I saw you Friday night at New York City's lovely, baroque United Palace way uptown in Washington Heights, only the fourth or so stop on your North American tour to promote your second album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much.
First of all, I like the new album a lot, partly because it doesn't deviate too far from the big, Queen-y, Elton-y, Beatles-y pop-rock-opera sound of your first, Songs In Cartoon Motion. Secondly, there were two primary demographics at your show, white gays and white twelve-year-old girls, and I was proud to be among the former, even though I envied the creamy skin and off-the-shoulder, neo-Flashdance fashions of the latter, who gave the venue a Nickolodeon-Noggin glow. Thirdly, Mika, I have long wanted to run my hands through your loose, curly locks, partly because I'm half-Lebanese myself and see much of my younger self in you (even though I was an out gay by your age).
Fourthly, couldn't you have
taken your shirt off? I like your skinny body. I like to watch you
dance and make rock-star type gestures with your hands. I liked the
different white jackets you wore, I liked the glow-in-the-dark, Ziggy
Stardustian face make-up you and your cute band and back-up singers
wore. I liked when you did that slapstick bit with that Beauty and
the Beast-evoking teapot marionette, and it was mad creepy when a
big teapot came on manipulating a little marionette of you. I
love the new songs "We Are Golden" (it was awesome when all the
gays and the tweens were shouting out the chorus with you, like a big
gay-tween rock anthem) and especially "Blame it on the Girls," (see video above) which
you did so well
recently on Letterman.
I thought about it, why do I love this song so much, and I think it's because it makes me about as candy-colored happy as the first time I heard Culture Club's "It's a Miracle". It's that catchy! You can hold a falsetto note, Mika, and I always die a little when you scale that, like, what, eighteen-note peak in "Grace Kelly," then come back down again? Damn, child. But I didn't hear you say "Ka-ching!" at the end; that was kind of disappointing. Also, you may have been upstaged in the last few songs by those amazing, huge white helium balloons you dropped on the audience, sparking about 32 different volleyball games in the house.
You were so close to your audience up front, I wish you'd made eye contact and interacted with them a little bit more. And you're so talented, I'm really hoping that, in the years ahead, your songwriting deepens and gets more sophisticated and goes beyond its current level of (admittedly very enjoyable) candy-pop. I think you're capable of that and I know you're young. But mostly I just wish I'd had after-party passes so I could've run my hands through your hair. Good luck on the rest of your North American tour, Mika!
Love,
Timmy (Murphy)
Previously > Fast & Furious with Raphael Saadiq
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