lollipop_monkey

Hello people.

I´m not sure if this is the righ thread but there is a side on fb called :

" I want MIka to die a long and painful death (in a soundproof hole) "

No harm in reporting it, but apart from that I wouldn't worry too much about it. There have been Mika hate pages on Facebook as far back as I can recall, even in 2007. It's just someone with no life trying to get a reaction out of his fans. Don't give them the satisfaction.

I got sent here, and it's all because of Mika and his tool.

This discussion is hilarious.

Here's the long and short of it: I don't care if Mika's next-door neighbour is renting out his house for £1 a day. If, as an MFCer, you announce that you specifically chose to stay in South Kensington knowing Mika lives (or lived) there, and then run into him or his family, people are going to assume you were hoping such an encounter would happen.

Hell, I ran into Mika in a Brussels airport taking one of the only flights from Brussels to Milan that morning (y'know, his tour route), and people accused me of having dodgy stalking motives. That's the way it goes in Mikaland. If you don't want to be accused of having ulterior motives, don't mention ever laying eyes on anyone connected with him outside of his gigs. :rolls_eyes:

All that aside, I'm glad to hear Paloma's recovery seems to be going as well as can be expected. I can't believe it's already been so long since it happened. I wish her all the best.

Two songs from "The Features" --

You're really into this band, hey? I've never heard of them, but I like what I hear. Where are they from?

This is my musical obsession of the year. If you like Irish-y, celtic-y, upbeat music you'll love this.

[YOUTUBE]DOw3w-00Jqw[/YOUTUBE]

I thought anyone with English as a second (or third, or fourth) language might appreciate this.

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/313217_269580409746732_153592064678901_782839_700691022_n.jpg

It took MONTHS to decipher Good Gone Girl.

I remember that. In fact, when some of us met him outside the venue in Amsterdam a good two months after the GGG live debut, I pounced on him to ask him WTF one of the lines was.

i always hear "chicket" like he caught himself singing the wrong thing

i watched it again twice just to be sure... yeah that was the only reason

It's totally "chicket". In fact, you'll sometimes hear 2007-era MFCers talk about buying a 'chicket' to a gig...this performance is the story behind that.

I don't think there is a specific thread although it has come up before. We probably discussed it a lot more in the early days. His accent seemed more flexible then and he would switch back and forth but now he sounds consistently British to me. I don't know if his accent is any different or I'm just so accustomed to his speech that I don't notice it.

I know for me it's a case of being so acclimated to his accent that I no longer notice it. I remember completely mishearing him in the early days and now listening back I think "huh? How the hell did I ever think he was saying that?"

There are a lot of changes Mika has shown that I like but I still miss baby Mika a lot sometimes.

Aww, the wild hair and the bright pink cardigan. Widdle baby Mika was sure a cutie-wootie!

And Canadians can't say "about"

Oi! What you talking aboot, eh???

I don´t really like Ida´s voice, but I think she´s a good singer, but not in combination with Mika. It´s like to eat chocolate pudding with a bacon. Both of them are good but together it´s a big s**t!

I absolutely, totally, 100% agree with you.

As far as I'm concerned the best use Mika has come up with for Ida yet was the aria

I love this song. This is the first of the new songs that has made me feel all warm and fuzzy again. I woke up this morning with it stuck in my head despite only having listened to it a couple times.

Two observations so far:

1) I agree with whoever it was (sorry, forgot to quote) that said it sounds Elton John-ish. And I mean that in all the right ways.

2) Can I just take a moment to say how freakin' cool it is that this community is so into this stuff? It's been a day and a half and the video is already showing 3,000 views, and we have an International Lyrics Deciphering Team hard at work.

Another band I'm into has also been debuting some new stuff live and it's like their fans don't even care. They do a new song and someone YouTubes it, but no one even posts a thread on their forum, much less puts their heads together to figure out the lyrics. MFC is awesome that way.

I think that's as close as I'm going to get until we get another video,

or Mika sends me the lyrics.

 

Or until Mana comes online -- she's always really good at deciphering things,

too. Oh Mana?!

*appears in a puff of smoke*

I think you've beaten the lyrics out of these vids as best we can. I'm also hearing "You are the port of my call", but I can't f*^%& make out the line after that. If I type it phonetically it sounds like:

You are the port of my call

You shot a leavea murraw

So if we were to extrapolate that into recognizable English...anyone?

I think this video is the clearest one of that part, and you can see his lips:

[YOUTUBE]A3s24CdaG5M[/YOUTUBE]

I don't want Under water to be electro in the end!!! No, Mika, NO!

If he synths up his voice in the album version of this song I shall leave MFC forever as a display of my utmost disproval.

No, not really. But I'll whine and stomp my feet for sure.

What a great story! I would have stood there blinking to myself for the first five minutes, trying to convince myself I wasn't hallucinating. What luck! And your pics are great, too.

Yes I'm referring to all new enthusiastic fans who are coming in to the MFC in a constant stream and to all the festival and concert goer this summer. Isn't he selling out full houses?

Not quite. At Compiegne, anyway, I think the capacity was 20,000 to 25,000, and they sold 8,000 to 10,000 tickets (give or take).

Even in 2010 he was on TV saying his European tour was sold out...but at some of the gigs (even Stockholm, if I recall correctly) they ended up roping off the balcony because it was empty.

But yes, MFC continues to get new members, and people have been talking on Twitter about his festival appearances. That's always nice to see.

When I saw the set I was very proud of him, because it was really much better than the previous one and it was really cute to see how excited he was to bring it to some of those venues. I can't help it, it was so adorable and funny to see the set under the statue of Napoleon (even though my personal opinion is that I want to see him in a simple outfit). It can't be same when you see only videos but it really was quite special.

I do see what you mean there. It's obvious how "into" the set design Mika is, and when you watch videos like the PDP documentary and you see him going "my truckssss, these are all my trucksss!!!" with giddy delight in his eyes, it becomes very clear how much it all means to him.

Which is fine, Mika and I can disagree about what the most important element of his gigs is. I can deal with that.

well, i think they have run their course

I was reading all the BG & LG reports, i would say 85% said they couldn't see well, couldn't see anything

it's a miracle nobody fell down

Yup. The masks basically reduced your vision to a hazy small circle directly in front of your face - you can't see your own feet, cables on the stage, the stage edge, nothing. Kinda disorienting.

I'm with those who found this recent Mozart-ish "Napolean/Marie Antoinette" set to be over the top. I was watching the video of that one gig that was recorded in its entirety and I found the set and the costumes to be incredibly distracting.

Now, I wasn't there, so I'll include the disclaimer that sure, it may have been different in person. But I just don't see the point of it all. The swaying paintings were visually distracting, and the costumes made it hard to take the performers (both Mika and the band) seriously. It's not unlike Gaga. Sure she might be a fantastic singer, but it's hard to take the music seriously when she's doing outrageous things like running around in a meat dress or arriving at some event in a giant egg. :rolls_eyes: And as others have said, when a musician starts doing this sort of thing it tends to make you wonder what sort of vocal/instrumental shortcomings they're attempting to distract their audience from by using all these theatrics.

And in Mika's case, it seems these things tend to get more of his attention than the music - the music which should, IMHO, be the most important part. It seems that he's prioritizing the costumes and the set first and foremost, devoting his time and energy to those things - and, once those things are ironed out, THEN focusing on the music, the lyrics, etc. Which explains why the costumes are really well done but, as others have said, he's taping lyrics to the floor and dancing on his piano instead of, you know, playing it.

That's why the acoustic tour was so special. It was just real musicans playing real music and, apart from a few sparkly hats on some string players, there were no theatrical elements to detract from the music. And I think that scares Mika a little, tbh. He actually said to a few of us after one of the acoustic shows "...these shows are so hard because it's all about the music, mostly."

I hope Mika will record it in English for the album and change the production a bit so that we can have two versions of the same song. I wouldn't mind it being a bit more electronic but without his voice being distorted.

I agree with all of the above, with special emphasis on no vocal distortion. Let's not throw cheap paint overtop of a Van Gogh, eh?

This one is begging to be captioned. Someone? Anyone?

Probably Love Today. It was the "current" video when I first found Mika and I remember just being spellbound by it, watching it over and over.

The impression I get from the whole thing is that these organisers may have known some of the fans who were hanging around the previous evening and were trying to find out the intentions of other fans so as to give their friends a headsup. Obviously just my impression.

my impression is that they've found it quite funny to say different things to different people and to watch the result knowing perfectly they wouldn't do anything about the numbers

Céline Evano told us that UK fans told her that they come for queing at 1:30am and other at 4:00 am

I can't even believe what I'm hearing. Think about it - at what other gig have we ever had a reason to know (or care) who the promoters were? IMHO promoters should be doing their job behind the scenes and seamlessly, and off the radar of the ticket-buying public. There should NEVER be this kind of drama originating from a company that is earning money to organize a gig. Such a mess.

Please,who is Celine Evano? I really don't now.

She is the "Community Manager" for Rocksquare, the company behind this gig.

I mean: they did put you all in a quite dangerous situation when they decided to make you queue 2 by 2 in the middle! you were all then surrounded by people without number, quite angry because of the late doors opening, obviously not happy at all to the idea of you getting in before them, and with no barriers at all to prevent possible accidents, or no possible access to the security guys if the situation had gone wrong....

That's so crazy. If someone had been seriously injured there could have been lawsuits. Imagine what THAT would have done for Mika's reputation.

Maybe we should do guard rounds for the next UK gigs to prevent a french invasion, because they always queue to early there even when its OUR HOME gigs.

I think it's been established that this was a completely unfounded rumour. No need to call in the cavalry.

I think it'd be good to discuss the Queuing in general, as Rose suggested

There was a thread in 2009 about queuing but it descended into a civil war Feel free to dig it up (or better yet, start a new one) if you want, though. As long as everyone agrees to play nice.

John, you are deeply missed!

I couldn't agree more!

It is true there is not much that could or should be added to that song but a piano and Mika's beautiful voice. I think any song can be overproduced, we have seen several examples of that on the last album but there is no reason to think that Overrated would have a similar fate..At least they could try...

Imagine if he...like...added a dance beat and some synth effects to the vocals or something.

No, no, no. Just no. I'd rather that masterpiece languish in obscurity than risk it being destroyed in Timbaland's studio or something.

Oh gawd I hope Overrated never sees the light of day apart from its current demo form. I would cry real tears if it was overproduced or something and was "broken" in the process.

Okay something positive - I really do love Mika's tone on the line "it makes me love you more, lover."

We thought everything would be better but we forgot another element: our neighbours. We were next to people who must have never been to Mika's gigs before because they were angry at the people in front of us because they were taking pictures of the stage or were filming (their heads prevented them from watching) and those people hit me in the back and shouted at me because I was jumping on 'relax' OMG what a day! As they were agressive people I could not answer back and advise them to attend funerals or classical music concerts or operas

Ha, that's always my thought too - if you want to stand there like a statue, go to an opera instead. Not a Mika gig.

what I can't get (and what REALLY upsets me actually) is that in the Rocksquare team, there are actually "real" Mika fans who made a lot of gigs, know every french and international forums and moreover perfectly know how the system of number works...

and they are the ones who told to other fans that they have to come at crazy o'clock in the morning because others would do so (perfectly knowing that some people would be afraid of arriving too late and would actually really come in the middle of the night...), and they are the ones too who promised the system would be respected...

I'm confused...are you saying that people from Rocksquare actually told Mika fans to queue stupidly early???

OMG, poor Mika. We give him such a hard time these days.

It's like the boys on the school playground only picking on the girls they secretly like.

And I do love 82/Karen. So coal aside, there is some gold happening.

Dear Mika. You're gonna have to release a lot more coal than one measly lump in order to get rid of us. Love you Mika, coal and all!

Of course! Wonder whose name gonna be on the album after this.

I can see it already...

*sings"

"Nikjass, full of class, see you shake that pretty...glass...:mf_rosetinted:"

You know, I've been anxiously awaiting new music

from Mika for months and THIS is what we get? It's like anticipating

Christmas for weeks, and then on Christmas morning finding a lump of

coal in your stocking, even though you've been a good girl all year.

So THAT'S what this is about! Santa Mika knows that Little Debbie has been a naughty girl this year (even though we're only halfway through it!), and that's why he's dishing out this lump of musical coal.

Musically, I like the way it builds gradually (although I

cringe every time I hear the strings do the Coldplay

bit ) and the driving beat conveys some emotion to me without

going nuts. I think Mika's voice is perfect in this -- really showcases his

range, and I especially love every time he reaches, "Elle est leeeeeeeeeeeee

berrrrrrr, elle est leeeeeeeeeeeee berrrrrrrrrrrr..."

Agreed. His voice sounds so "Mika" on that part - that's the Mika sound I first fell in love with.

I would love to go to Ibiza, and I would love to see Mika, but obviously

that's not gonna happen on four days' notice. I'm not that flexible.

What she said.

I'm not sure I like the lyrics - they're rather cliche and cheesy but given that that is the case, as the song stands, I think it needed to go the whole hog and have a female voice that kind of 'goes' with that (if it remains a duet) - ie a more raw, emotional voice (as I said in my previous post). That would make it an unashamedly melodramatic ballad (which is what the current lyrics suggest afterall) a la Jennifer Warnes/Joe Cocker style!!

Well said - I completely agree.

Being critical doesn't mean not being supportive and caring.

 

(god, I sound like Christine )

Well, Christine is a very wise woman. Sounding like her is very often a good thing.