Music
Mika @ Birmingham Carling Academy, May 17
Published Friday, May 18 2007, 17:38 BST | By Miriam Zendle
Considering the first time I saw Mika play in Birmingham it was to a crowd of about...wait for it...twenty, in the tiny Bar Academy just upstairs from the far larger Carling Academy where tonight's gig was held, the size of tonight's crowd was somewhat staggering. As Mika himself noted during the gig, his third in the area, this is the biggest crowd he's played to thus far, and he certainly made the most of it.
Support act Palladium were a hugely successful surprise - this London-based band have only been together since October 2006, but you really wouldn't know it from the professional, polished sound they produced in front of a truly hyped-up crowd, which they later described as "probably our best gig to date". I wouldn't disagree - their brand of powerful slightly REM-style pop-rock is a weird but wonderful mix of pseudo-glam '80s rock, folky, indie-infused melodies that really works best live, and will blow you away the minute they set foot on the stage. They're playing a load of festivals this summer, so if you can, do drop in on one of their sets - with any luck they're going to be huge in a year or two, and you'll never forgive yourself if you don't catch them early.
Mika, on the other hand, isn't very folky, but he was on form last night, possibly more so than ever before. Seemingly revelling in the size of the crowd, guitarists Martin and Mikey turned the sound on the amplifiers up to 11 and powered through the hour-ish long set with barely a pause for breath, really coming into their own on a cover of the Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams', where you could feel the notes blasting through you to such an extent that you felt like your head might explode. Mika's voice soared magnificently throughout the energy-filled gig, the only low point a low-key version of 'Holy Johnny' that didn't excite the crowd too much. A particularly enjoyable moment occured during the other cover performed - the Jackson Five's 'Want You Back', where a particularly high-pitched note was held by Mika for an unconscionably long and extremely impressive length of time.
There were of course a few nice surprises for the fans to conclude the sold-out tour. With everything from a curvy (but not truly 'big'!) girl coming on stage in a stunning corset to dance with Mika on 'Big Girls' to huge balloons, bubbles and silver ticker-tape being pumped out into the room in the midst of the encore of 'Lollipop', seemingly everyone left with a smile on their face. At any other gig, the artist and his band coming on dressed in animal costumes (chicken, parrot, etc) and dancing to the 'Teddy Bear's Picnic' before revealing themselves and launching into an encore might seem a little contrived, a bit weird and almost calculated to incur the wrath of the more pretentious amongst us. But this is Mika, and as such it's really quite brilliant. Roll on the next tour...
You can find Mika at www.myspace.com/mikamyspace and Palladium at www.myspace.com/palladiumofficial.
Support act Palladium were a hugely successful surprise - this London-based band have only been together since October 2006, but you really wouldn't know it from the professional, polished sound they produced in front of a truly hyped-up crowd, which they later described as "probably our best gig to date". I wouldn't disagree - their brand of powerful slightly REM-style pop-rock is a weird but wonderful mix of pseudo-glam '80s rock, folky, indie-infused melodies that really works best live, and will blow you away the minute they set foot on the stage. They're playing a load of festivals this summer, so if you can, do drop in on one of their sets - with any luck they're going to be huge in a year or two, and you'll never forgive yourself if you don't catch them early.
Mika, on the other hand, isn't very folky, but he was on form last night, possibly more so than ever before. Seemingly revelling in the size of the crowd, guitarists Martin and Mikey turned the sound on the amplifiers up to 11 and powered through the hour-ish long set with barely a pause for breath, really coming into their own on a cover of the Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams', where you could feel the notes blasting through you to such an extent that you felt like your head might explode. Mika's voice soared magnificently throughout the energy-filled gig, the only low point a low-key version of 'Holy Johnny' that didn't excite the crowd too much. A particularly enjoyable moment occured during the other cover performed - the Jackson Five's 'Want You Back', where a particularly high-pitched note was held by Mika for an unconscionably long and extremely impressive length of time.
There were of course a few nice surprises for the fans to conclude the sold-out tour. With everything from a curvy (but not truly 'big'!) girl coming on stage in a stunning corset to dance with Mika on 'Big Girls' to huge balloons, bubbles and silver ticker-tape being pumped out into the room in the midst of the encore of 'Lollipop', seemingly everyone left with a smile on their face. At any other gig, the artist and his band coming on dressed in animal costumes (chicken, parrot, etc) and dancing to the 'Teddy Bear's Picnic' before revealing themselves and launching into an encore might seem a little contrived, a bit weird and almost calculated to incur the wrath of the more pretentious amongst us. But this is Mika, and as such it's really quite brilliant. Roll on the next tour...
You can find Mika at www.myspace.com/mikamyspace and Palladium at www.myspace.com/palladiumofficial.
