Guardian: Attack of the Superfans
Meet Mika. She works day and night so she can hang out with her favourite band, the Kaiser Chiefs. The strange thing is, she doesn't really seem to know why.
Sneaking out of a side door into the main lobby of Tokyo's Zepp music venue I find myself standing before a gaggle of fashionable young girls with eyes fixed on me like a cross-hair on its target. Having been caught walking through the mythic backstage area midway through a Kaiser Chief's gig is enough to bestow me with a mysterious power that gets the Japanese fans' radars buzzing. Is he famous? Should we be getting his picture? Sadly, the answer is no, and when the fans realise this they save their energy for when the band emerge later on. According to Kaiser Chiefs bassist Simon Ricks, coming to Japan makes the band "feel like they're the Beatles". This is because wherever they go, they're followed by gangs of girls anxious to take hundreds of out-of-focus, back-of-the-head shots - although the atmosphere is typically polite. But...Mika doesn't need to capitalise on this brief moment of contact with her idols - for her, it's a nightly occurrence...The Kaisers know all about her. "We've just finished a UK tour," says Nick Hodgson, Mika's favourite member of the band, "and she was there in the front row of every date. She managed to go around all of the staff on the tour, all of our friends and family, and got them to sign a huge card which she gave me on my birthday. It's dedication, I'll give her that, but I do wonder how she funds it all"...more...
