in that nation…etc. and now he does not even seem to ‘get’ where he is. Honestly, he seems a bit lost to me, like no longer in touch with reality. .. or sabotaging himself, like you suggested earlier. Surely, it is up to him to decide, and here is the result in the gig review published in the Evening Standard. It comes to the point right at the beginning:

oh, finally a gig thread including real concert reviews and not about the m&g part. I have only read the first page so far but a lot to comment already:teehee:: …is similar to mine on the gig I attended in Austria on many points, especially on the level of excitement and on EMD. There he even mentioned before the song that he’ll sing this despite being told not to.. So who is he trying to prove what? It is either the case of him having been pressured to write an English version to that song and he is not happy to sing the English version (which puts a huge question mark over his ‘freedom’ in what he puts on his own records) or he forgot that he was actually in the UK and just kept the French setlist. Either scenario sounds pretty bad to me , so perhaps he really needs his well-deserved break now. Perhaps he was missing you from front row. Seriously though, his mood often shows in his performances and I am not surprised he wasn’t the happiest in London. It wasn’t a triumphant return, not much to celebrate, really. I feel sorry for him on that, actually. That is an interesting point and I also felt a kind of insecurity in Vienna . I put it down to the moderate level of success of the third album, not the band though. I think the band does sound better. It is more of them on stage (plus the ‘choir’ ) , so maybe that contributes to the (lack of) spirit, too. I guess it is easier to create the magical sparkle with fewer of them. I agree, except for Lola. To me Lola is perfect for live performances : I love the improvisation part. I don’t know if he did it like that in London but with a receptive audience it goes down really well. A few fans on stage do not make a choir. They are just fans on stage. How one perceives that idea depends on their expectation from a concert. To be a member must feel great for those who love to be near him or want to try the experience to be on stage at a concert. How the audience feels about may be debatable. It certainly does not build Mika’s credibility as a musician but it does not seem to be his priority. He is focusing more and more on some theatrical visuals and that is why I am getting removed from it all. It seems that I have seen all he can offer at the moment , which would probably get 5 stars from me at any occasion but I expect him to move to a next stage now and consider himself a musician and not a theatre director.

Well, the choir sounds better than the one on John Lennon's original. As for Mika's performance, this one would have probably been an ideal one to cancel if he really wanted to have his voice rest. He did not even try to.

I did. Kind of. I don't normally watch concert footage of gigs I don't attend but watched the Peugeot performance and his voice didn't sound good at all. It lacked the strength it normally has. I didn't comment on it - especially since most people did not notice that - but I don't see the point in him performing at such high scale, quality acoustic events when he has voice problems. He really should have skipped that one, IMO. He needs to have a rest to get better.

oh good. I just wanted to disassociate myself from such simplistic summary of the discussion that seemed to refer to my post. I am pretty sensitive about misinterpreting my thoughts, even unintentionally

..glad you understand and rephrase so well what I wrote about. yes, it is true in all cases. Most people need guidance in interpretation. And it is true most pop stars now use stories to try to put some meaning behind any cheesy pop song.It is good to have a story for the press. However, if people just don't get at all what the song is about or get the completely opposite meaning,there is something wrong with the way the message is conveyed. yes, that's how he tends to respond to all queries about his future performances now. I am not sure how it can help. You may encourage people to invite him but you can't buy the tickets: the demand needs to be there.

@to all reading - I hope no-one confuses people having their own opinion on what is happening to Mika's career and why it is happening vs 'telling him' what to do :rolls_eyes: Well, I wonder whose idea was to record it in that format with those lyrics and that mix though. It's not that this song was an unfortunate choice for a single but the fact that putting it on the record was a compromise - something I would have never imagined Mika to do. yes, that is the key. Who is Mika and what style does he have? At least in Stardust he has his falsetto tastefully placed, adding his distinctness to the song. Even that dj on BBC radio (Dermot O'Leary) told him he thought Stardust would be a single and did not even remember Celebrate this point I need to disagree. I think it is the song and the video that need to tell the story and not the artist in tv shows. I was discussing this with some Hungarian youngsters and they said that they and anyone they talked to were shocked by WAG - both sound and vision. It turned people away as his message of being proud to be different was buried in the chaotic sound and the lyrics seemingly addressing teenagers seemed to contradict the seemingly exhibitionist message of the video. I don't think we can help but knowing what he wants is not that difficult, like you pointed it out. One only needs to listen. He keeps talking about performing to thousands or even millions of people, doing long promotional tours across continents and having fans everywhere...etc. In other words, that is the ideal level of success for him he is talking about in the press - despite the reality sometimes being slightly different. At least he is good at positioning himself and he most certainly should not dispair. Getting fame and attention in today's media noise is difficult, though not impossible. It just needs to be helped by professionals as the first attept with the curly haired cartoon Mika character though bringing overnight success, it did not last as people got bored and were never interested in the person behind, not even in the first place. It is not necessarily business. It is science. It would simply need to be researched why he is liked or rejected and build a strategy accordingly. It is narrow minded thinking that it would mean him having to compromise on anything. People with open minds are willing to change ways of presenting themselves if given the right feedback and he is in a business (oh, sorry, swear word for some, so correction: performace art) where perception is at least as important as performance: music and art is subjective but its consumption can be measured and described objectively.

They are simply repeating what Mika has said in interviews about doing the second album isolated vs collaborating with others on the third and about the 2nd album being 'dark'. Even if that was all true though, it wouldn't explain the lack of success of the 3rd album, so he can throw that theory out of the window.

wow that sounds better than the album version. A bit late but good choice for UK radio . PS: if there is no single package how can anyone buy this particular version though

You know, many artists could do these shows but they are not invited. Invitation is based on a number of things but one important factor is demand. Do you seriously think that the record company ordered him to be back in the studio? That is rather optimistic. If a record fails commercially, they tend to pull out and not 'order' the aritst to do more. Also, you also can't possibly believe they are trying to 'destroy' him. No record company has a 'money tree' they harvest when they want to promote something. They choose which artists to invest in and with what intensity. Mika did get a fair share of promo when the album was released but it failed to generate sales, so when they re-assessed it they put their money on a different horse. If there is no expected return to promote something they simply won't. So it is now time for some miracle to happen in the UK, meaning that his current image of being a cartoon character playing cheesy and even annoying pop songs is reversed or is forgotten. I don't know if it can happen but there is no sense creating conspiracy theories about anyone, especially those having a financial interest in his success, trying to destroy him on purpose. There is surely a lot of incompetence that anyone could observe with the release of his singles - starting from the second album-, but that does not mean any deliberate plan. Besides, his overall image also plays an important part in how he is judged, so he would need to share some of the blame if we was willing to but he won't because he is an artist and can do what he wants.

yes, it seems there is no 'single package', so in effect it means that as a last attempt in the UK the record company is trying to get some airplay for TOOL as if this song was released as a single this week. I doubt it would chart without any additional effort.

yes, I was thinking the same. I asked him if he was planning to do any acoustic shows and he replied that yes, there'd be a charity event in Paris in December but it was by invitation only. Obviously not the type of answer I was expecting. :rolls_eyes:

I don't understand why some printed media need to sink so low. It's as if they were treating readers totally dumb. I think, Dita's way of enjoying a tropical holiday and Louboutin teaching her etiquette is odd enough to make people and laugh. (In any case, no place for rude comments for sure).

@krjsantos I was also thinking of Lady Gaga when I was referring to recent examples of using pop art in music videos..

Move on to new things? that's interesting. Can't wait to hear the news.

I don't think it is impossible. It also depends on what you call 'art'. Pop art can be a perfect medium to transfer meaning in pop music, for example and is widely used as well. Fine art may not be used that often. As far as I can see, the main 'gap' in the video is that this particular theatrical performance at the beginning does not work for that song and especially not for a music video. Maybe with different techniques and for another song or another singer / actor it would have. Kate Bush has that well-choreographed, brilliant video for Running Up That Hill, for example. I doubt anyone finds that one laughable.

I mark today as 'agreement day'. It must be because Xmas is approaching...

I think the same, except that you can't have subtitles for him talking on stage and for songs it is not needed, really. So a definite 'no' for me on any theatre show in France. so we agree on this one?