What a night !!
I'm really at a loss for the words to describe how absolutely brilliant and out of this world last night's gig was. If we never got to see MIKA ever again we could still live our lives happy in the knowledge that we have seen (in our humble opinion) his best live performance to date, though how he is ever going to top that is beyond us. A truly remarkable evening.
We had a feeling when this gig was announced that it might turn out to be something special but we had no idea HOW special.
The venue was beautiful, it holds 650 but at a guess there were only about 350 in there for the support acts and maybe 500 when MIKA hit the stage. We were seated in church style pews and the whole evening was so relaxed you could go and have a chat with friends or get a mug of tea / coffee / hot chocolate in between the acts without any fear of losing your place. It was more like a social gathering than a gig and all set in a wonderfully atmospheric setting.
The support acts were Daisy Dares You (a 16 year old whose first single is out in Feb) and Alex Gardner (only 18 but a very good voice, think we might hear a bit more about him in the coming years) Jo Whiley was hosting the evening and did so with great enthusiasm, her love and passion for music really shows through when she speaks, as anyone who has listened to her on the radio will testify. She spent much of the time between acts mingling and chatting to people and despite being very busy seemed more than happy to pose for photos with those who asked....lovely lady!!
Then we come to the reason we were there....MIKA
His voice was the best I've ever heard it, so crisp and pure it went right through you, Over my shoulder actually had me in tears it was so beautiful. MIKA said about the King Singers.... "It's not often that I'm nervous about appearing on stage with other singers but here are 6 people who can REALLY sing" He needn't have worried, their voices melted together like chocolate and caramel. They complimented each other perfectly. From the moment they started...... boom, boomba boom, boomba boom, boomba boom ba boomba as the intro to Grace Kelly we could tell we were in for a special night.
Kev managed to get a set list from the stage......
Sadly we didn't get the bonus track but the rest of the set list certainly made up for it.
It proved to be an inspired set with every song feeling just right for the occasion. Our personal highlights were By The Time, Over My Shoulder and Rain. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but he actually did a one handed version of the MFC rain twinkly fingers movement thingy (as seen on Jools Holland) and smiled at the audience as he did it. A big WELL DONE to Jemmalee who originally came up with it, and a big thank you to MIKA himself for the feedback, it was a lovely moment among many lovely moments last night.
The meet and greet went well, there were only 40 people there (we counted) but we were worried that he might rush off as most those waiting were huddled very tightly around the stage door and it might have looked a little intimidating to him coming out but we need not have worried, people were very respectful and generally waited their turn, but more importantly they moved to one side once they had seen him and made room for others waiting. Our patience was rewarded, we managed to get our album promo signed (and he even put a little upside down heart shaped tear on his pic...
Apologies if the 2 images posted are not showing...Boomspeed is playing up a little today but they will appear eventually
Kev recorded By The Time and the link is here...
The quality really doesn't do it justice, but thought you might still like to see it anyway.
That's about it for now, very tired but on a wonderful high. If I think of anything else to add I will do so later.
A VERY happy Jules
xx