Statue_of_Liberty

I would be happy to help finding a suitable place. Obviously, I would have to know beforehand about how many people we are talking and if we want dinner or party or a combination of both? Just one note: No, I cant't get anyone into Berghain.

Same for me. It worked smoothly. The e-mail afterwards says the refund can take up to 60 days. Thank you @dcdeb for the very helpful information! sending hugs to you and everyone else who's missing out now.

Hi everyone! During the presale-madness I made a mistake and bought one ticket too much. So now I have one extra ticket for Bari 26th September at Palaflorio to give away. The ticket ist for front row, row 1, seat 20. Please contact me if you are interested.

I hope you go! Somehow I ended up buying a ticket.

No proper report from me at the moment, but about Paloma: I saw some people filming, so I hope they'll upload it somewhere. I didn't feel like filming. From what I remember: He asked what song he should sing next. Obviously people where screaming different songs, after a while he understood Paloma. Then he walked to a side where a girl was in front row. He said she had a sign telling her age was 10 and her name was Paloma, so he'd sing this song for her now. Apparently that girl only understood French, so he said something to her in French. I think he asked her to come on stage, but she was too scared. He said that Paloma is such a beautiful name and it means dove and doves can fly. Then he explained the story behind the song. That it's about his sister who is very brave and a hero because she was born with a weak side, but she always tried to hide it which is a superower she has and many people with disabilities have. But that superpowers can be very painful too. And then he talked about the accident, (I think there was the part about the name, but she didn't fly. She fell) that she was falling from a high place and fell into those spikes that basically saved her life. And that a man living on the ground floor saw her there, but thought she was a person trying to break in. So that man went outside armed with something he could find and wanted to make that person go. But instead he saw her and hold her for one hour. And in that one hour Paloma asked that man to leave her alone so that she can get up which obviously she couldn't. So that was another superhero-moment. Mika came and saw her like that. And then he concluded by saying that this song is not a sad song, but it's about superpowers.

Looks like there is no report yet? So I'll collect some quick thoughts about yesterday's gig. The queueing was way calmer than I had expected. It's Italy after all. It was sunny during the day, so for once I actually wasn't cold which was really pleasent. However, the doors weren't fun at all. Some people didn't respect the numbers. I couldn't really help explaining since my Italian just isn't enough for that, but locals tried to explain the advantages of the numbers. Still people with really high numbers got in first. I still ended up having a really good spot next to lovely other fans I had spend the day with. @Dominika, her friend, @Mariagrazia and Sally - thank you for the wonderful day! (I hope I tagged the right people ). Since someone on stage had ignored me at some gigs in the past I decided to go 'on strike' yesterday and would not go to the gig for said someone. Instead, I would only enjoy myself and have a good time taking pictures, dancing and singing along or watching silently if I feel like it. It took me several times of repeating 'I'm here for myself and no one else', but eventually I tried not to please anyone that wasn't me. I danced and had fun with the lovely people around me. We were silly together and I probably sang-screamed many wrong notes on different recordings. And I'm not even sorry for it. Someone on stage has a really good feeling for other people's feelings, I'd say. In contrary to other gigs some days ago, I did get eye contact and that someone decided to leave the crowd during Big Girl right next to me. Btw to that someone, in case you read this, I'm sorry for not giving you enough space. It was just not possible... (Also I thought the situation was over when I stepped back on my spot, only to notice that there were two long legs that weren't mine - sorry for that too! ). Mika was singing great! His earlier voice problems seem to have vanished. I wonder how since he had to sing every day. Whatever he did, it worked. I felt he even did a longer part off mic during Happy Ending which was simply great. This is always one of my highlights. During Underwater he now asks people to sing the chorus. But he doesn't ask them as in speaking, he mimes. Usually people understand. Yesterday, though, some didn't. So while the left side (our side ) sang 'underwateeeeer', the right side just screamed. I think it was after Lollipop when Mika stood on the piano and Mitch was playing it I saw him say something to Mitch that I couldn't quite place. Apparently, Mitch didn't understand either, so Mika repeated and a few notes later we knew what he had told him: Good Guys! He had done it in Napoli already, but it still feels so special when he sings it. And I love little suprises here and there! After the gig I rushed outside. And I'm really proud that I didn't forget to buy the shirt my front row-neighbour from Bolzano had me asked for. Then we waited for Mika and thought it wasn't possible he could have left already because there were so many cars right in front of the exit. We had nice little chats while waiting. Back in Bolzano Mika had left so quickly that everybody said goodbye after what felt like five minutes and later I felt so sad because I got used to our aftershow-talks and I missed them. So now in Bari I really enjoyed the overexcited chit-chat we had. My only worry was that I had a nightbus to catch and obviously I wouldn't ask a fan to leave if they might miss a chance to talk to Mika then. So I opted for a taxi, but at this time I would have to preorder it which means the decision of when and how to leave would be even sooner Exactly at that moment when I felt I needed to decide we saw a typical van doing strange things that got us curious. It drove closer to the building. Behind a bush we saw people getting in the car. Then it left. Shortly afterwards a security guy told us that Mika was in there. We weren't sure if we could believe him. So we waited for some more minutes. Somehow everything felt really empty and quiet, so we decided to leave eventually. It would have been nice if he had waved from behind that bush (if it was the moment when he left). But he has four gigs in four days now, so I can understand if his only thought after a gig is 'SLEEP!!!' too. I've got three more gigs to go of this tour. And after the one in Bari I feel like I'll be sad after Strasbourg. I wasn't sure before, but now I can even sing along to the support act's songs and everything feels like it could continue forever. But! I'm still not completely sure of what to think a certain person's on-stage-behaviour towards some people in the crowd. So it's good to have three more gigs to find that out.

Since there is none (yet), I decided to do a little gig report. We arrived from Barcelona at the day of the gig and I ended up getting number 19 which gave me hope for a good spot, yet I was a little worried about front row because this number could be exactly where the border to second row is. However, we had a good time meeting old and new friends and laying in the sun to fight the cold in the shadow. In the contrary to Barcelona where everything was very smooth and the venue-staff were really, really organized, in Madrid we didn't get to see security until only shortly before the doors were opened. There were no barriers at all. They made us line up in rows of three first about twenty minutes before doors. 15 minutes later they decided they'd prefer lines of two. Add those to the non-existing barriers and the fact that there was no special area for handicapped guests you can guess how the doors were. No wonder the person with number four on their hand ended up in second row, just like us. Having travelled and toured for some days now it got me really frustrated. I partly blame that on my lack of sleep and my upcoming cold as well. The DJ this time was really good, she even got me up to sing and dance along. The majority of the audience seemed to enjoy the little party until finally the intro with Mika's voice started. The crowd was on fire from the first second. But at least in my area no one from the back was being pushy at all which I found really amazing. People just sang along, danced and had fun. Mika was in a good mood, though I could notice that tiredness had kicked in for him as well. I even noticed him coughing one or two times and immediately worried I could have shared my cold with him. But since we hadn't cuddled up and I even muted during the m&g in Barcelona, I guess I'm not the one to blame here. However, he obviously enjoyed being the great entertainer that he is. There still was zero decorations and even though I'm really looking forward to seeing the full show he always prooves that he doesn't need any props, special effects or confetti. My guess is that not a single person in the audience had the feeling that something was missing. He sang Live your Life again and skipped Sanremo just like he had done in Barcelona. I think the setlist must have been the same for both Spanish gigs. But there was one small and important difference: Becks (What's your MFC-name, girl? ❤️) had prepared Spanish lyrics for Tomorrow. She had given them to a band member before the gig, but it seemed like they hadn't been forwarded to Mika. When he started Tomorrow Becks tried to give them to him but he refused more than once. I tried to convince her to throw the paper on stage, but Becks didn't and did look unhappy. The song ended, lights went off. And then we heard Mika saying 'okay, so give me that thing', coming to Becks' direction. Someone was over the moon while Mika tried to sind (he mostly read) those lyrics. The audience was really happy about his attempt to speak-sing in Spanish. During Big Girl he came to the audience and decided to enter exactly between us. We had a big plastic bag full of coats that I tried to put away once I realised what was about to happen. I have no idea where I had that stupid bag, but suddenly there was space and Mika stepped on my foot. It didn't hurt at all, I think he noticed and put his weight on the other side, but it was kinda funny This time a security guy followed him through the crowd. But I must say the award of going over barriers and through the crowds cleary goes to Mika. The security guy was not half as elegant. Happy Ending was as always really good and rather touching since quite a few people around me had to think of the last Madrid-gig that we got to share with David. I think it was his last Mika-gig. So there were some tears and it was a bit strange to get back into party mood afterwards. to everyone around David! When Mika eventually left the stage I noticed how people couldn't believe that the gig was over already. It's exactly the feeling I had after all three gigs of this tour. I wonder if the set is actually short if it's just the good time we have? Afterwards we played the guess-the-door-game and some of us got it right, me being one of them. He used a different door to leave than where he had entered. But we could remember form the last time. The way to his car was about five metres long and there were four securities. Now that was impressive! Mika didn't spend much time with the few fans, he signed maybe five things and took two pictures. He was friendly, but you could notice that he wanted to leave. The driver seemed to be really smart because they avoided the actual road where the majority of fans waited and used the space behind the truck and tourbus to get to the street instead. After Mika had left we told the waiting crowd and I even showed some of them a bad-quality-picture I had just took of Mika leaving. But most of them still didn't believe us. Now I know how security staff must feel when they try to convince fans that stars have already left. Oh well, I hope they didn't wait too long afterwards and decided to curl up in the warmth somewhere. Our night ended at the local Burger King where I had to say good bye to @RAK1 and Becks (I stil don't know your name on here, woman!). Thank you both and all the other lovely people for the really cool day we had and for cheering me up when entering the venue Now real life is calling, but luckily I can get back into the Mikaworld in a bit over a week again. I'm already looking forward to that. I'm undecided what the best way of sharing photos these day is. So far I upload some of them over at Instagram where you can find me under @saslib. Not sure if it's possible to insert them here somehow or if I should make another upload? Ideas welcome!

I've only seen overnight-queues in Italy and France so far, but not in Spain. Last time I went to Madrid and it was really relaxed and iirc the queue only started in the late morning and only with few people. I wouldn't worry too much about the queue.

My honest opinion: I really like the intro and the outro and that he sings 'You get me high' as high as he can But I don't like the middle part where he sings 'oh tiny love' for what feels like a million times. It might change when I listen to the song more often, though. The line And if it all goes bad and our love sets like the sun I'd give up a hundred thousand loves for just this one. is so As for interpretations: I don't see the song being about the love to himself or his mum. For me it's about a romantic love for a partner. I can't imagine anything else.

Dann misch ich mich doch auch mal ein, wenn im Büro schon nix los ist Er hat auch mal ein Konzert in Prag abgesagt und ist später in Tschechien auf einem Festival aufgetreten. Das war irre und bei der nächsten Tour gab es ein Konzert in Prag, das stattgefunden hat. Meine ganz einfache Vermutung ist: Er hat keinen Bock auf Deutschland. Ist sein gutes Recht, ich hab auch keine Lust auf Frankreich. Wenn er wollen würde, könnte er selbst nen Promoter engagieren und würde einen riesigen Markt abdecken. Wir sprechen hier vom bevölkerungsstärksten Land Europas. Den anderen deutschsprachigen Raum, wo die Promo vermutlich auch ankommen würde, mal nicht eingerechnet.

Agreed. Then again, there are always less known artists before the headliners that makes People visit Festivals. So Mika could be second Artist of the day when - let's say Sunrise Avenue / Katy Perry / Ed Sheeran - persorms as headlining artists. Promotion for him, not harming People who are in Charge of filling the place. Good for us, just imagine how we wouldn't be tired after a gig!

How many Songs do we expect here? One? Three? A full set?

Do I understand it correctly that this is not a classical festival with a 30-minute-set, but more like he plays three songs? And there are no tickets on sale but you just go there? My addiction is back at Level 100, I think.

I'm optimistic he tours other countries. Like Italy. For the other roughly 200 countries I'm not as sure. But there's always hope.

Hello there! I wasn't active on here for what feels like ages... So thanks for bringing me back! If you want dm your contact and we can catch up. I see the first-ever Berlin Stammtisch coming

Someone who doesn't want to be identified sent me a German article about Mika. It's published on a internal website of German Post / Cargo. Since this is open to many many people around the world we agreed that I can share the article here as well. I can't attach the video for some reason. It's basically pictures of boxes and some people who look like cargo people to me with a Mika-song as background. But it seems that this was something special for the team and I love how excited they sound about it. Sorry for language mistakes. I'm no translator and not familiar with cargo words. ______________________________________________________________________________________ DGF News Popstar Mika perfectly put on the Scene Our colleagues of DHL Global Forwarding (DGF) Lebanon who are in charge of fairs and events too took care of perfect logistics for international popstar Mika's appearance. Scheduled was the popstar's gig at the legendary Baalbeck International Festival. [picture] The British singer songwriter Mika came back to his home country for the legendary Baalbeck International Festival. Baalbeck is a special place in Lebanon, not only for musicians in general, but for Mika in particular. The temple ruins of Baalbeck that belong to the best-conserved antique ruins of Lebanon are the venue for the annual Baalbeck International Festival with top-class gigs and appearances. The British singer songwriter grew up in Paris and London, but was born to American parents in Beirut. Despite being on worldwide tours alot, he doesn't get the chance to be on stage in his home country that often. All the bigger was this year's run for Baalbeck International Festival that took place for the 60th time. Excited fans swarmed the arena to see Mika live. The DGF-team, led by Rita Abi Mansour who is responsible for air and sea cargo at DGF Lebanon, was in charge of the perfect flow behind the scenes. At full Throttle, all Around the Clock For the popstar's concert the 1,5 ton-equipment had to be delivered from the airport 200 km away. „A day before the event everything had arrived. Directly after the gig the equipment got picked up and stowed in the aircraft after we managed the customs clearance at 4am“, Abi Mansour told. Mika and his team seemed impressed. After the successful appearance the tour manager personally thanked Abi Mansour. „It was a pleasure to meet you, Rita“, Mark Edwards wrote. „Not only you're extraordinarily nice, but you supported us at the same first-class and professional level that we're used to from other parts of the world – at least! It's great fun to co-operate with people who actual care about their work and do it well.“ You can see how DGF Lebanon supported popstar Mika at his top performance in this video. Mika52750.pdf

I owe you a group picture! More pics to follow. I really need to catch up with everything... I'm not as quick as many when I'm travelling. Sorry for that!

I've found a moment to upload my pictures and think about Riga. Finally! Q-ing was really calm and because we organized a proper queue relatively early the doors-situation seemed somewhat under our control too which is a huge step to a completely relaxed gig-day, at least for me. In contrary to our 2010-experience local people arriving rather late accepted our 'system' and formed a proper and long queue. The only bad impression I got was any contact to security and staff members of the arena. They seemed to not really like their job and showed that quite openly. As for the gig itself: I liked it. I thought it wasn't something that I'll remember as the most special gig ever, but it was a nice start for my little part of the 2016 tour. He made some changes in the order of the songs, but the choice of songs wasn't really surprising. In the beginning we were worried because the arena filled very slowly and we knew that it wasn't even close to being sold out. During the gig the crowd was good though and we didn't leave with the impression of an empty hall or a bigger private gig. He started off with Porcelain and even though MFCers around me tried to convince me that I have seen it live before I still think it was the first time for me. I'm not a huge fan of Porcelain and I'm not convinced that I like the idea of starting a gig with a slow song. But Mika has been doing it every now and then and it always worked out, so I'm happy with it. Procelain, however, wouldn't be my first choice as starter for a show (Toy Boy,...), but it did well. Promiseland will forever stay one of my highlights and I was really happy that it survived the little break between the 2015-tour and now. I love how much energy that live-version gives me. Even though it steals all my energy at the same time, I feel like jumping, dancing and celebrating as soon as I hear the first notes of the intro. I liked that Mika played My Interpretation because that's something that he hasn't been doing regularly lately. I like changes like that and especially if he chooses between My Interpretation and Any other World every now and then. I like both songs equally and think that they're a good replacement for one another. All in all, it was a good start into my Mikayear 2016 (a bit late...) and I'm looking forward to more joyful adventures. Thanks to MFCers who made the day even better You can find the better half of my pictures here: http://s745.photobucket.com/user/Statue_of_Liberty/library/Mika%20at%20Arena%20Riga%2022nd%20May%202016 And some highlights are here:

I uploaded my videos to youtube. For some reason the quality looks really bad when I open the links. I hope it's due to my connection and not a problem the videos or the upload have. Anyway, you're welcome to share the vids, but please don't use M's name or the complete song titles when doing so or otherwise my account might get blocked (weird German laws...) Pictures still to come! Spanish Bit of TAY LYL PL HE a capella

Now I've found the time to upload my pictures. The whole album is here: http://s745.photobucket.com/user/Statue_of_Liberty/library/Mika%20Nelson%20Mandela%20Forum%20Florence%2030th%20Sep%202015 Some examples I like: MFC and Citizens!

I uploaded a video of BBB. Please don't share it with M's name or the full songtitle or otherwise my account might get blocked (I live in Germany ), but you can share it otherwise of course Pictures and some memories to come soon. But to say at least something: It was soooo crazy! And I loved it!

I have uploaded a video of OMS. Please don't share it with M's name or the full songtitle or otherwise my account might get blocked (I live in Germany ), but you can share it otherwise of course Sorry for all the shaking, I had to held the camera really high [YOUTUBE] [/YOUTUBE] I will upload my pictures soon. I think some of them are rather good, even though I stood way back. About the situation after the concert: It was dangerous. It made me sad to see those girls screaming and loosing control over themselves. If only they knew what good things could happen if they knew how to behave, I blame the security in the first place. I went to the backstage-exit when Mika arrived (I had something for him that I wanted him to have before the gig). When I was there and alone there were about ten securities staring at me. I didn't do anything. I stood one metre away from that huge gate with sharp things on top that seperated me from Mika and the securities. I don't know what they thought I was planning to do Anyway, in the evening with maybe 100 fans there were two security guys that didn't do anything until Mika appeared. Then they said twice to stand in line and used their own bodies to block five fans from the streets. Bad organisation, I'd say!

If anyone knows anyone who knows anyone who... has a spare ticket for Rome and / or Florence bought at general sale I'd love to get in touch.

I don't need to tell you how amazing the show was. But I would like to share my pictures with you. I uploaded them here: http://s745.photobucket.com/user/Statue_of_Liberty/library/Mika%20at%20Le%20Liberte%20Rennes%2018th%20September%202015 Here are some examples:

Hi you! I'm from Germany as well. It looks like we're in the same hostel. If you arrive at daytime tomorrow (meaning Monday) we could catch up. We'd try to answer all questions you might have and could gush a little about Mika's new show. I'll send you a dm with contact details. If you're interested you can text me and we'll see how we get together