Ralphy's Concert Reviews

George Michael - in Concert

at the Kölnarena in Cologne (Germany) 13-11-2006

I have been a fan of George Michael since the early days of Wham! Their first 2 albums "Fantastic" and "Make it big" are amongst the first vinyls that I bought at a time, when my musical taste was still evolving. I guess you could say that Wham! is the closest I ever got to being a boyband-fan, although you didn't call them boybands at that time and I still feel that the music that Wham! made and created is better than anything that any boyband ever made thereafter and I do still enjoy their happy-go-lucky songs at occasion. Because of this I also kept following George Michael after Wham! split up and he embarked on a solo career (well he was the musical brain behind Wham! anyway, in fact I always found it pretty astounding that George's partner in Wham!, Andrew Ridgeley, almost played no part in the songwriting of most Wham!-songs, but he was co-writer of the first single that George Michael ever released as a solo artist, "Careless whisper"), and I liked a lot of the stuff that he put out there, especially in the early years on albums like "Faith" and "Listen without prejudice, volume I". Later on I also purchased an album that included his MTV-unplugged performance (that is nowhere to be found in any official discography), if only for his extraordinary rendition of the Bonnie Raitt-classic "I can't make you love me" and even more later I won among other things George's greatest hits double album "Ladies and gentlemen: The best of George Michael" at a radio-contest, but I have to admit that at that time George's music already wasn't on my first priority-list anymore as my taste had even further developed away from pop into the direction of rock. Nonetheless I was still interested in any new singles that George released, but the initial puppy love for his music had gone and besides that George had taken huge hiatuses between albums in the last several years and he has even stated that he won't release any more new albums (except for another greatest hits apparently), so my interest was somehow gone. I read and heard more about George's escapades in tabloids or on TV, than I heard about or listened to his music. Not that I disapprove of this in any manor, I'm very liberal that way, whatever gets you going as long as you don't hurt anyone else in the process, is o.k. with me. Although I have to admit that I couldn't suppress a smile at the time, when George made his homosexuality public, but that was because a girlfriend of a friend of mine way back when "Careless whisper" was a hit, was totally into George and put him down as the perfect specimen of manliness and my thoughts went to her finding out about George's sexual preference. On the other hand I have to admit after seeing George on stage yesterday, that if I had any homosexual feelings at all (which ofcourse I have to deny vehemently at this time) George would be a beauty icon for me too. But to make a long story short (or is it too late already) I had lost interest in George Michael the musician. Still when I heard that he was going to tour again on occasion of his 25-year-anniversary as an artist, I couldn't help but reminisce. Maybe I have to explain that I also have become a regular concert visitor, but only in the last 10 to 12 years, so I never saw George or Wham! live when I was really into their stuff. So when I heard that on this new tour George would be playing songs from throughout his career including the Wham!-days I was very interested and I asked around if anyone I knew wanted to go with me to a concert. It was a long shot, since George's music isn't the most popular one with most people I hang out these days, so in the end noone wanted to go with me. After some deliberation I decided to go anyway and bought a single ticket and I can only conclude after seeing the concert yesterday that it was the right decision.

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As you can gather I like to give some personal background information as to my relation with the musician(s) and their work before I give the actual review. The venue for yesterday's gig, the Kölnarena in Cologne, is about a one-hour-drive from my hometown. The concert was scheduled to begin at 20.00 hours and I left home after dinner at around 17.50 hours. There was a minor traffic jam at the beginning, but all in all I got there very smoothly and without much trouble. I already knew how to get and also where to park and stuff, because I had visited events in the Kölnarena twice before, once for a concert of the German punkband Die Toten Hosen (read the review) and last year I visited an American pro-wrestling event there. From the earlier concert I knew that the best place to see a concert in this place was a standing room ticket, so I had bought that. After I had parked my car and the obligatory toiletbreak I entered the venue at 19.15 hours. The music that was playing at this time and until the concert started was some sort of classical music. I thought I recognized some of Gabriel Yared's work from the soundtrack of "City of angels" (read the review). On the side opposed to the entrance I could get pretty near the stage at the side of that. I bought a coke to get through the waiting period and at about 20.25 hours the lights went out and George started singing. As I've read before in reviews George remained off-stage for the remainder of that first song until the doors of the videowall opened on the last lyrics "Here I am". Speaking of the videowall, this centerstage videowall also is used as the floorboard on which George does most of his performance and there are 2 smaller videowalls on the sides of the stage. The band which supports George are standing divided over a 3-story-heigh pedestal on both sides of the center videowall with guitarists and horns on the upper level, drums and percussion on the second level and the backgroundsingers on the first level. The first song that got the audience really going was the third, "Fast love". I don't think the venue was completely sold out, but I think there were something like 20,000 attendees and it was a very diverse audience agewise. After "Fast love" followed "Father figure", which kept the crowd on its feet and after that came my first highlight of the evening, the old Wham!-classic "Everything she wants", which in my homecountry was the b-side for Wham!'s biggest hit, the annually returning "Last Christmas". "It's 1985 again", George Michael stated, somewhere during "Everything she wants" and the whole audience got that vibe, very intense. Next up was ballad time, during the concert George repeatedly switched from party mode to ballad time, but his fans didn't seem to matter. In fact they listened intensely during the ballads and partied along on the faster songs, they reacted just like you would want them to as a performer, a definite affirmation of the fact that George still knows his stuff and especially how to please a crowd.

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One of the ballads "You have been loved" (which was a huge hit in the United Kingdom at the time of princess's Diana's demise) was dedicated to Anselmo. Anselmo Feleppa, a Brazilian designer was George's boyfriend during a time when he was still in the closet, Anselmo died in 1993 of a brain haemorrhage as a consequence of Aids. As the setlist moved on, one of the surprises was a rendition of a song called "My mother had a brother". You see George has a regular set of songs he seems to play every night on this tour, but there are a few songs he plays interchangeably. This time instead of "An easier affair" he played "My mother had a brother". As I already stated I'm not that familiar with his later work, so I didn't know this one, but I have to say I liked it very much. The last song before the interval was the controversial "Shoot the dog" with cartoon animations of George, George W. Bush and Tony Blair on the videowall. In this song George mocks Tony Blair for being the loyal puppy of the American president. In the end a giant balloon unfolds on the stage, it is Bush, who seems to be getting a blowjob (no penises to be seen!) by a British bulldog. As mentioned next up was the regular 20 minute interval that is always part of the concerts on this tour. I used the time to visit the toilet once again and to buy a beer and I was back in time for the last 5 minutes of the interval in which they showed the video of "John and Elvis are dead" on the videowall. In the last few seconds of the interval, (there is a digital counter counting down on the screens), the audience counted down aloud and at 21.50 hours the concert continued with "Faith", which got the good vibe back immediately. Speaking of "Faith", during this concert I noticed (maybe due to my growing non-belief) that George Michael uses a lot of religious references in his music. There is "Faith", "Praying for time", "Jesus to a child" and also in other songs like "John and Elvis are dead" and "You have been loved" Jesus and God are mentioned. I read somewhere that George is very much against the homophobia that the fundamentalists of the major religions show to the world. He himself is from Greek descent, real name Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, usually very religious people. I know once religion is private, but if you make so much public of it through the lyrics of your songs, I wonder were George really stands on the issue of God, religion and religious homophobia. Back to the concert, I mentioned the song "Jesus to a child", this was one of the next songs, and probably the best ballad of the evening, a truly amazing performance of this song. Than George stated "that we were in the final stages of the show and now we are going to keep on going" and with that he started a threesome of up-tempo songs, "Amazing" (maybe the best song of his later work), another Wham!-classic "I'm your man" and as the end of the regular set "Outside", the humorous song about his toilet-arrest for "engaging in a lewd act" in L.A. These 3 songs made the audience explode, it was one big party in the Cologne Arena and the following noise requesting George's return for more encores was deafening. Ofcourse he did make 2 return appearances, first to perform the starting song of his solo-career "Careless whisper", which was sung simultaneously by 20,000 voices and the last song of the evening was "Freedom 90", the perfect ending for a great evening.

More pictures from this (and other) concert(s):: www.aowekino.nl

Taking a résumé of the evening I can state that for me it was one big journey back to my teenage years (and early twenties). I felt young and vibrant, especially the old songs were astounding to me. The sentiment of going back through 25 years of time wasn't lost on me. I preferred the up-tempo party songs in the setlist, but the ballads were also very intense and George Michael still has one of the best popvoices in the music business. As I've stated earlier nowadays I am more of a rock-aficionado, but this was a great show to visit and if you can get tickets for any of the remaining concerts, go out and buy them, you will not be disappointed. The best words to describe this show are 2 of George's songtitles "Too funky" and "Amazing". The only criticism that I can give, but that has more to do with my personal taste, is that the ballads for me take a bit too much time in the show, but this is also partly due to the fact that I prefer some of the not-performed ballads like the before mentioned "I can't make you love me", "A different corner" and "Cowboys and angels". I also would have liked to hear 1 or more Wham!-songs more in the setlist, but as I've said that's personal preference. I would rate this concert with a 8.4.

The complete set list (which took about 2 hours excluding the 20 minute interval):

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