Baudet’Stival in Bertrix, Belgium 10/7/2022
Baudet’Stival in Bertrix, Belgium, felt more like a village event than a proper music festival. The line-up was small-scale and I wondered - in advance and still during the day - how such a small event was lucky to have an artist like Mika as their performer. I travelled to Bertrix from Aix-La-Bais and it was a long way and I had to skip one night’s sleep. I thought the gig wouldn’t compare to the massive and absolutely fantastic performance and audience at Musilac night before but I hoped for good energy that makes me forget my tiredness and oh boy I certainly got that. We saw a lovely, lovely summer gig full of sunshine and smiles, sunbathing and enjoying the summery vibe.
Mika started with Lollipop as expected and then continued to Origin first revealing the “anatomy areas” in his black suit and then taking off the jacket to pose to the photographers. He did a lot of sunbathing gestures to highlight the sunny, bright weather and the rare possibility to do a gig in sun light. After Origin Mika disappeared backstage and returned in his usual pink suit to start Big Girl with Max and then continued the song walking around in the enthusiastic crowd.
I wasn’t sure which photos to choose so I added quite a few above and hope they can give an impression of the sunny energy we saw on stage. The gig in Bertrix made me in a very good mood and I enjoyed every single song and thought the sun made each of them somehow special. I felt we got a special version of Relax, ”there is an answer to the darkest times”, and of course of Ice Cream and Boum Boum Boum as well. Yo-Yo was stunning, Happy Ending sounded absolutely gorgeous, both the high vocals and the gentle ending, and Grace Kelly was as strong as it has been lately.
During Underwater there was a sweet moment when Mika asked a little girl who was on the side of the stage to guide the audience with him. A bit overwhelming and emotional to the girl and no wonder but she did well and followed Mika’s instructions. A heart-warming moment, a few photos below.
After the other high energy songs it was turn for the final cape dance during Love Today. I absolutely adore this moment whatever the song is. The cape going round and round and round just makes me incredible happy, you can even feel the air in the audience, it’s one of the best moments during the whole show. This time everything looked particularly pretty in sunlight and reminded me of the light and colours of Mika’s Coachella performance and I took several photos of the situation. See how beautiful he looks in light blue and his special crown.