Festival Carcassonne in Carcassonne, France 25/7/2024
Carcassonne is a medieval, fortified city that on the other hand offers quite unique, magical and gorgeous historical circumstances and on the other hand is one of the most touristic places I’ve visited in France. This was my third time seeing Mika in Carcassonne at Theatre Jean Deschamps and I knew in advance the stage would be extremely large and the shape of a half circle, meaning Mika has to run from one side of the stage to another. I also knew that good seats are difficult to buy. It happened this time as well and the tickets were actually put on sale several hours before the official time. My seat was third row side, my family ended up to the last row of the venue but they didn’t seem to mind at all and their view to the ending heart was actually really nice.
During the gig it was much harder for me to focus on the show than it usually is. The performance was absolutely great as always but when the gig started the vibe in the audience didn’t feel harmonious the way it can feel. Many times at Mika gigs the audience can be heterogenous and full of totally different people from all age groups yet there’s a collective spirit we all share. This time when the gig started I didn’t feel that spirit and even though we were at a nice seated venue the crowd was distracting and people close to me were screaming and it wasn’t possible to carefully listen to the songs that I particularly enjoy listening to like Underwater and I couldn’t see well enough to pay attention to the outfits. Luckily all the outfits and show elements were already familiar to me so not seeing them well didn’t really matter.
I wasn’t allowed to enter with my camera and without my usual gig routines I tried to absorb the music and knew that after a few songs I would feel more focused on the gig and was really happy to hear Stuck In The Middle for that. People calmed down a bit and I could also see the performance quite well and was able to focus on the song and to appreciate it. This season I’ve really appreciated having it on the setlist and it was one of my favourites during the night also in Carcassonne.
It was also absolutely lovely to hear Jane Birkin again and it was performed in the beautiful green and blue peacock suit. Obviously the audience singing along beautifully would have complemented the song much more than the screaming did but I hope the impression was locally in my part of the audience and that for Mika the impression was different because the song is incredibly lovely and I would love to hear it more often and I think that most of the times the crowd does its part quite nicely. Because the venue was seated and that way sophisticated I had also hoped for small changes in the setlist like one or two songs outside the usual setlist but that didn’t happen and I don’t think the audience was even receptive for that at all.
After beautiful Happy Ending the audience was showing love in a big way and it was emotional to watch and the whole moment made me really happy and I thought it was more than reason enough to be there. I always like to choose special and particular small moments that I want to remember about the gig afterwards and this was definitely one of them. The gig ended with the big red heart with the letter M appearing on stage. This show element is huge and it’s rare it can be fitted on stage - that doesn’t happen every night - and I felt lucky it happened in Carcassonne and it was obviously a very positive side of the stage being large size. The view to the heart is amazing even from the highest parts of the venue, the element can really be seen by the full audience and it was the perfect way to end the gig in a huge and impressive way. I loved the moment and suddenly the crowd felt harmonious, something magic had happened during the show. Like the picture below represents: the man with his big heart is leading the crowd with love.