Christine

Those pants of f-ing awesome. Baggy suits him more, especially when his underwear is always hanging out.

Loved them. Thanks for posting.

I don't think the point is whether he is gay or not. It's whether he acknowledges it if he is gay. I'm sure there is a large segment of the gay population who aren't happy when celebrities remain in the closet because it implies there is shame in being gay. It makes it more difficult for young gays and lesbians to find acceptance in themselves and from others. Obviously threatening his life is ridiculous, but I think Mika is always going to receive flak for not coming out of the closet because he sets off everyone's gaydar to the max. You can balk at gay stereotypes and homophobia, but it was Perez Hilton who pegged Mika as gay back in October when most people had never even heard of him. http://perezhilton.com/topics/listen_to_this/listen_to_this_shining_brighter_than_a_star_20061031.php

Yes Natie, I was hoping he would do Toronto > Montreal > Boston. Do you think there's room in his schedule? You would think NY is in there somewhere too.

Hi Carol! I love your fan page. Meet us in the Canadian thread: http://www.mikafanclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3359

You're going to have a fantastic time!

Yes it sounds very Beatles to me. I love the Beatles!

That's exactly how I feel. I wasn't totally crazy about LICM when I first heard it, but I was interested in Mika right away. He's got a long career ahead of him and he's only going to get better. I find some of the criticisms ridiculous. That he's not Freddie Mercury. Well neither was Freddie Mercury at 23. It took him a lifetime to achieve what he did and Mika is still a pup. I also don't understand the criticism that the songs are too diverse. To me it just shows that he's got a huge creative library to draw from and isn't going to churn out the same songs album after album. The whole circus theme of his show blew me away. That he would put that much effort into a small and insignificant show (in terms of numbers) bodes well for the future. I can just imagine the kind of spectacle he's going to create when he's playing arenas like Robbie Williams and Madonna. It's a great manifestation of his music and it's what will turn people from listeners to fans.

I saw/read something recently about Martin doing the Proclaimers song to distract the audience while they tried to sort out a technical problem?? Anyone remember this? I think it was in Ibiza.

I love the tone of his natural voice and how he can switch to falsetto seamlessly and breathlessly...not just in the studio, but live. I love his whole American/Lebanese/Paris/London thing. I have lived in Toronto/Vancouver/Johannesburg/London so I can relate to moving around and adjusting to different cultures. I lived in South Kensington and worked next to the Royal College of Music so I know his neighbourhood well. I love the fact that he follows his instincts regardless of what other people think but he is discreet and well composed. He expresses his individuality through his music, his performances, his style - not by saying obnoxious things like some young pop stars do. I love that he thanked the Toronto audience for supporting him by buying tickets before all the hype hit. I know he says that to all his audiences and there was only a month between the time I bought my tickets and the actual show, but it was still touching. He seemed genuinely happy to play for 500 people and I'm sure the cost of the "circus" wiped out any potential profits. It felt like he was just throwing us all a party for the hell of it. He has the greatest hair I've ever seen in my life.

Ha, that's funny because I want to live in the UK. I lived in Reading/London for almost 3 years and I loved it. I miss the history and the vibe in London. Toronto is a big sterile concrete slab. The only good thing about Toronto since I returned is a lot of British artists come here and play small clubs before anyone here has heard of them. There were only 500 people or so at the Mika concert.

Canadian radio is crap so I listen to Capital FM (London) at work, via the internet. I think it was in January that they first played Grace Kelly. The DJ was hyping up Mika and the song beforehand so I decided to stop what I was doing and listen. The hype, of course, was totally justified. I loved the general tone of his normal voice, the "little Freddie" was awe inspiring and the climbing falsetto towards the end was unbelievable. Love Today and Relax never grabbed me the way Grace Kelly did because I prefer the natural tone of his voice. But when I heard he was coming to a small club in Toronto I grabbed the tickets. I knew, whether you were crazy about the music or not, he would be something to see with his operatic training. Again, all the hype was justified and he was fantastic live. Songs like Lollipop took on a whole new energy. The shop where I purchase my concert tickets offers a 10% discount on CDs when you pick up your tickets so I bought LICM. I listened to it a few times before the show, but now I listen to it every day.

You'll love every minute of it. Enjoy!!!

Good luck!! Post here and let us know you've got them.

I am waiting anxiously for a Toronto announcement. I just saw him a month ago. I'm greedy too!

He was talking about the Hippodrome in Tyre. http://www.ikamalebanon.com/national_heritage/south_nh/sth_cities_nh/sour.htm

Well it could be a way to get a hot new boyfriend

I think he's about 17. The little girls sure love him

Arghh....why doesn't he just make an announcement of all the tour dates?

OMG, the only person this Daniel Küblböck should be compared to is Sanjaya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKF6TGQjasE

I think people are just taken aback by Mika's matter-of-fact attitude towards his ability to succeed. For so many years now, being a pop star has had nothing to do with music and everything to do with being in the right place at the right time, being marketed well and generating a lot of attention for things that have nothing to do with your music. Mika intends to make a career out of creating pop music and he knows that there is an audience for his work. Once he was granted the freedom and support by his record label to do what he wanted, it was practically a given that he was going to be successful. I'm sure he is surprised by many aspects of what has taken place over the past few months, but I think it would be disingenuous of him to pretend that he isn't already on the path to a successful career in music.

I think it's part mid-life crisis and part is Mika's '80s appeal. The '80s is when you had all those great young solo pop artists - Prince, Michael Jackson, George Michael. David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Elton John were still in their prime. We just haven't seen anyone like Mika in 20 years. I guess Robbie Williams and Justin Timberlake fall into that category but they're post-boyband so for people my age there was never the same enthusiasm for them as you had for younger fans of Take That and NSync. I lived in London in the late 90s and I was so sick of the boyband/girlband/boy-girlband thing that I mostly listened to trance and other clubbing music. That's when I started feeling too old for pop music. I don't think I was really too old. The music was just so lame and marketed to 14 year olds. Paolo Nutini, Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and of course Mika have really revived my enthusiasm for pop music. I think Amy Winehouse and Mika especially appeal to our generation because they a sense of life experience about them and could pass for early 30s in photos and videos.

I've got the Canadian version too, but the catalogue number starts with a B. It's B000835202. Can you buy Erase from UK iTunes? I wonder if the artwork is the same on all of them? Obviously the track listing is different on the second page.

Ha, actually they're men. But here's a pic of everyone on the boat.

Ha, I'm 38 too. I wouldn't say I'm quite as mental as I was at 14 but I've been on a real Mika binge since I saw him in March. The concert was way beyond expectations and he's such an interesting character I like seeing all his interviews. The first concert I went to, at 14, was Rick Springfield. On the way to the stadium I ran into a scalper who agreed to exchange our tickets for $10 and we ended up with front row seats. If I wasn't obsessed with him before, I sure was after! I also became a real prima donna and would only go to concerts if I could get tickets in the first 10 rows because I wanted to see my favorite pop/rock stars up close. The other person I was obsessed with at that age was Tim Curry from Rocky Horror. I have heard that they are planning to do a sequel to the play in London's West End and the minute I saw Mika I thought he should star in it. I can't see him running around in a corset or anything ridiculous, but he's got the looks, the facial expressions and of course the voice. Even if he just collaborated on the music it would be fantastic.