F’Estivada in Rodez, France 13/7/2024

The festival in Rodez is a cozy, moderate size festival. Festivals like that are usually meant to attract as many local people as possible and the lineup is planned to please people in all ages. This time I really liked it that they hadn’t book one artist for teenagers and another one for older people but all three artists before Mika seemed to please a big group of people and I genuinely enjoyed them all which is extremely rare. The performer before Mika was particularly energetic and used every possible trick to make the crowd on fire - even in the end climbing high up the stage the audience screaming wild - and I thought this time Mika really has to show his best and when it was his turn he totally did that. He was everything he possibly could be and the gig turned out to be my another favourite this summer. 

The outfits were particularly stunning and he started in a new, pale blue flowery suit with pretty necklaces in different shades of blue which all looked amazingly elegant. I had very much missed this kind of elegance and so happy it’s finally back. Compared to last summer’s flattering suits in different colours and with different big flowers the spring Apocalypse outfits were not nearly as elegant - the most beautiful outfits were obviously saved for something else - but with this breathtaking aesthetics and stunning light blue experience the elegance was immediately back. Of course it didn’t stop in stylish outfits, there was the chatty Mika talking to his audience and there was the energetic performer who made me out of breath just watching him.

It wasn’t just the outfits that looked astonishingly beautiful, everything was visually amazing. The white piano became dusty rose coloured and had a pretty green background with lights and I had never thought the current stage can look like this, the lights were unusually gorgeous. The most important was obviously the setlist, we got Stuck In The Middle with the new, quite scary background images and we could also finally hear some of the new French songs again. Jane Birkin was wonderful and the performance for Bougez was iconic, I honestly can’t understand how he even did it. Everything was fantastic. There’s new interest in Lollipop and during Happy Ending the scenery is now particularly beautiful. I was so excited by everything that I genuinely didn’t know what to do. Should I take photos or a few videos to be able to reminisce the gig later or should I just focus on listening or maybe dance a bit more than I usually do just because the energy was so good? 

I ended up doing all that. I took quite a lot photos of the new suit and was really happy to have them as a memory. During Underwater and Happy Ending I purely listened and during Bougez I was so astonished I had to film to be sure it all really did happen. Sometimes I worry about this man and the amount of energy he gives to his audience on stage! My favourite moment must have been Jane Birkin and I once again thought it must be the most liberating Mika song ever. Seeing the beautiful new light blue suit and hearing Jane Birkin at the same gig felt like picking the winning numbers. As the cherry on the cake we saw the peacock suit in the end. The festival performance in Rodez was definitely one of my personal favourites this summer. 

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