As I was standing under the speaker on the left side of the stage watching Mika sing Grace Kelly I had a thought, I feel like a dad who brought his daughter and her twelve best friends to see her favorite artist. Dont get me wrong, I had a gigantic smile on my face and was bopping along but it felt like there was a generation gap and it reminded me of when I went to a ton of concerts in high school. Many of them at The Roxy.
Mika decided to hook up with Perez Hilton to promote the acoustic show on Wednesday night so he could debut some of the tracks off his new album he just finished recording a couple days earlier. The album wont be out till late in the year but since he was stateside and knew there were a lot of MFCers around (Mika Fan Clubfor those unawares) he figured hed do the show and give away tix the day before from an ice cream truck which is where we fit into the story. I rolled up just in time to see the line stretching for a couple blocks down Sunset. Fans in front of the line whod come from around the world and had been posted up since 9 in the morning were in the very front of the line and wanted to know if they could have cream. I touched base with Nick who was doing line control and figured itd be best to wait till after to sling. So I decided Id try to look like the cool guy hanging in front of his truck while I waited for Crash to arrive to help with the pics.
I was happy to see that everyone there made it inside. I know they gave away more wristbands than the official capacity but somehow everyone fit. And no, it wasnt crammed like sardines. I happened to be backstage right before Mika went on and was about to walk down the stairs into the venue when I noticed the band was blocking the stairwell. A few seconds later they funneled out ont the the stage and quickly broke into Grace Kelly I posted up below the speaker because there was room and I didnt feel like trying to find a better spot. Plus from the vantage point I was at, Mika and I were making eyes the whole set. The next song was Big Girls which I quite like. After that he played a new song, the way I could tell it was new was because everyone in the audience wasnt singing along. He was quick to return to a familiar track then he went back and forth with some new ones and old ones before ending with “Lollipop,” which I thought was a great way to end the set. Even if it were only 9 or so songs.
I think the band that was playing with him was local musicians that Mika taught the songs too. When he left the stage before an encore I slipped out to get the ice cream situation ready for slinging afterwards. As I was setting up I heard Grace Kelly again and commented to Heather that I thought he already played that. Im guessing the band only new a set amount of songs and they werent planning an encore since they had already launched a ton of confetti into the air. By the time everyone made it out we were ready for the rush. I love seeing happy people and the Mika Super Fans funneled out directly to the truck and we gave away much more ice cream than normal for a Roxy show. After an hour or so, once all the photos had been uploaded to our flickr site I locked er down and headed by Jeremiah’s to pass along the live pic setup to see if we can rock some stuff from Coachella this weekend. Cross fingers we can keep it going. Its fun.
Thanks to Mika, Perez, Allison, The Roxy, and everyone else who made the show and free ice cream possible. I wish there were more events like this we could be a part of.
CraSH had to leave his equipment in the van, so he had to use Ice Cream Man’s small digital camera to shoot
