Day 5 – Sunday June 7

This was Day 5 and the last day of the festival, but day 4 for me as I had to skip the Saturday! The Sunday, usually never featured a really well known singer or band, but this year for its quarter of a century Caribana thought big and invited none other than Mika!!

3:30pm-4:30pm, Grande Scène

James Gruntz

I caught a glimpse of James Gruntz‘s gig, this Swiss lad has talent to sell. His single “Heart Keeps Dancing” is already a hit, his soft voice is great live and he plays the piano beautifully. During this song the audience joins in singing along to the refrain. His pop music is funky! Keep an eye on him!

 

5pm-6.40pm, Grande Scène

Mika

Before the concert some crown-shaped papers with the “M” of “Mika” carved into them are given out to the crowd so that fans can hold them up and wave them during the concert.
The stage setup is very colourful, reflecting Mika‘s personality. The letters forming the name of his last album No Place In Heaven are glued to the palace-shaped cards on the stage.  Five musicians enter the stage and start playing their own instruments: two drums, sax, guitar and a bass. After a little while voilà  Mika himself entering the stage with a cute smile printed on his face. And off we go with the party!
He plays his old super successful single “Grace Kelly” as a second song. The public sings along to the “ooooh”, the rest being too high pitched for their voices to reach.
Mika is an incredibly amazing live performer, his happiness is contagious, he smiles all along! He talks a lot to the audience to introduce the songs in his perfect French. For “Big Girl You Are Beautiful” he introduces the song by saying that there are thin and fat people who like running around looking for food like he does. Then the song kicks off and Mika makes the public sing along to the refrain.

Mika delights the Caribana crowd with all his greatest pop hits like the laid back, “Relax Take It Easy, as its title suggests. He plays his great new single “Underwater”, which everybody knows and sings along to, swinging to it. He also sings in French as in the song “Elle Me Dit”, he sits at the piano and says “She asks me to dance but I don’t want to dance” in French, Italian and English and then he starts singing. This artist is truly full of surprises! Caribana Festival transforms itself into a huge dancefloor.
He plays his hit “Love Today”, towards the end of the song there’s a bang and lots of colourful bits of paper are shot out from a canon. Mika also jumps on the piano and sings and dances from up there.

But it ain’t over, Mika and his band come back for an encore for the audience’ happiness!

What a brilliant ending to another fantastic edition of Caribana Festival! Unfortunately I didn’t manage to do any interviews but I still had great fun and made new discoveries! Music and organization-wise the festival was great. The only downfall is that there are no late public transports to Lausanne, so that people cannot stay until the end of the concerts. Hopefully this will be improved next year.

A grand merci to Caribana Festival! I’m already looking forward to next years’ edition from the 1st to the 5th June 2016 🙂

Simona @TakeMe2aConcert