Mediolanum Forum in Milan, Italy 3/12/2019
The last Italian gig of the year at the Mediolanum Forum in Milan was wonderful and went well and that was important. Mika did a good, sharp performance and the moment he sang in the end of We Are Golden his pink piano raising high was amazing and I thought, of I love you, you show them! And he did show them and even though the crowd was quite reserved it obviously loved him as well. After We Are Golden he run off the stage to return soon and during Grace Kelly the whole place was filled with balloons which was gorgeous once again and soon after that it was time for My Name Is Michael Holbrook, the giant red heart and the final Stay High.
I had a seat in the first row on the left side of the stage and my view was great. Going to see the Livorno show day before meant I gave up my possibilities to be front in Milan, obviously I couldn’t be there early enough. I didn’t mind. This was the first time Mika did a proper show in Livorno and many people there saw him for the first time ever and things like that matter to me and make the gig more special. I seemed to be the only one thinking that way, everyone else had the Milan show as their priority.
On the gig day I arrived Milan around noon and after all the traveling was purely happy to have a relaxed day and went to the venue and to my seated place after the doors were opened. Watching the gig seated is a different experience than seeing it from a close distance. I paid attention to the giant venue when I walked in. Huge arenas are ugly and impersonal but obviously they offer a big enough space for a show like this and the new setting is so breathtakingly beautiful in every sense that is was easy to forget the venue when the show started.
I was lucky and people around me wanted to stand up and dance and I could enjoy the gig that way and had also a better view for photos. Watching a show at big venues means naturally watching the performance from a distance as an outsider but with a beautiful, visual show like this that’s a wonderful possibility as well and means being able to watch the result of someone’s enormous creativity and even though I had already seen the show several times I fully enjoyed seeing it at the Mediolanum Forum again.
For some reason I felt very nostalgic and emotional during the whole the Milan show and paid special attention to some classics I’ve seen so many times before. I loved Relax and seeing the audience’s reaction to it. Not many moments in life can compare to seeing Mika performing Relax live. It’s something fundamental, like watching the sun rising or going down. During Underwater and Happy Ending I felt like crying. I’ve been weirdly sensitive lately and cried easily. Underwater has become the most important moment of the show for me. No matter how I feel or how hard it is to focus that day, during Underwater I’m just perfectly calm, focused on music and very grateful. I’ve made it to see Mika performing Underwater so there’s absolutely nothing I can complain in life.
I loved Paloma as much as I’ve loved it at every gig, it’s my favourite live song at the moment. It’s deeply touching and the ending is just crazy. Only Mika can do something like that and I almost can’t believe even he’s doing something like that. During the evening we saw also a special guest performance and Chiara Galliazzo on stage. Not totally unexpected as she is often a guest in Milan.
The final ending scene is always phenomenal. Some people at the Mediolanum Forum were leaving after We Are Golden the same way people who are in a hurry always leave at big events and it upset me and made me sad for them. The most phenomenal part of the show was only coming. I was alone and had no one to talk to so I turned to a fancy, elegant looking lady next to me and told my worries to her and she might have thought I was crazy letting it all out to a stranger but also totally agreed with me and when it was all over we nodded to each other like confirming yes, we were right, it was phenomenal and even casually waved good bye.