Mika: Sadler's Wells (gig)

Mika: Sadler's Wells
The Acoustic Tour 8th June 09

Mika's acoustic tour was sparked by an incident during his tour of America, when the lorry carrying all of his equipment became stranded on a mountain pass. Unwilling to simply cancel the show, Mika and his team soldiered on with an "acoustic" set, a stage covered with a bizarre selection of props and a generally haphazard approach. Deciding to produce an entire tour along these lines may seem to be verging on the insane but then Mika has never trodden the well-worn path . . . and, as usual, this appears to have worked out rather well.

Performing on a stage presumably inspired by a 60s vision of the future, Mika was surrounded by a mountainous set covered in what looked like silver foil, and orchestra members tucked away into the folds of sparkly fabric. From the moment he stepped on stage, he commanded the crowd's attention and was a constant source of enthusiasm and effervescent energy. Holding a gig in a real theatre could have fallen flat on its face but despite being in the last row of the upper circle, my sister and I still felt entirely part of the action. This is perhaps not surprising, since being at the back of Sadler's Wells is probably closer to the stage than the even first row at the O2. It was small, intimate and for that reason, all the more memorable.

The song selection was spot-on, divided equally between the lesser-known tracks of his new album (some of which are available from his website) and the huge number of crowd pleasers which dominate Life In Cartoon Motion, his original outing. All of the performers remained on stage the whole time despite the guest soprano and tenor only duetting with him once each, happily getting involved with the dancing for other songs. Mika sung and played the piano beautifully, stumbling over his words and tuning for one song only but being cheerfully self-deprecating enough to make me forget that it was one of my favourite pieces. In fact, it was his humour and charm which really boosted an otherwise vocally great performance into a truly noteworthy experience.

The only downsides to the entire evening were the delay in starting and the tragically bad support act. Although nobody expects a gig to start on time, somehow holding it in a theatre rather than an arena or gig-dedicated location (such as the Shepherd's Bush Empire or Brixton Academy) does inspire belief that the doors really will open when the ticket says they will. Having finally been allowed into the theatre some 40 minutes later, we were then forced to wait for another half an hour before the arrival of the support act: a female duet who played guitar and sang. Badly. Again, the downside of not being in an arena was that it made it far harder to leave surreptitiously and enter again just in time for the main show, especially as we were in the middle of the row. We realised, as they started on their fourth song (or was it their third? Or their fifth? It's hard to tell, they all sounded exactly the same) that we were in it for the long haul and the thought did make me die just a little inside.

Still, if you can put up with that rubbish then Mika's performance is worth it in every way. At times belting it out like a diva, at others crooning, sometimes poppy, sometimes gentle, Mika is a truly wide-ranging vocalist with a great head for lyrics and a witty, mischievous side which certainly comes out in a gig as intimate and comparatively informal as this. Although he took a plunge getting rid of the high-tech equipment which so many gig lovers have come to expect over the years, Mika's risk-taking strategies have paid off. To some he may simply be a master of pop but to those lucky enough to be in the audience that night, Mika is a true musician.