Solidays in Paris, France 29/6/2024
This year was my first time at the Paris Solidays so the event wasn’t familiar to me in advance. I understood immediately on the festival day that it was important compared to many other summer events. Every big event in Paris has extensive importance and this one was huge even on that scale. The line-up on Saturday wasn’t exactly my taste in general and for Mika that meant a possibility to introduce his music to a bigger crowd that wasn’t his usual audience and as always in a situation like that it culminated in an absolutely fantastic performance. Also, Solidays is a charity event with a meaningful topic working against AIDS/HIV and the theme was successfully pointed out throughout the festival day. Everything was in French and I couldn’t catch details from different speeches but the emotional message came through and it was good to see Mika being a part of that as an artist and I loved it how in his own performance he managed to introduce not only his music but also his own values and all that in a just one hour festival show.
Everything in that hour was well considered, the setlist that was suitable for the event, the sharp and energetic yet at the same time smiling performing, the classy impression given by the particularly stylish outfits both on Mika and the members of the band and the choir. Every single part was good quality: the music and performing, the meaningful message that was sang and spoken and gestured, the beautiful visual style and the added details, the choir that always adds a bit extra class on the background and the giant red heart symbolising love. There are numerous other moments when I hope and expect just relaxed and good gig vibes especially at summer festivals but it’s always special to be in the audience when Mika shows his full, extremely classy artistic creativity and obviously makes effort in every possible way to make the crowd on fire. If he’s not the main act the impact is even bigger, judged by the show he should have been and I always hear comments like that.
He started at 8 pm and luckily the weather was nice even though we had a few drops of rain while waiting for him. Before his turn the white wing piano was brought on stage and tested by the crew but also moved on the side to wait and that wasn’t a surprise, I had expected there wouldn’t be space for Tiny Love in this shorter, big scale performance no matter how amazing the version we heard in Pérouges was. I still had hopes he would do Origin which was my another favourite there and now a bit surprisingly he started with the song! I am definitely loving Origin this summer and it sounds updated and somehow more intense than we are used to.
Mika came on stage wearing a new white suit with appliqued decorations like cactuses, stars and the text “Apocalypso”. The colour was fresh and cut for the suit stylish and flattering and his figure look beautiful on stage. The band was wearing creamy white outfits that had details in the same colour and each choir member had a fancy dress or suit in different white, champagne or silver colours. In the middle of Origin Mika took a pride flag from the audience like he occasionally does and it was a nice gesture in the situation. After Origin one of his most known songs and Relax and a good way to warm up the audience more. Before starting the song he took off his jacket and revealed the prettiest new top underneath! Very much Mika style to introduce such beautiful details in the middle of the performance. His stage outfits are always a “thing” and I love that and at this point most of the outfits come from his own atelier and that way are a part of his creativity and I would love to know more about the process and the inspiration behind the style.
After Relax another extremely well known song and Lollipop. It’s hard to imagine a festival appearance like this without Lollipop and this time we got a fiercely energetic performance where he did ”went walkin’ with my mama one day, when she warned me what people say, live your life until love is found
‘cause love’s gonna get you down” screaming the last words and then continued moving his hands up and down and after that did a wild little dance in the very end.
Then changing the first outfit to a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous new “rainbow” suit in glowing pinks and yellows. Definitely my all time favourite of his all bright pink stage clothes and the outfit had a shocking effect in the most stylish possible way and was a fantastic choice for this big festival event. The first song of this part of the gig was Big Girl which started with Max and continued in the audience which must have been a bit harder than it usually is because the crowd was full and packed in tight and it was not easy to move in it at all as I found out when trying to find my way out after Mika’s performance. Next Jane Birkin making the audience sing and then a beautiful Happy Ending with the pretty guitar ending. C’est la vie had a good, strong vibe and I was happy it was a part of the setlist together with the Jane Birkin because I love them both and these two are the most important new songs for the big audience and simply just great for any festival crowd.
For Elle Me Dit Mika changed to his glorious shiny white suit with the flower that we haven’t seen for a while and everything so far looked so spectacularly elegant I had to gasp a bit for delight because we hadn’t seen this kind of a cavalcade of beautiful, elegant suits the whole year and being able to see it still in daylight highlighted the experience. At this point the crowd was on fire and jumping and dancing Elle Me Dit and demanded more and after that it got ”Paris, for god sake I want to talk to you” and of course also the giant rainbow and then people demanded more making a lot of noise and got the final Love Today.
A big wooden box signed “DANGER” was brought on stage and the excitement continued to rise. When some technical equipments asked a tiny last minute fix I hold my breath for a moment but for no reason, the giant read heart with the letter M came out and was raised on stage and it looked incredible - absolutely incredible - and after that there was a command “Solidays, GO” and the audience went totally wild. The best possible ending for the show. After thanking the audience in front of the heart Mika and everyone on stage did the very final Yo-Yo dance and the last waving and then left the stage and I had to just state aloud how amazing it all was before making some desperate effort to get through the crowd to leave the place for those who came for the following artist. Such fantastic “big style” performance, it felt wonderful to witness it from the audience.