Mika magic

Friday night was all about Mika. This irrepressible, flamboyant musician is a huge hit around the world but not very well known in the United States. My roommate Emily had only heard of him from her travels in France, and her friend Nicole had only heard of him because her roommate is gay. The Hollywood Palladium is a classic venue with art deco styling. One can imagine it once used to host the likes of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

The concert wasn’t sold out but the audience comprised true fans, most of which were teenagers and young gay men, and we danced and jumped and screamed and sang with joyful enthusiasm. The staging was simple by rock concert standards, but nonetheless theatrical. Mika is a playful showman who invites us into his world and gleefully shows us all his tricks. He had bare feet and wore white pants and shirt, accessorised with an array of jackets and occasional colourful headpiece pulled from a shabby old brown suitcase. The band wore 1950s-style black and white outfits with a mish-mash of patterns; the guys in suits and the girls (back-up singer and drummer) in polkadot dresses nipped in at the waist. Mika played the keyboard on several of his ballads and quirky numbers, and jumped, kicked and danced about the stage on the upbeat songs. The playlist included almost every track from both albums, the second of which has only recently been released so I’m less familiar with those songs. Seeing him perform them live really made them come to life for me, and I know I’ll enjoy listening to the album all the more now. Because it wasn’t a full house, and it was all standing room/general admission, we were able to get pretty close to the stage. Unfortunately, my camera doesn’t have a great zoom and is slow to focus in dim light so none of my attempts at capturing the moment were very successful, and make the stage seem much further away than it was. This is the clearest shot I got (somewhat spoiled by the big noggin of the security dude).

Being general admission, when we arrived on Sunset Blvd 30 minutes before the doors opened there was already a line around the block to waiting to get in. Streetcarts operating sausage sizzles were dotted along the line - the smell of fried onion never fails to make the mouth water – along with ticket scalpers trying their luck (and surely failing, given the concert was not completely sold out). We also spotted something I’ve never seen before: a mobile ATM machine in a truck. Seriously, this thing is just begging to be hijacked. In fact, the passenger seat window bore the marks of a break-in, hastily repaired with duct tape. Alternatively, the truck may in fact have been in the business of recording the debit card and pin number details of anyone stupid enough to avail themself of its services. Either way, dodgy as hell!

After the concert, Nicole and Emily took me to a Hollywood institution of sorts: Big Wangs. It’s a sports bar famous for its BBQ chicken wings, which once a week are sold for just 25 cents each. The place is decked out with multiple flat screen TVs, and you can buy a jug of Stella for $13. I’m sure you could get a jug of Bud Lite for even less (if you really want that much dirty dishwater). In short, it’s bloke heaven. There are a lot of other much classier bars along the strip, but having worn jeans and comfortable flat shoes (all the better for jumping and dancing around in), we were underdressed. Emily and Nicole inform me that you have to wear skyscraper heels to get into these places; it’s like, a Rule. Pic below shows Emily on the right and Nicole in the middle.