mellody

btw, because someone asked, and in case anyone else is interested, here's a pic of the tree necklace i made for mika: and a pic of him wearing it (thanx to lucia on FB):

i really hope you're right... i especially wouldn't like the queuing 2 days in advance. it's already getting worse and worse at mika's gigs - in helsinki there were even 5 people camping from 4pm the day before.

wow, that looks tiny! don't know why, but i always thought this was a huge festival! was it a mika only gig then, no other bands?

nope, from what i saw in his tweets, he was on stage as one of the toyboy carriers.

from bubblespurry on twitter: okay. i'm a ****ing legend. that's a good way to describe me @mikasounds. show was awesome. thanks for savin me. almost fell off stage. lol almost fell off cause i really did dance too hard on this way too small stage. but it was really niceeeee

exactly. tbh, i'm glad that he thought it was a cockroach, his reaction was priceless and brought a lot of fun to the evening!

i still don't think it was in fact cockroaches... maybe someone fooled mika by telling him that. i did some research on wikipedia, and found: Cockroaches are mainly nocturnal and will run away when exposed to light. A peculiar exception is the Asian cockroach, which is attracted to light. so IF it was cockroaches, it must've been that asian one, as they were flying around the lights (there were dozens of them up there in front of the stage lights). dear italians, please correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think it's very likely that there's a huge population of asian cockroaches in cattolica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_cockroach i still think it was just moths, or some sort of beetle.

finished uploading my vids: big girl: trumpet solo with flying cockroach mika throwing confetti on the band, and oms: cake being brought on stage and band introduction: we are golden, with golden balloons: talk before SITM and before billy brown (again about the cockroaches): improvisations of blue eyes and of happy ending: some more bits+pieces (happy ending flowers, the crew guy jumping during LT, sweet dreams dance):

yeah, i'm sure it was some inside joke, mika found it really funny. but are you sure that he got the wig from a fan? i only saw that while he was waiting for the jumping part, a fan who stood behind him stole his wig, and he had to put it back on.

uploaded my pix: http://s778.photobucket.com/albums/yy68/mikafanclub_de/2010%2008%2019%20Cattolica/ ... and some of my faves here: flying mika ;-p elisabetta, is that you there next to him? :-D

many thanx for that, love it how you recalled that conversation, i understood only half of it while we were there, lol! thank you for clearing that up. i thought it had been organized by the girls who organized the cake, and had been because of that cake surprise... since i was told italian fanclub, and mika on stage also had said italian fanclub - which in fact was totally new to me, since in all those e-mails we exchanged with the 3 girls during the organization, there never was any talk about an italian fanclub. i actually thought the cake etc. was an mfc surprise, by the mfcers plus the other italian fans on local mika-forums, who came to cattolica. but if the m+g was a last minute thing by some locals who knew people, then of course it's something different, and you're absolutely right that if the number of passes is limited, it's very difficult to decide who can join and who can't. i didn't know that other italian fans who took part in the cake project weren't able to go in, really sorry for them. and i'm even happier now that john gave us the chance to join! so, sorry, if i had any wrong suspicions... i just was confused by this "italian fan club" thing. she came in with our group, all of those who helped with the flowers were inside. agree. it was the same with our flower thing, all we wanted was a lovely surprise for mika, and bring a smile to his face. of course i hoped i'd get to give him my personal bday presents after the show, but that had nothing to do with the flower surprise... i didn't expect a special m+g at all, and was very surprised and happy that it happened. but i don't see that danger of people organizing random things to get a m+g. most has been done already, and just doing something random won't get anyone a special treatment. but if someone has a really original idea and works hard to organize it, i agree with mari, that those should be preferred if there are special treats, though of course no one can expect it. i think it's really fun if some fans organize special things for gigs, whether it's something original or not - like mika said (see statue's report), he loves it if his fans do this, and the rest of the crowd thinks "WTF?!" that's the reason why i'm thinking of doing something like that at the arbon festival as well - nothing big, nothing to surprise mika because i don't have any original ideas for it, but something that shows the other festival goers that mika is special. like the soap bubbles, i think it was a fab idea by those in tallinn, and could be repeated at other festivals, since it's a fantastic effect which gets noticed by the whole crowd and takes only little effort. it's like a replacement for the costumes thing - in 2007, everyone was wearing crazy costumes at mika gigs, there's much less of that meanwhile, but instead there are special happenings... i think it just shows how much mika's fans feel as a part of the show, instead of being just spectators. many thanks for this! i really loved those huge paper flowers that a bunch of people had made, they looked so beautiful!

so, a few pix, and one video... btw, if someone has pictures of the m+g where you can see mika wearing my tree necklace, can you please post them? i only saw pix so far where you can see the leather band (2 of them, one from rose's moose necklace), but not the tree itself. video of mika throwing confetti on his band, and OMS (including flying cockroach talk ): queuing on stage: gig: mika and his birthday cake: more tomorrow. goodnight for now.

damn, couldn't you have told me that BEFORE i wrote a novel?! looking forward to your pix!

you know the trumpet solo cockroach part from jazzy's video - with jimma making fun at him, so funny! *g* and he talked about the cockroaches again before billy brown (it was the "running like a girl" part), i have that on video. ;-) also a very funny bit was when he sat down for OMS, put rose's sunglasses on and said sth like "now i must be really serious!" - he was totally making fun of himself, i couldn't help but giggle all the time through OMS, when i looked at him with those silly sunglasses on! got OMS on video too. ;-) although there were so many funny bits at the show, and we also got lots of eye contact, the overall "feeling" of the show for me was good, but not as good as any of my so far fave gigs (which of this tour were stuttgart, helsinki, luxemburg and dublin). dunno why... for the first part of the show, i had the feeling that mika was always waiting/looking out for the surprise, i'm sure he knew he'd get something. and i was distracted as well, having to take care of my sunflower so it wouldn't get squashed. anyway, the gig was good and fun, but somehow i had the feeling that it didn't click 100% between mika and the crowd, although both were in a good mood, dunno how to describe it better. but thinking of it today, i just remember all those funny parts and improvisations and everything - so, it might not be among my top gigs list, but it was certainly special. :-D so, after the show we noticed that the italians were crowding at the side of the stage, and we got word from someone that "the italian fanclub" would get a backstage m+g, and they had passes. from what i was told, they explicitly told people not to tell us (= international mfcers). this bit i only found out later, but i must say i was really disappointed when i heard it. and i was also disappointed about this random "italian fanclub" thing. if those 3 who had organized the cake had gotten the m+g, fine. if it had been all who took part in the cake surprise, fine as well. if it had been the italians, regardless of the cake thing, well, i even might've understood that, since the gig was in italy... though it really wasn't many non-italian mfcers there... but there were also some italian mfcers (piperita patty and another girl whose name i forgot) who didn't get passes, so, well, i might not have understood the whole thing, but it seemed totally random to me, and since the organizers are on mfc too, i don't understand why they didn't include the 7 or 10 non-italian mfcers who were there. and who had also paid for the cake, like everyone else. maybe someone can explain the whole thing to me, but the way i see it now, they didn't want us there, and i don't understand why. it's not like there were 50 more they'd have to invite, or lots of people who had never seen mika before so it would turn out like in brixton with excited fans jumping at him. anyway, to get back to the positive things, like jazzy already mentioned, john saved us again... and despite of what i said above, a big thank you to the italian girls for organizing the m+g, even if you didn't want us there, but without you it wouldn't have taken place. and thanks to john for letting us join, he's just the best! outside we wouldn't have had a chance to give him our presents, since there were about 300 people, so mika just quickly stopped to wave and maybe shake some hands (i didn't see much of what he did there, just that he got out of the car and quickly went to each side of the waiting fans who were held back by many security guards). so, like jazzy said, we were sitting there backstage, and at some point we noticed that john was organizing the italian fans, i think for a group picture? dunno, anyway, i just said, well, then mika will come soon - and statue suddenly just went, oh, there he is - and he was already standing there for a while, talking to rose, and we hadn't even noticed! he then went over to the italians, while we stayed where we were (he said he'd come back later), then someone brought the cake, and mama p came with a knife - like someone (was it jazzy?) said, she was trying to cut into the styrofoam - i didn't know that either, it looked like one huge cake, but actually it was just 2 small rings of cake on this huge styrofoam thing, and icing on top of it all, so it looked like a big cake! i also had no idea of that, so i absolutely can't blame mama p for trying to cut deeper into the cake, after she was through the actual cake! the cake almost fell off the table in the process, and then fortuné saved us from eating styrofoam by telling his mum that it wasn't the cake anymore that she was trying to cut. those candle/firework thingies you see in jazzy's video is something i brought - i had them at home in a drawer for a while, they're special fireworks for food, but i never used them, so i thought that'd be a perfect occasion, and we could light them when the cake gets carried on stage - they weren't lit then, so i thought why not do it now, before the cake gets completely eaten. so i prepared them (you had to pull them out of that plastic thing and turn them round to light them), got a lighter from someone and lit them. then it occurred to us that mika should see it as well, so we called him over, and sang happy birthday again. the rest of it you see in jazzy's video. ;-) anyway, at some point mika came over to us, then first tiibet gave him her presents, then statue - i told him that it was her idea about the flowers... but i'll let her recall what he said... statue, you're the one with the "recording brain", not me, lol! ;-p , and then it was my turn. i had made another tree necklace, this time a small one from FIMO (a modelling clay that hardens in the oven, so you can make jewellery from it), actually i wanted to make 2, one for him and one for me, but it was so much work, it took me a few hours, because everything was so small, so i didn't have time to make a 2nd one. anyway, i wore it during the gig, and at the m+g i told mika that if it's something he'd actually wear, he can have it, otherwise i'd keep it. ;-p he thought for a second and then said, yes, he'll wear it, and put it around his neck (i helped him, since he still had the plate with the cake in his hand...). and he said something about rose's moose necklace - i didn't get it, statue told me afterwards, it was about which necklace matches his t-shirt better or something. *g* statue, please replay your recording here on mfc, i wanna know all he said, i forgot everything! i also gave him a book (momo by michael ende, for those who know it... when he said he'd like to be able to freeze time, it reminded me of that book, that's why i bought it for him...), and a big card from the german fanclub. told him he'd get our present in arbon, and he asked how arbon is pronounced, and wasn't happy when we said we're not sure - he complained that no one knows it, lol! i told him my version, how i pronounce it and that i guess since it's the german speaking part of switzerland, it might be that, but probably the french speaking swiss people pronounce it differently - and he was joking "arbonnnne", with an exaggerated french accent, lol! aww, he's just the best! <3 we had lovely chats with imma (don't remember now what about) and jimmy (about helsinki, and about food and restaurants in different countries - and he mentioned that meat fest again that he had in dusseldorf, the one he tweeted about, lol!), and when mika passed by me as he left, he touched my shoulder and quickly thanked me for the presents again. so, that was it, and i'm really tired now, since i hadn't slept properly the last 3 nights. xD will upload 2 or 3 pix now, and then off to bed. ;-)

i made a screenshot of my signature and cut it out in an image program - it's 597 x 275 pixels, including text - perfect, so i don't have to change it.

alright, part 2 of my report. we started queuing very early, since we know it's crazy in italy, and the evening before we had already seen lots of mika fans around the city, one of them already with her gig make-up on (sequins), so we were worried that it'd be the same as in helsinki - and we were right. they didn't camp there, but when we arrived a bit before 6, there were already some people who had been there since 4 am. i got number 8, and i think half an hour later we were already at number 20, so i'm happy that we decided to go that early. besides, we arrived before the staff who were building the stage, so we had access all areas, and could sit on the stage, until they sent us away at about 7 or 8. ;-p i took some pix of that, really funny - don't think anyone else than those yesterday can say that they've been queuing ON the stage. fast forward to the evening, i had already told you about our mfc flower production company , and like always, john made sure we got in earlier than the rest. the 3 italian girls who organized the surprises got in before everyone else, so they were front row center, and then they let us in. unfortunately, we were stopped by another security guy a few metres later - we didn't know what to do, sometimes at gigs we're told to queue up again according to the numbers once we're inside, so i tried to arrange people in the order again... but then suddenly the security guy let everyone through, and the numbers were totally mixed up. it was only those until number 20 or 30 so far, so it wasn't that bad, and i really can't complain about the spot i got (left side, in front of mika's piano), but i was a bit angry that the venue staff had messed it up, i hate this hectic when everyone starts running at the same time and you have to be the fastest to get a good spot! the "support act" was a DJ, i quite liked the music he played. at some point, john came and asked me where the italian girls were who organized the surprise, so i sent him over to them and they talked (about the cake organization i think) - and when he came back, he asked statue and me whether we're sure that we wouldn't want to help them deliver the cake on stage (he knew we had organized the flowers)? and we said that we'd prefer to watch the whole gig from front row, and that those should do it who organized it - that's what we had said to the 3 girls as well, right from the start - it was their moment, and they deserved it. btw, all 3 of them got hugs from mika on stage, really sweet of him! :-) i think most things about the gig have been said already... the improvisations, mika+band making fun (at one point, mika ran after jimmy across the whole stage, wanting to throw a handful of confetti at him ), the flying cockroaches - actually, i thought it was just normal moths - but well, i'm sure mika knows better, since it was him who got attacked by them. he behaved like me when i see a wasp - let out some sort of eeking noise, jumped up and ran away, making a disgusted face. i really hope someone has that on video, i think it was during the first part of SITM, when he sat at the piano. one of the moths sat on his vest (i did indeed see it, but it must've looked quite funny for anyone who was further away! ), and when it started fluttering again, mika noticed it and jumped up, while the band kept playing SITM. hmpf, too many smileys... gotta make a part 3...

you're coming to fringe?! damn, if i had known this... i'd have loved to meet you! but i'm broke now. finally, i can officially say that i ran out of money, after all those gigs this year - so the only gig i can go to for probably the rest of the year (IF there are any more at all...) is arbon, which will only cost me about 10 euro. :rolls_eyes: well, hope to meet you some day! enjoy the gig on monday!

i'm back home. and i can definitely agree that we had a wonderful day/evening yesterday, and the best aftershow m+g ever. i have to mention one or two negative things as well though - but since the evening over all turned out so perfectly, i want to say first that despite those negative things, i'm really happy and i just LOVE mika, john, jimmy, imma, and all the rest of them, and all the lovely MFCers that i spent time with yesterday! first, let me tell you the story about the surprises. a while ago, statue_of_liberty and me were wondering what surprise we (as mfc) could arrange for mika's birthday gig, since we wanted to do something special, but so many things have been done already - golden hearts, paper planes, glowing lollipops, balloons, confetti, crazy outfits... - it was hard to find something else, but statue had the idea to try and get the whole crowd to hold up flowers, so mika would look on a sea of flowers, and it would fit perfectly to his stage deco. i loved the idea, so we started organizing. we soon heard from the 3 italian girls who were arranging a surprise too, the cake. so them and us got in contact, so we could arrange it all together. their plan first was, to bring the cake for the band introduction, while everyone was singing happy birthday, and get the crowd to hold up sparklers. i already suspected that the sparklers wouldn't be allowed in the venue (they aren't in germany), which turned out to be true - and so we first thought it'd work perfectly to hold up flowers instead, while people were singing happy birthday. but since the italian girls had a plan B, C, D, E and F, we split it up, so our plan in the end looked like this: 1. when mika wants to introduce the band, david starts playing happy birthday, and everyone starts singing. at the same time, the 3 italian girls bring the cake on stage, while the crowd: a) holds up din a4 papers with "happy birthday" on them b) throws confetti c) 2 people in the front row fire off huge confetti bombs with a parachute carrying a small banner with the text "auguri" (congratulations). 2. for happy ending, the crowd holds up the flowers, and those who stand close enough throw them on stage for "little bit of love" 3. golden balloons for we are golden so it was a LOT! of course the cake was the biggest surprise, that was clear right from the start - and it really looked (and tasted!) wonderful! well done to the italians who organized it! nearly all forum members who were there (mfc and italian forums) took part and contributed 5,50 euro per person for it. :-D about the flowers, we had organized over 300 of them - 100 from statue and me, 100 from the money that was left over from the cake (thanx lucrezia!), and the rest from donations that statue, nezza and me collected in the queue (thanx to everyone who contributed! :-)). also, we had contacted the media, to tell all the gig-goers to bring a flower (it was published online and we heard from someone that it was also on the radio on the gig day - but seems like not that many heard it, there were only few flowers apart from ours). we decided that to help the flowers survive the evening, we'd have to provide them with water, so we bought kitchen rolls and aluminium foil, got a bucket of water and started a flower production process - oh my god, this was so much fun, don't think i ever had that much fun while queuing! normally you're just killing time in one or the other way, but yesterday, we were really productive, wrapping 300 flower stems into tissues and foil, and giving them out to everyone. it was like a production line, one person tearing foil, one cutting the flowers, two making the tissues wet, two assembling flower, tissue and foil, and two giving the flowers to everyone in the queue. thank you so much to all the mfcers who helped us with this, without you we couldn't have done it - and i hope you all had as much fun as we did! we're a fab team, huh? and of course also many many thanks to mari, who arranged a special price at a local flower shop and picked up the flowers for us with her car! mari, i forgot my stuff in your car... sorry bout that, but hope you can use it in some way - will pm you about it tomorrow. ;-) unfortunately, despite our efforts, not all flowers survived the evening - some were too delicate, others were treated too badly by their owners - but there still were enough flowers in the end, to make it a nice surprise for mika, he had a huge smile on his face. :-D about the rest of the surprises, a lot of the confetti was already thrown for kick ass, but i think it looked great, indeed fitted quite well to the song... and several of the golden balloons also died too early, because they were already blown up, so it was hard to keep them hidden somewhere until WAG. luckily i got one that wasn't blown up yet, so i could put it in my bag and blow it up for WAG. :-) don't know if mika even noticed the din a4 papers - there were so many happy birthday banners and papers everywhere, i got two different ones and one was hanging at the barrier right next to me - and i was busy singing happy birthday, watching the cake and mika's reaction and the confetti bombs, and trying hard not to get a mouthful of the confetti that was thrown by the crowd - so i almost forgot holding up my a4 paper, lol! but managed in the end. ;-p unfortunately, mika stood with his back to the crowd when the confetti bombs went off, but he caught one of the parachutes - well, i'm sure there are several videos of the surprise out there, so you'll see that. ;-) it was really funny when david came to the piano to push mika away and start playing instead of him! *LOL* ok, sorry this is so long... but i just wanted to tell you the details about the surprises, as i think it was only the 5 of us (the 3 italian girls, statue and me) who knew the complete story, since we organized it all. ;-) will continue bout the gig & m+g in part 2. ;-)

once before with champagne, from what i know, yes. but there were other m+gs with wristbands too, like in amsterdam westerpark and in oakland last october. thanx for all your reports, pix and videos! tina, your pix are fantastic! is that the new camera now, did you finally get it? so sorry for those who couldn't get in the m+g! was it just the german fans then, or how many with numbers / mfcers didn't get in? who was the one giving out the wristbands - fan, crew, local security?

got a text from one of the german girls (no idea who, don't have that number saved in my mobile ), looks like there was a m+g inside, they got wristbands for it... but some people without numbers took wristbands too, so not everyone of the numbered people got one.

i didn't say/think it was a bad gig, i was indeed referring to the behaviour of people in the crowd, because that's what imma talked about in her blog. and about the shirtless, well, for some people it might be a bit too important, that's true... but generally, i don't see a big difference to people talking about the colour of mika's trousers, which had been done a lot in this thread, and no one complained about it. thanx for your report statue. loved the bit with the flag... and stupid security, pfft! but i'm sure the guy can be happy nevertheless, because at least he knew mika wanted him on stage, even if it didn't happen. sorry bout your experience during papa roach. i really hope there's no such bands (and especially fans) at the arbon festival! :rolls_eyes: maybe then you can revise your opinion about festivals again.

part about budapest from imma's new blog, which she just posted: After deliriously packing and un-packing my bag I went to sleep at 3, to be woken up at 8 to leave to the airport to go to Budapest!! A place I have never been to or know much about - we got here about 4pm and after an hour we left to the venue - the drive there was great we got to see some beautiful buildings, the architecture here is so interesting, I would love to come back and have more of a wander.. The line-up was bizarre, we were wedged between Papa Roach and 30 Seconds to Mars, both bands which I like and own albums of but it was interesting to see the crowd reaction. WE rocked our socks off, people danced, clapped, waved - it was great fun and it felt great to be back on stage. After the show, I had a massage - SOOO good and then Maria and I went to watch 30 Seconds to Mars and rocked the side of stage!! When all the girls came on stage it was so funny to see their reaction to Jared Leto - I have to admit he really is very pretty, if a bit too much if you catch my drift? I had a chat with Shannon, the drummer who seemed very nice and normal.So here I am back at my room watching Budapest go by with it's crazy flash storms!! so, looks like at least some in the crowd danced, clapped and waved, so maybe it wasn't that bad.

i like it when he gets shirtless, but tbh, with all those things (short gig, no bgs+lgs, no m+g, no kick ass, bad crowd,...), this would've been my least worry. :rolls_eyes: about the crowd, well, he said he likes festivals because he likes the challenge to win people over who didn't come for him. i'm sure he knows that "challenge" means that it can't always work.

tweets from statue_of_liberty: don´t know how I´ve survived Papa Roach - but I did. Just have one damaged ring and a hurting finger as symptoms - thatś not bad... no m&g, no big girls, no dr john, no kick-ass, no shirtless, bad security, crowd not very interested, but nice sweet dreams & sweet mika edit: suzie, thanx for the report!