The last Mika concert for the summer was at Rock Oz’Arènes Festival in Avenches, Switzerland. The gig was night before Mika’s 30th birthday so I bought my ticket in good time and wouldn’t have missed it in the world and was happy I was able to do this festival. It was one of my favorite ever shows and we had so much fun during the show and after it. The venue was quite small (as a festival venue) and probably had a great view from the seated area. However, this was a special night so even though the stage was high I wanted to be as near it as possible and to enjoy watching everything from a close distance.

The people working for the festival seemed excited about Mika’s birthday surprise and were nice updating us several times before it was Mika’s turn to be on stage. We had bought little lighted balloons to wave them exactly at midnight and the festival staff promised to show time on the screens and to ask the whole audience to show their mobiles with lights so everything would look nice and lighted to wish Mika happy birthday. They also promised to bring us a Happy Birthday banner and told that they have a little cake to give him at midnight. 

Mika came on stage and started with the French ballad and I loved it in Avenches as much I did in Albi, it was a beautiful contrast to the noisy rap band before him. I was quickly on my Mika cloud and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. The concert was fantastic and probably my favorite for the summer. He didn’t do any extra songs or didn’t add anything special to the songs but he did a really intensive show and was focused all the time, taking a lot of contact with the audience and adding funny little details to his performance. He had fun with hats, balloons, confetti and the cake he got at midnight and teased the band and made them do funny things (lie on the piano, wear the cake on their head) and the band naturally let him have his fun.

The evening was emotional and during Underwater I felt tears in my eyes, I couldn’t help it, because it was so beautiful and because I realized I won’t hear it again for a very long time. The front row was full of Mika fans and the security looked surprised to see our dance moves for songs like Billy Brown, Grace Kelly, Drunk and Love Today.  Mika saw how many fans had come to celebrate his birthday and gave us a lot of attention and smiles. Even though it was the last show of the tour and his birthday and he must have looked forward to some private partying he didn’t show any hurry on stage but concentrated on the audience and generously let us be a part of his birthday celebrations and have fun with him and it felt really good and was important to everyone who came to see the show.

I don’t think we could have had any better way to end the tour. The situation after the show was very crowded but his team knew we had a collective present to give him from his whole fan club and was very helpful organizing us a possibility to go to backstage. Not sure if the gift really was a surprise to Mika but he was really sweet and kind and genuinely appreciated it. It was too crowded to have proper personal conversations with him but I really appreciated a possibility to congratulate him on his birthday and think his team was very generous tolerating such a big group of fans backstage.