Monday 05/02/07 Mika @ Berkeley Square, London

Gigwise is standing eating pink candy floss, our senses assaulted by feather-clad near-naked carnival dancers, human palm trees on stilettos, a Caribbean drumming troupe, four teenage 50s throwbacks singing Johnny Cash covers, and a Chinese dragon. In terms of visual splendour tonight’s circus themed Mika performance is second only to that Rakes kebab shop gig in the pantheon of mobile-phone sponsored, er “street” events.

 

That such indulgency should be thrown the way of 23 year-old Lebanese-born Mika (pronounced Mee-ka) is apt, given the tremendous extravagance of his music. This is a man who clearly doesn’t know the meaning of restraint or, if you’re bring harsh, dignity. Watching him pull at his yellow braces whilst standing atop the speakers, killing every cat in a 50-mile radius with the piercing falsetto of ‘Love Today’, it’s plain to see that sitting on the fence here is simply not an option.

 

His influences are of course myriad and oft-mentioned. In tonight’s 10 song set to introduce debut ‘Life In Cartoon Motion’, Mika flits between the likes of future Media Studies set text that is ‘Grace Kelly’ (sample lyric: “So I try a little Freddie/I’ve gone identity mad” =  How very postmodern!), the Scissor Sisters facsimile ‘Stuck In The Middle’, a cover of ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ and, oh yes, ‘Billy Brown’. This is a song that thinks the melodies of ‘Sgt.Pepper’ could have done with, say, twenty extra layers of production. Live it is so overblown, in a set already inflated by pop extremity, that by the end Mika’s moved way beyond any elitist notion of a ‘guilty pleasure’.

 

“Mixed reactions? Sure, I get them all time. I’m a Marmite artist” Mika admitted in a recent interview. He’s right. After hearing him you’ll either feel like you’ve intravenously injected a packet of Skittles, or you will want to shoot him and everyone involved with him in the face. Twice. The thing is his music works, and it works spectacularly. After all, we were grinning pretty much all night: a bewildered, idiotic and massive grin.