lollipop_monkey

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.

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. 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. 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 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.

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. She is the "Community Manager" for Rocksquare, the company behind this gig. 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. I think it's been established that this was a completely unfounded rumour. No need to call in the cavalry. 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. I couldn't agree more!

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."

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

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!

I can see it already... *sings" "Nikjass, full of class, see you shake that pretty...glass...:mf_rosetinted:"

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.

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

What she said.

Well said - I completely agree. Well, Christine is a very wise woman. Sounding like her is very often a good thing.

I totally agree about queuing so early. It's not worth it to be so exhausted by the time Mika comes on stage. You're absolutely right about John not being there. And about the small minority who intend to queue at stupid times. Sigh. I'm really sorry this turned out to be such a disaster. I wish there was something we could have done. Sadly it seems every aspect of this gig, everything Rocksquare came in contact with ended up being a bit of a disaster. Yeah the only way that would work is if we had Team Mika enforcing it. The admins from the various Mika community sites could in theory come up with an agreement, but there's nothing to stop any random members (or even fans who aren't on any of the sites) from completely ignoring it. Believe me, I would LOVE a worldwide "no queuing before noon" rule. Really, EVERYONE would benefit. But I suspect 90% of people would tell us to piss off if we tried to enforce that.

It's such a freakin' WEIRD feeling, isn't it? I really feel like I've crossed over into some sort of weird parallel universe. A year ago or even two months ago I never ever would have imagined there could be a nice HD video of a brand new Mika song - and that I'd find it just meh and wouldn't be compelled to watch it more than once. It's like...how did this happen? What kind of strange world have I fallen into?

Careful, Mika will write a song called 'Blame it on the Opera'...

Lookit you Wonka, being a rebel, blazing a trail...

I'm just well qualified to say that cheese tends to do well within a country music setting. Just saying.

I'm curious...if you had to pick ONE of the three new songs as your favourite, which one would you choose?

Hmm. I listened to this song once and then pretty much forgot about it until just now, when I actively made a point of watching it again. And let me tell you, that feels SO WEIRD. How is it possible that there's a brand new video of Mika singing a brand new song and it just leaves me uninterested? When he debuted HMDYLM, Rain, and the four songs at the Roxy it was like I was hypnotized. I couldn't stop listening to them. But this song...it's an effort to get through the whole video. I think people are bang on in saying it sounds like a cheesy Disney song. I feel like I've slipped through a time machine and am watching a video of Mika's future west end musical debut. And don't get me wrong, I think Ida is incredibly talented - but she's an opera singer for a reason, as that's what she does best. Incorporating that aria at the start of Good Gone Girl on last year's arena tour was a stroke of brilliance. It allowed her to showcase her voice doing what she does best. On this song it sounds like her voice is being forced into a box that it doesn't fit into. And her voice doesn't blend well with Mika's at all. To me, Ida sounds like a Disney princess in this song. And it certainly doesn't help that she's dressed like one, too. Maybe this song would resonate more with me if it was a solo Mika effort with him just in jeans and a t-shirt. I'm finding it hard to take the whole thing seriously with those costumes added to the mix. Or, he could take this song to Nashville, pitch it to Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley, and have them throw some banjos and a steel guitar onto it instead of some sweeping Disney instrumentation. Make a country song out of it.