The circumstances for Mika’s show in Athens were gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to see the gig. The festival performance last year outside Athens was fantastic, relaxed and warm and this time the venue was even more wonderful on the top of the Lycabettus Hill that has a stunning view over the city and the sea and the Acropolis and I can’t easily name a more impressive view from any gig location in the world. Mika has many friends and contacts in Athens after living there and I thought many of them would be in the audience and indeed in the beginning of the gig he mentioned the gig was a rare, even unique possibility for him to perform in front of such a big group of friends. This time there would be no rules at all and instead of the usual gig the night would be one big party between friends and something totally unique and one time only. 

The Lycabettus Theater is an open-air venue and the seated audience is literally around a round area and as soon as I saw the shape of the floor space I knew it would be a hugely tempting place for Mika to perform. It would have been great if they could have built the setting that way, especially if the show wasn’t sold out, to gather everyone around him but that probably wasn’t possible or the venue wasn’t keen to do it because the concert was one of the series of concerts by different artists and there already was a stage built for stage settings. It was still clear to me that Mika probably would want to spend in the crowd more time than he usually does to make the gig more intimate and that way it wasn’t a surprise that he performed in the middle of the crowd several songs.

He started there with Origin and for me the nature of the moment was chaotic and I felt out of place in a disorganised situation, people were gathering around him or just moving and dancing around the venue here and there. I was first behind the crowd and then climbed to the seated area but didn’t see either way and decided to stay close to the stage where I could see him from close distance as soon as he would come on stage and that way I could see the new flower confetti piano I had so much looked forward to. After performing a few songs in the middle of the crowd he came on stage and the crowd was wild dancing and jumping. Being able to participate a huge Mika party is a very special and rare opportunity but I’m more an observer than a party person and was overwhelmed by the situation and decided to watch and listen. The whole rhythm of the gig was different than it usually is, the mood was busy and hectic. Everything happened really close distance yet the atmosphere wasn’t intimate in a soft and gentle way, it was quite high energy. I was waiting for the moment where I can match my own mood with the mood of the gig that night and I was sure it was coming. 

There was more interaction with the audience than I remember being for a very, very long time and Mika kept talking to people and signalling with different gestures like hearts and looks and smiles and included so many details it would be impossible to even list them all. During Underwater soap bubbles were blown on stage and Mika used the opportunity to interact with a fan and made a little speech of it while guiding the crowd to sing.

Gradually I started to understand how incredibly special and unique the gig was. 

For me the most amazing details were the background stories before songs like Stuck In The Middle and C’est la vie. Before Stuck In The Middle we heard a story about Mika’s Lebanese grandmother who had Mika’s mother at the age of only 15. She was very, very young to be a mother so the relationship was a mix of the relationships between a mother and a daughter and sisters combining the hard sides of the both and that situation gave an inspiration for Stuck In The Middle. Before telling the story Mika entertained the audience taking off his shoes and and smilingly saying “my shoes really fucking hurt me” and throwing them on stage and after the little background story the performance for Stuck In The Middle was absolutely incredible even though before the song he questioned his own ability to remember the lyrics because he hadn’t done the song for a long time and in the end of the song he indeed took a mobile from a member of the audience to have a quick look at the lyrics. It was such a great performance and immediately brought me back in 2010 when the song was on the regular setlist.

We got an explanation for the song also before C’est la vie and that felt even more wonderful because it’s rare to get background stories for French songs in English. The story was emotional and for me this was the detail that made the gig intimate in a way that it wasn’t before. The song after that was remarkable and extraordinary and more touching than it has been ever before and alone a reason to be in Greece. A beautiful moment that I will always connect to Athens. 

After C’est la vie we heard Over My Shoulder which was definitely a huge surprise. I didn’t see the song coming. I don’t think it was easy for Mika to perform Over My Shoulder in the middle of such unusual energy and it felt a particularly sweet gesture to the audience and I loved him for that. He did a beautiful performance and for me this was a song that totally harmonised the night, the song is calm and suddenly I felt totally calm as well and after that it was easy to listen to Happy Ending which was done beautifully adding some extra flowers. After that I couldn’t stop admiring the piano and again, flowers were flying all over and numerous of them landed in my open bag and to be clear, the flowers are not flower confetti for real, they are tiny artificial flowers that flow over the piano and eventually end up also in the audience.

During the night we got also songs like Good Guys and Billy Brown and in the end of Elle Me Dit a young boy was asked on stage. Love Today in the end returned the energy that the gig had in the beginning and atmosphere was quite wild and crazy. The gig turned out to be exactly as one of the kind as Mika in the beginning of it wanted it to be. It was a unique mix of chaos, interaction and extremely intimate, touching moments including one of the most beautiful gig moments I’ve seen with C’est la vie. The setlist in general was surprising, the atmosphere was hectic and changing  - maybe that’s what “no rules” means - and that way also asked continuous adapting. Definitely a special gig that will stand out as a memory.