Atlantic Fest in Vilagarcía de Arousa in Spain turned out to be a beautiful surprise. I was looking forward to seeing a more casual summer gig in Spain after two seated gigs in Barcelona in Spain and Lucca in Italy but the final result was in several ways even more amazing than I had expected. I know I use praising words this summer but I genuinely like the current summer tour. It was important and memorable to hear the new songs and to see the bird outfits in spring but the atmosphere, the joyful spirit and the energy are even better now and I’m fully enjoying each of these summer gigs. 

 First a bit of background information, it wasn’t totally easy to reach Vilagarcía coming from our previous destination. We were three people travelling from Lucca and our trip started at 6 am by car, continued by two planes, a train and two busses and ended arriving Vilagarcía just before 10 pm. Luckily the hotel was very comfortable and the restaurant was ready to offer us a meal at that hour and the local menu and the local wine couldn’t have tasted better after the long and tiring trip. The more I travel, the more I’ve started to enjoy small, beautiful things connected to concerts and music. After Orange I stayed in the little village of Perouges writing my summary in a quiet beautiful garden and just having a possibility to enjoy a healthy local meal adds surprisingly much value to travelling. 

 Next day we spent a few hours around the festival and also met really nice and friendly local people. Faces looked familiar after seeing several gigs in Spain but it was really nice to exchange a few words with other people who had come to see Mika’s performance. The festival turned out to be extremely relaxed - no pushing and many possibilities to buy food from a good selection - and the lineup seemed to be quite known and people knew the lyrics for many songs by different artists and groups and it was enjoyable to watch the artists before Mika. The energetic and very rock style group just before him had the most beautiful golden hour light during their performance and a couple of photos and videos that I quickly took with my mobile were really beautiful and I was a bit jealous - both for Mika’s and for my own sake - because that was the exact hour of the day I would love to see him performing! Everything looks the most amazing that exact moment. 

 It was soon his turn and the official festival schedule showed him to perform a compact set, maybe only an hour like he did at Solidays and Deferlantes and I was expecting the similar style of a set. The black piano waited him on stage - it would have been impossible to get the white piano or the new flower piano on time from Italy to Spain - and the band appeared at their places each of them wearing a different, strong coloured suit and finally Mika came wearing his unique, patterned suit that we saw for the first time in Italy. He explained the band had lost their luggage and wearing the costumes like that was a quick solution in the situation, for him the outfit was planned. I was surprised to hear his words because together with his multicolour suits the different colours on the band looked really good especially the yellow we saw on Clement that matched perfectly Mika’s pink rainbow suit and the Apocalypso sign during Happy Ending. 

Mika started with Ice Cream, Lollipop and Origin and went to the crowd with Big Girl. At this point we totally thought he’s doing his shorter, more compact festival set. He continued with Underwater and now it was obvious the set wouldn’t be exactly the same as earlier times yet I still assumed he has a strict time limit. Stuck In The Middle made me realise he’s adding something and I hoped for 15 minutes extra time but unexpectedly the gig just continued. We heard Popular and obviously - because in Spain - also Live Your Life. The mood was fantastic and I immensely enjoyed every song and also Live Your Life much more than I have done before. When Happy Ending started I finally understood it wasn’t a festival set but a full, eventually almost two hour gig that in addition to the long setlist included also a lot of talking in Spanish and several special details like playing “air instruments” during Relax and special, The Piano related guest in the end.

The only thing that seemed to be a challenge during the night were the lights that didn’t work as usually which gave also another topic to chat about, for example asking help from the full moon. Everything was stunning on stage but afterwards I noticed my material from the gig is not nearly as good quality I had hoped in advance. The giant speaker close to me had disturbed the sound in my videos and during the final performance with the guest my mobile stopped working and announced to have no space at all (which occasionally happens when connections are not good enough). Also, when the light was not clear enough I struggled with focusing my photos which often happens in light like that. I have a new camera but I haven’t been able to test it at gigs yet at all because it’s seen professional, I currently use my big old compact model that I’m occasionally allowed to use. 

 Luckily I got a few photos during Happy Ending which was one of my biggest favourites at Atlantic Fest together with Underwater and songs like Live Your Life. The Happy Ending performance was absolutely stunning and the stage looked magical in coloured lights with the pink rainbow suit, yellow suit on Clement and the colourful text on the background. The outfits looked beautiful throughout the gig and for Underwater the white jacket was taken off and we saw the pretty white shirt and in the end the gorgeous white flower suit. In the very end also the white flower jacket was taken off to perform only in the flattering white pants which are among my favourites and I loved how gorgeous he looked in the end, the scene was really impressive.

 The guest during the final Love Today playing piano was related to The Piano filmed in Spain earlier this summer. I don’t speak Spanish but I could understand this was a huge opportunity to interact with the Spanish crowd and also film material either for the series or for promoting it and also for that reason it was great the gig turned out particularly fantastic one. “You’re smiling!” I was told after the show. I definitely was and why wouldn’t I be after carefree summer moments. I know it’s not equally carefree for Mika who’s incredibly busy between the gig days and works for several projects at the same time but I hope it pleases him to see people enjoying the show and the crowd showing love as it did at Atlantic Fest.