celien Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 that expression! Like, these luggages are only the 1st lil tranche of mah giantic fashion wardrobe monami & the rolled-up trousers..I don't see nothin' wrong...uncover the sensible spots & u feel cooler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LilStar Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 that expression! Like, these luggages are only the 1st lil tranche of mah giantic fashion wardrobe monami & the rolled-up trousers..I don't see nothin' wrong...uncover the sensible spots & u feel cooler !! on one luggage you can read the number "32" ... that means hes got at least 32 like that!!!!!! OMG:roftl: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willywonka Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Disasters alright; There was much more disaster than anything else when I look back at the stuff that we wore back then What about those short cycling pants? With tights underneath them??? OMG that was terrible. And the MEGA huge shoulder pads...and super large shirts and Tshirts (to fit said shoulder pads into). Ok, I shall stop, this is getting out of hand now Yes, younger MFCrs, we used to dress like this in the eighties... !!on one luggage you can read the number "32" ... that means hes got at least 32 like that!!!!!! OMG:roftl: And he was trying to convince us he'd only send those trash cans ad those boxes in that twitpic last week.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jojotje Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Not "hometown", so much as "birthplace." Even though he only lived there for a year, it doesn't matter. It's still his birthplace, and you can't deny that the place you were born will always hold a special place in your heart. Not only that: as he has told in more then one interview: They are a Lebanese family with Lebanese habbits! So it's natural him feeling strong feelings for Lebanon! Don't forget his mum is a very strong woman who is born and raised in Lebanon! that's the culture he has grown up with! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubitus Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 I don't want to sound challenging or problematic, but, really, even though he was born there, he only lived there til the age of one. I don't personally see the significance of it being his "hometown"; I think that Paris or, ultimately, London, would logically feel more like it. By hometown they ment the place where he goes to relax with his extended family. I believe Mika used to go to Lebanon with his parents and siblings every summer , just like so many lebanese families living abroad. It's got a kind of feeling when you get back to the place you're so attached to. It won't surprise me if all his family is with him right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyaboutmika Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 British singer Mika, born in Lebanon, arrives at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, 22 June 2010. Mika will perform on the opening night of the Baalbeck International Festival (BIF) on 24 June 2010. The annual festival is scheduled from 24 June to 07 August 2010. Thanks for posting! He looks so happy! It makes me happy too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilseh1983 Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Thanks for posting! He looks so happy! It makes me happy too! makes me happy as well to see him happy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babspanky Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Not "hometown", so much as "birthplace." Even though he only lived there for a year, it doesn't matter. It's still his birthplace, and you can't deny that the place you were born will always hold a special place in your heart. That's true. I feel that. But then again I lived in my birthplace till the age of 18. I lived in one house from the age of one and a half until I was thirteen and that house is always home to me. I can't remember the house or the area I lived in up to that age. I think he probably identifies strongly with his Lebanese side because the female side of his family are very dominant rather than the fact that it's his birthplace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babspanky Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Not only that: as he has told in more then one interview: They are a Lebanese family with Lebanese habbits! So it's natural him feeling strong feelings for Lebanon! Don't forget his mum is a very strong woman who is born and raised in Lebanon!that's the culture he has grown up with! Was she born and raised in Lebanon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mari62 Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Was she born and raised in Lebanon? his mother should be Lebanese but of Syrian-Lebanese descent I don't know if she was born and raised in Lebanon though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clara85 Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 British singer Mika, born in Lebanon, arrives at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, 22 June 2010. Mika will perform on the opening night of the Baalbeck International Festival (BIF) on 24 June 2010. The annual festival is scheduled from 24 June to 07 August 2010. thanks for posting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
francoise Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 British singer Mika, born in Lebanon, arrives at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, 22 June 2010. Mika will perform on the opening night of the Baalbeck International Festival (BIF) on 24 June 2010. The annual festival is scheduled from 24 June to 07 August 2010. Thanks for posting He looks gorgeous as usual... Tanned with a stubble and a huge smile... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laymay kang Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 No, no, no: he does not need to shave:shocked: Looks great this way:blush-anim-cl: I just LOVE him with a stubble. so rwaaaaaar.... you're really love his stubble~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heidi Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 British singer Mika, born in Lebanon, arrives at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, 22 June 2010. Mika will perform on the opening night of the Baalbeck International Festival (BIF) on 24 June 2010. The annual festival is scheduled from 24 June to 07 August 2010. he looks amazinggggggggggggg....... he's juat gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!! <3 Mika <3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lui Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 I love the pic with the lebanon flag on the back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gracekelly85 Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 I'm not so sure about what you're saying Sara IMO he is and feels Lebanese, more than English and French Not "hometown", so much as "birthplace." Even though he only lived there for a year, it doesn't matter. It's still his birthplace, and you can't deny that the place you were born will always hold a special place in your heart. I agree with you girls. Even in the interviews, when HE talks about Lebanon his eyes shine. ( I hope that you understand what I mean:blush-anim-cl: ) He loves Lebanon. makes me happy as well to see him happy me tooooo!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A. Clay Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 ABOUT MIKA- http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/mika.html ABOUT THE FESTIVAL- http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/news.html#bb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkycowgirl Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/mika.html That's just a fantastic article. thanks!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertina Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/mika.html By now it is clear that Mika is not as other artists are. His surname could just as well be ‘Singular’. Enveloped in an imaginative musical world of his own creation, he is one of the few British male pop stars of his age that doesn’t run with the pack. Classically trained, racially mixed and prone to theatrical physical gesture, he has become a scion of ambitiously delivered self-expression. He says his music can be condensed easily, ‘the basic principals are that it is joyful and empowering and doesn’t cow tow to fashion or convention,’ calling to mind an old and almost forgotten pop notion: individuality. If his debut album ‘Life In Cartoon Motion’ was the brazen calling card of this individuality, then its follow up is the maturation of an unapologetic pop sound that he has made all his own. The octave-straddling voice, the virtuoso piano-playing, the rumbling rhythms and explosive finale’s, the larger than life storytelling to get to the nub of human insecurities and the striking technicolor pop productions are all in place. ‘My biggest mindset when I set about making it was not to be reactive,’ he says, ‘I had to go back to the start, when people hadn’t given me their opinions on what it is that I naturally do.’ On first listen, there is only one word to describe the second instalment of his kaleidoscopic pop dream. That word is ‘audacious’. Mika opened his pop career with the defining single Grace Kelly. It has sold almost 3 million copies worldwide and was only the second British single to top the chart on downloads alone. His total single sales from Life In Cartoon Motion add up beyond six million. The album itself bagged over 5 million till receipts. Mika was nominated for and won awards from the Brits, the Grammys, the Ivor Novellos, Capital Radio, Q magazine, The World Music Awards, BT and Vodaphone, Virgin Media and MTV’s Europe, Asia, Australia and Japan, amongst others. But the statistics only hint at the strident grip he boldly took on pop music when he entered its fray; they are the neat vindication that one of pop’s biggest outsiders could conquer from within. Prior to his signing to Casablanca/Island, Mika had been lambasted and shunned by major record label after major record label – a story well-documented in the lyrics to Grace Kelly – his victories were a triumph of vision and substance over momentary fads. For a pop star of his age he had deliberately taken a difficult route, favouring the idea of longevity by sticking with to his own pop principals over an instant return by pleasuring the suits. Second time out, the songs may be different, but the attitude remains the same. From the instantly huge chorus of ‘We Are Golden’ through songs that in turn call to mind 40s Disney (‘Toyboy’) and a touchingly modern update on 80s power-pop (‘Touches You’), there is a breadth of vision here that deigns to rub up against the classics. From rollerblading disco anthems (‘Rain’) through melancholy reflections on personal trauma (‘Dr John’), his music is underpinned by an open-hearted and accepting idea of what living in the 21st century means in all its contradictions and complications. Another thing about Mika? He is not afraid of enormity. While in rock music, those in thrall to the template of U2 have become revered for their attempts to harness arena-sized emotion, in pop largesse has all but disappeared, left to a brace of young women that will reveal enough flesh for a lad’s magazine and would never really buy one of their own records. Mika is here to reclaim it. As the blizzard of acclaim, sales and personal achievement of hitting a raw public note of approval with his debut album began to clear, Mika started to look for an apartment in LA to conceive, shape and write its follow-up. He found a beautiful space to decamp from his London basement, to work with his producer and musical co-conspirator Greg Wells. And then his mother stepped in. ‘She told me not to get too comfortable,’ he says now. Sage words a son cannot choose to ignore. So he moved back into the cheap hotel he had fashioned his debut from. When it came to part 2 of the riveting Mika tale, he decided to unlearn everything that his glittering two years of limelight had taught him. ‘This is still bedroom music to me. It’s about sitting at a piano and saying what I have to say.’ ‘The first album, to me,’ he continues, ‘was about childhood. It had that innocence. For this one we have moved on ten years and into the adolescent mind. Adolescence is one of the most glorious times in your life. It is when those life experiences, like sex, drugs and relationships, are still new and untainted. If I was to think about these things in song I knew that I had to become more personal.’ Mika has stepped aside from the character based storytelling of Life In Cartoon Motion for album number 2. ‘I still believe in mystery and I don’t feel like I have to justify anything about my life anymore. Because it is all in my songs. Song writing for me is a way of catching up with myself.’ Not that he didn’t find the idea of writing in the first person daunting. ‘Joyfulness has a risk attached to it. It’s why it is so tempting to and dangerous to forget about the first time things happened. I had to confront the reality of writing a song about myself. It was something that terrified me. If I wasn’t going to paint myself into the position of being a 40s review singer, this was something I had to do.’ Accompanying this feeling was Mika’s old tenet of not being afraid of criticism. ‘As a popular songwriter, the myopic view is that you are not allowed to step out of where pop songs should exist. Otherwise you will be mocked. But to me, the perfect pop song should feel like trying on the jacket that you always dreamt of owning.’ Part of the beauty of Mika has always been attempting to trace the correlation of his own personal insecurities or hang-ups into the choice of characters that he sings about. They often revel in or battle with their own difference, something he has done since he was a child. That outer layer has been replaced, but there is no lesser sense of grandeur or intrigue to the new, more open performer. A generic call to arms for people to throw a little glitter on their differences and celebrate them has been one of pop’s most tremendous gifts to music. Mika’s come with their own unique darkness this time, too, most notably on the charging melody of ‘Dr John’ and the unhinged dilemma at the centre of the brassily brilliant ‘Blame It OnThe Girls.’ Because he had got it so spectacularly right first time out by sticking to his guns, there was a personal edict from his label boss not to interfere this time either. ‘I have been protected. There was a blockade on interference and I was left completely and utterly alone.’ If at first Mika had difficulty coming to terms with the solitude, he over-rode it in the most unusual way. ‘Discipline solved it. I went to the studio at 10 o’clock every morning, had my lunch at the same place every day and went to the same pub at 7 o’clock every evening.’ Because there is a tendency in Mika to attempt to cover so much ground, it all has to feel like it is shot with the same camera. ‘There is an understanding with everyone that I work with that they are in my world only. We don’t listen to any other music. We get lost in this world.’ In the process of making his second album, Mika has unleashed something in himself by letting go of something of himself. ‘I feel liberated. I’ve gone to the next place. I needed to do that and I have conquered a process which will help in terms of the third and fourth records. I have finally come to terms with the fact that my little bedroom records aren’t bedroom records any more and that I’m a songwriter.’ And a brilliant, brave pop star, to boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A. Clay Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 That's just a fantastic article. thanks!! My pleasure; here's a little bit about the festival as well-- http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/news.html#bb . . and MIKA's place in the Program- Thursday June 24 MIKA POP CONCERT The Courtyard of the Two Temples Mika is certainly the Pop Music Genius of the beginning of the twenty first century. His first album "Life in Cartoon Motion" , was sold for more than 6 million copies throughout the planet and his latest album “The Boy who Knew too Much” released in September 2009 with such titles as We are Golden, Blame it on Girls, Rain, Dr. John, etc is being acclaimed worldwide. After an outstanding performance in 2008 in Beirut Downtown, Mika’s public is earnestly waiting for him in his country of birth to interpret in the magnificent frame of the Baalbek Roman Temples his biggest hits and to present his sensational new album. A memorable evening for his fans of all generations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gracekelly85 Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 My pleasure; here's a little bit about the festival as well-- http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/news.html#bb . . and MIKA's place in the Program- Thursday June 24 MIKA POP CONCERT The Courtyard of the Two Temples Mika is certainly the Pop Music Genius of the beginning of the twenty first century. His first album "Life in Cartoon Motion" , was sold for more than 6 million copies throughout the planet and his latest album “The Boy who Knew too Much” released in September 2009 with such titles as We are Golden, Blame it on Girls, Rain, Dr. John, etc is being acclaimed worldwide. After an outstanding performance in 2008 in Beirut Downtown, Mika’s public is earnestly waiting for him in his country of birth to interpret in the magnificent frame of the Baalbek Roman Temples his biggest hits and to present his sensational new album. A memorable evening for his fans of all generations! t4p, Alice! it's an amzing place there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faballa Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 This is a really theatrical place, looks very classical and as an ideal location for performing! I fully understand that Mika loves this venue not only for the reason that it is placed in Beirut!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertina Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 This is a really theatrical place, looks very classical and as an ideal location for performing! I fully understand that Mika loves this venue not only for the reason that it is placed in Beirut!! italy is ready to offer dozens of venues like that Valle dei templi in Agrigento? Pompei? and our greek cousins as well and when he comes to Rome? he's playing in a HIPPODROME!!! how sad is that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louiza Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 I don't want to sound challenging or problematic, but, really, even though he was born there, he only lived there til the age of one. I don't personally see the significance of it being his "hometown"; I think that Paris or, ultimately, London, would logically feel more like it. I'm not so sure about what you're saying Sara IMO he is and feels Lebanese, more than English and French I agree with you Marina. It's not about how long you've been living in a place, it's about how connected you feel with it. After hearing him speak in so many interviews about the Lebanese culture etc I'm sure it must be special for him to perform there. ABOUT MIKA-http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/mika.html ABOUT THE FESTIVAL- http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/news.html#bb this was written in an excellent way!! t4p:thumb_yello: italy is ready to offer dozens of venues like that Valle dei templi in Agrigento? Pompei? and our greek cousins as well yup us cousins have many lovely venues to offer:biggrin2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marilyn Mastin Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 There is never any place that beats the place where you were born. My nana loved England well enough, but she was always Irish in her heart. Even though she left Ireland at 19 years old and lived in England until she died at 91. Mika will always have that special place in his heart for the land of his birth, and I'm so happy for him To be back there doing his show is awesome and I agree with others on this thread. He looks really happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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