Mika Concert

Yesterday me and mum were both very excited about seeing Mika again, as we're both huge fans. We saw him last February on the last night of his 19 month Life In Cartoon Motion tour. He's currently doing a small (7 date) acoustic tour of Europe to promote his new 4 track Songs For Sorrow EP. And we were lucky enough to get hold of tickets for the only UK date of this tour :D

We set off to London mid-afternoon yesterday - me with purple nails and wearing my Life In Cartoon Motion t-shirt, both of us wearing Mika button badges and mum with her hair freshly purpled (she likes to stand out from the crowd and doesn't like to be normal, so has a purple fringe, lol). On the train journey we both listened to Life In Cartoon Motion and Songs For Sorrow on my iPod, which got us very excited :) We got into London and to the venue in plenty of time, so we wandered around the area. We popped in a charity shop to see if there were any bargains and me and mum both came away with a great value DVD :) Then we ate out in a Yo Sushi restaurant just round the corner from the theatre. I really like Japanese food, but have to avoid raw fish, so we found some nice non-sushi options. I ate teriyaki chicken with noodles and some chicken dumplings, yum yum. And of course I had green tea to drink. As I mentioned earlier, my mum likes to be different, so she took 2 chopsticks from the restaurant and stuck them in her hair. Added to that she had a purple fringe and a necklace made of giant dolly mixtures, so she gots some odd looks, hehe.

After we finished the meal we still had plenty of time, but wandered back to the theatre for doors opening at 6pm. The concert wasn't due to start til 7.30pm, but we thought we might as well be at the theatre than anywhere else. While we were waiting I bought some merchandise (a tour t-shirt, some more button badges and the Songs For Sorrow EP) and we found some other fans to chat to. It got to about 7.15pm and the doors still hadn't opened, so we started to form a queue outside the doors, but we all had numbered seats so it didn't really matter. Eventually we were let in just before 8pm. Me and mum were in the middle of the third row in the lower circle, but because it was quite a small venue we weren't that far from the stage and had a great view :) I've found this photo on the Internet of the audience which shows the size of the venue and intimacy of it quite well. Before Mika came on though we had a support act who were on from about 8.15 til 8.40pm. I wasn't very impressed with the support act. They were 2 girls who played lots of different instruments and sang, but all their songs (I think they did 4 or 5) sounded the same and the girl who was singing shouted and screeched a bit! And I didn't catch their name. After the support act left the stage there was a gap til Mika finally came on at about 9.15pm.

The set was very shiny and sparkly and I thought it was quite Christmassy! Mika joked about how much chewing gum he'd had to eat to provide enough wrappers to make the set. The concert was acoustic, so Mika was accompanied by a strings orchestra, a drummer, 2 guitarists and 2 singers. Mika spoke to the audience quite a lot which was great, but he also swore quite a lot, especially as there were a few technical problems! He also mentioned something that I didn't quite catch about September the 11th, so I think that might be the release date for his next album as I know it's due to be released in September.

Mika sang all 4 Songs For Sorrow (if you've not got the record you can hear 3 of the tracks here. They were great performed acoustically, I especially like Blue Eyes. He also performed the majority of the songs from Life In Cartoon Motion (all but Any Other World and Ring Ring), but they were all a little bit different performed acoustically. He started the concert with Grace Kelly which I thought was good because everyone knew it. A little later after he'd done his 4 Songs For Sorrow he sang Billy Brown which was fantastic because everyone sang along. He'd sing a bit then hold the micrphone towards the audience and we'd sing the next line. Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) and Love Today were great because they got everyone up and dancing. And just before Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) there was a huge confetti storm. Lollipop was fantastic as gigantic balloons were thrown out into the audience and that really got everyone going. Mika really knows how to engage an audience! :D He started Any Other World, but began in the wrong key and then his earpiece fell out, so he suddenly changed his mind and sang My Interpretation instead. And he finished off with Relax (Take It Easy), which was really good acoustic. And Mika performed 3 brand new songs, which hopefully will be on his second album, due to be released in September. The 3 new tracks were called Rain, Good Gone Girl and Blame it on the Girls. I though Rain was a bit slow, but it might just be one of those tracks that takes a few listenings to. Good Gone Girl was quite good and had a catchy tune and I loved Blame it on the Girls, very catchy. I had a fantastic night and my mum loved it too :D :D

I did take my camera, but couldn't get any good photos because of the lighting. I saw loads of other people with cameras though (the constant flashes were quite annoying during the concert), so I'm hoping photos might appear on the Internet over the next few days. If they do I'll let you know.

It was about 10.30pm when we came out, so then we walked back to the station. We caught the 11.22pm train home, which got in about 12.20am. On the train on the way back me and mum were quite hyper from all the excitement of the night! I realised I'd not yet got a proper photo of my mum with the chopsticks in her hair, so I tried to take one of her on the train. I just couldn't get a good photo of her though and the many attempts just cracked us up. She either had her eyes closed or had a funny expression on every photo. We were so happy from a fantastic night :D Then the man in the seat behind my mum got up and very pointedly moved down the train carriage to a seat further away from us, whoops! After that we calmed down a bit and just chatted, read the paper and looked at the crossword until the train got in.