George Michael played the final show of his three year ’25 Live’ tour last night at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia in front of thousands of adoring fans.
The stage, fitting to his public image, was larger than life. Enormous screens lit up the open-air stadium with colourful animations, vintage George, supermodels and generally glamorous imagery, flanked on each side by two storey scaffolding over which the rather large band was scattered.
The show had a strong opening, with the acoustic ballad ‘Waiting (Reprise)’ being sung from the side of stage. Michael entered with the line “here I am” to rapturous applause before launching into the 1996 megamix of ‘Fastlove’ and Wham!’s ‘I’m Your Man’. “I’m not a cruel man,” Michael claims before playing the Wham! original. “I know this is what you want to hear.”
The gig bounced between pumping club hits to ballads that saw the crowd remarkably attentive, but like Michael’s recorded career, he is in his prime when he is playing pop anthems.
It’s striking to hear pop classics such as ‘Faith’ or Wham!’s ‘Everything She Wants’ (the latter being a definite highlight) in the same concert as Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’ or The Police’s ‘Roxanne’ (which were undoubtedly the lowlights of the concert). The diversity sometimes meant ballads would come in the middle of an audience high, but as a whole it was well balanced.
The second set was much more club focused, with 2004’s ‘Amazing’, ‘Flawless (Go To The City)’ and 2008’s ‘Outside’ temporarily turning Etihad Stadium into a gigantic nightclub.
The two sets ended with thumping bang, leaving room for two encores of one song each. The epitome of 1980s saxophone, ‘Careless Whisper’, followed by the epic 1990 hit ‘Freedom 90’ sent thousands of adoring fans leaving the stadium with one of the two songs stuck in their head.
Sure, the band didn’t seem to be doing much (particularly during the club set), and Michael referred to us Melbournians as “Sydney” not once, not twice but THREE TIMES (he later joked that “Sydney is my monitor engineer, I was saying ‘turn it up, Sydney, I can’t hear!’”) and sometimes there might have been one ballad too many for my attention-span-challenged generation but Michael’s larger than life stage and constant flurry of hits made the final night of the three year tour a night to remember.
Set list:
Waiting (Reprise) (from ‘Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1’, 1990)
Fastlove/I’m Your Man (from ‘Fastlove’ single, 1996/‘Music From The Edge Of Heaven (Wham! album), 1986)
Father Figure (From ‘Faith’, 1987)
You Have Been Loved (from ‘Older’, 1996)
Everything She Wants (from ‘Make It Big’ (Wham! album), 1984)
Easier Affair (from ‘Twenty Five’, 2006)
One More Try (from ‘Faith’, 1987)
Different Corner (from ‘Music From The Edge Of Heaven’ (Wham! album), 1986)
Too Funky (from ‘Red Hot And Dance’ (compilation), 1992)
Star People (from ‘Older’, 1996)
Interval (‘John and Elvis Are Dead’ video) (from ‘Patience’, 2004)
Faith (from ‘Faith’, 1987)
Spinning The Wheel (from ‘Older’, 1996)
Feeling Good (Previously Unreleased)
Roxanne (from ‘Songs From The Last Century’, 1999)
My Mother Had A Brother (from ’25’, 2008)
Amazing (from ‘Patience’, 2004)
Flawless (from ‘Patience’, 2004)
Outside (from ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, The Very Best of George Michael’, 2008)
Careless Whisper (from ‘Make It Big’ (Wham! album), 1984)
Freedom 90 (from ‘Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1’, 1990)
Freedom Reprise (from ‘Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1’, 1990)
