A talented ball of energy that guy Mika is. The eccentric singer songwriter who more than often enjoys to flirt with high tones came to Belgium on May 5th to give a swirling show at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp for a crowd of 16,000 enthusiastic fans.

Mika’s first album was called ‘Life in cartoon motion’ and that was exactly what we saw on stage. The first we effectively saw of Mika, was the singer dressed as an astronaut flying over stage, complete with the ‘2001: A Space Oddyssey’ tune. By the time he finally kicked of with his smash hit ‘Relax, take it easy’ a good 10 minutes had passed. We forgave him as he imperturbably continued with ‘Dr John’ and ‘Blue Eyes’.

Also in the first part Mika sang ‘Big Girls’, where I couldn’t help but to raise an eyebrow at the sight of the two enormous inflatable legs on high heels – yes, just legs on heels – that were unwieldy unrolled on stage. By the time they finally where inflated, almost hitting Mika into the front row, they had to disappear before the next song. In part two, which seamlessly followed the first one, the star lit sky dropped to make place for Mika’s notebook in which we saw rather dramatic and at times somewhat sinister drawings. All this introduction lead up to ‘Rain’. The third setting was one of a graveyard in which, after presenting his musicians, he ‘shot’ them one by one. Finishing with ‘je suis mort, ik ben dood’ (‘I’m dead’ in French and Dutch). Luckily, the concert was far from over and the kitsch fest just went on.

COMMUNITY BICKERING

Mika knows how to please the crowd. On of his tricks is to use the language of his crowd. So he did, starting in French - it is generally known that Mika speaks fluent French. However, when he said his first line in Fench on being in Belgium and lovin’ it, I could almost hear the disapproving whispers of some ‘flamingants’ in the audience. The French-speaking Mika-fans were clearly in a minority, because when, very surprisingly, he also translated his words into Dutch, the crowd went wild. He clearly learnt them by heart because before performing the beautiful ‘Over My Shoulder’ the fact that he wrote this song after his 15th birthday as he explained in the French version, was translated as ‘after his 5th birthday’. He probably noticed his mistake because he followed that line with ‘No idea if what I just said is correct, I might just have fucked up’ (sic). It was a nice touch. The fact that he used the local language isn’t surprising as he did the same in Spain in a tv show. The audience loved it here as well.

THAT VOICE!

Saying he has a particular voice is no breaking news. However, to actually hear him perform live is a great sensation. The guy can sing. With no problem what so ever, he hit those high notes effortlessly even after having jumped up and down and dancing away.

Mika clearly was having a good time. He sometimes even seemed to have such a great time on stage he actually forgot that there were 16,000 people watching him. After ranting on on his marionette, an introduction to ‘Toy Boy’, he even said so. We noticed.

We saw opera, we saw colorful figurines, a dragon, inflatable legs and cartoon figures marching on stage, balloons, and much more. We heard catchy high-pitched pop songs, which probably left some people trying to sing along hoarse by the next day. The concert was awesome and I don’t think the fans present in Antwerp had any regrets they came. |