I'm including everything, so if you only want to read about the concert itself, just find the tl;dr mark
So, I got to the venue at about 2:15-2:30PM, and kind of awkwardly found myself a little gap to stand in on the left side. I had been expecting there to be a queue like the last time I'd seen Mika at Hammersmith, but everyone was taking shelter from the wet weather under both sides of the front of the building. There was a sea of unfamiliar faces, and I found myself wishing that I had some sort of technology that would cause everyone's usernames to float above their heads so I'd know who they were. Seeing as nothing was happening, I was really frickin' cold, and the fact that we weren't in a queue indicated to me that the order in which we came didn't matter (I would later be proven wrong on this), I went walking around for about 20 minutes. When I came back, there was a blond guy with a ponytail saying something inaudible about lining up, and it turned out we were gonna line up according to numbers. Seeing as I didn't have a number, and figured that this wouldn't matter much as they were usually just used to keep us in order anyway from my experience, I found a place that seemed appropriate for the time that I came, and all seemed good.
In the line, I chatted with Sumiko2 and Rachel (sorry, I forgot your username ; ), who were both lovely, and Sumiko2 even gave me a chocolate doughnut! I never expected to get free food at a Mika concert I was shivering like crazy with the cold by this point, but good company always makes nasty weather more bearable.
Fast forward an hour or two, and suddenly a bunch of us were moving forward. It turned out, though, that they were only letting people with numbers into the building. The girl next to me, who said she was a member of the MFC (couldn't find your username, though, sorry - might have misheard it due to me being senile XD; ), was really angry about this as she'd been queueing for hours and so by rights should've been near the front, but the security man's explanation for this was, paraphrased, "Well, we have to do a little extra for the MFC members."
"Uh, I AM in the MFC!" she replied. There was nothing we could do, though. So we waited outside for a few more hours in the freezing cold and the rain, shivering our arses off, before the doors were opened to us lesser beings at last
tl;dr The support act was Erik Hassle. I found his music didn't do much for me, as I felt his choruses tended to be weak and his music didn't sound that different to everything else I've ever heard. Still, he did have a few nice synth bits going there.
And then it was time for Mika. What a show! I love the whole 'movie' screen thing he's got going on in the background. The band's equipment apparently decided to go haywire and screw things up for them, but to be honest, I hardly noticed. I loved the juxtaposition of the lollipop girl and big girl outfits with the grotesque heads they had to wear, even if the LGs and BGs were on the stage for a little too long due to being so numerous. I also very much approved of the little 'bin orchestra' that the band had going on near the end. The only slightly annoying thing was that despite getting a fairly decent place in the 3rd row, there were a bunch of tall people in front of me, so I had to keep ducking and diving in order to see anything.
Afterwards, I followed RAK1 and co. round the back before finding CazGirl and friends waiting for Mika to come out. It was some time before he actually came out, but when he did, I got a couple of pictures:
^ He's signing CazGirl's book here, which you can't see but oh well
He's bloody gorgeous in the flesh. =D (Not like you all didn't know that anyway!)
So then I went home, ate hummous and walnuts, misheard hilarious things while listening to
, and then went to bed. The end!
Many thanks to all who kept me company and gave me hearts and doughnuts, you all rock