George Michael Live

On Friday, June 27, we saw George Michael at the Honda Center in Anaheim.  This was the Orange County stop of his 25 Live tour, his first tour of North America in 18 years.  He had also played in Las Vegas and at The Forum in Inglewood earlier in the month.  We had been to Honda Center for a concert once before two years ago to see Queen+Paul Rodgers when the venue was still called Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.  We remembered having some trouble getting there.  But this time we followed the venue directions and had little trouble.  We exited the I-5 south at Ball Road.  The exit actually exits onto South Disneyland Drive.  This street intersects Ball Road where we made a left.  Just past State College Boulevard we had dinner at Taqueria Las Mulitas (see earlier review).  After dinner we continued east on Ball Road until we got to S. Sunkist Street just before the 57 freeway.  We turned right on S. Sunkist Street, drove less than one mile and then turned right on E. Cerritos Ave.  This avenue veers from east to south and changes into S. Douglas Road that goes right alongside the Honda Center.  We turned left into Gate 3 and had to pay $15 for parking.

The venue looks about the same inside and out as it did when it was Arrowhead Pond.  The signs are different and there’s a Honda car displayed on one corner.  Though it was crowded we got in fairly quickly at about 7 pm.  Most of the crowd looked to be about 5-10 years older than us.  The only ones younger were the kids of the ones 5-10 years older, and a group of who appeared to be college girls.  The crowd were mostly Caucasian women though there were men that came as part of male-female couples and there were also some Asians, Indians, and African Americans.  Inside the concourse were places selling the overpriced fast food and others selling George Michael merch.

We didn’t spend much time on the concourse and went to our seats in section 406 that’s on the upper level back and to the left of the stage.  We felt the seats were pretty good.  We were closer to the front than the back of the upper level.  We could see the entire stage that was all black.  In the middle was what looked like a large rectangular covering that draped down from the ceiling and forward across the stage.  I thought the covering would retract when the concert began because I didn’t see any instruments or sound equipment anywhere on stage.  To either side of the covering were curtains and to the side of them were large screens.  Below these screens on stage were gradual ramps that circled around to the front.  After we arrived they put out a small table on stage to the right of the covering.  On it were a few colorful things that I could not identify even with binoculars.  Over the speakers played classical music and soundtracks, strange canned music for a pop concert.  We identified the soundtrack to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and instrumental version of “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling”, and Ode to Joy sung in electronic voices.

We waited and seats slowly filled up around and below us.  The only seats that didn’t seem to be filling were the ones on the lower level in the center back section.  We waited past the 8 pm start time listed on the tickets.  The canned music started playing loudly and triumphantly and when the place was almost full at 8:46 pm, the lights went out and the audience cheered.  The whole venue filled up quickly after that, even that center back section.   Images of blue and red stars appear on the side screens and the covering that turned out to also be a screen.  The canned music ended and we heard an acoustic guitars playing.  It was a slow acoustic song.  We heard singing that sounded like George Michael with the main line being “Here I am.”  The middle screen turned a shiny red color, part of it opened to the side, and out came George Michael.  He was dressed in a shiny black suit and wore tinted but not entirely black sunglasses.  The curtains on either side of the middle screen had opened to reveal the large sections of the band on the stage and elevated platforms above it. 

George Michael’s touring band consisted of a saxophone player on the top left platform, a drummer and a guitarist on the middle left platform, and a keyboard player on the stage level below the left platforms.  Two guitarists stood on the top right platform, a percussionist with a full set of congas on the middle right platform, and another keyboard player on the stage below.  He also had six backup singers consisting of four women and two men, all African-American.  They usually stood on the ramps to the sides or on the middle screen with George Michael when they sang.  Sometimes one or more of the musicians would join them on the main screen, especially the percussionists with the congas.

Things got faster with the next number, a very danceable song called “Fastlove” with the catchy line “gotta get up to get down.”  The screens showed images of shimmering diamonds, disco balls, and beating red disco hearts.  They continued the dance theme with the early Wham! tune “Baby I’m your Man”.  The screens showed early black and white footage of George Michael and Andrew Ridgely performing at a concert as Wham!  Much of the crowd (the real crowd along with the crowd in the footage) was standing up and dancing.  George Michael sang an extended ending to the song repeating the line “If you’re gonna do it, do it right.”

They slowed down for the next song, the spiritual-sounding “Father Figure” from the famous Faith album.  On the middle screen the red outline of a female form swayed to the music.  Inside the form were what appeared to the red leaves and butterflies.  As the song ended, the outline of the female form disappeared and the red butterflies scattered across the screens.  They brought out a chair and George Michael sat down for the next song, a cover of Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw your Face.”  The screens showed white, blue, and pink curved lines moving up and down.  A small portion of the middle screen’s pixels went out but they had it fixed by the end of the song.

George Michael then addressed the crowd saying, “Anaheim, how are you doing?”  He thanked us all for coming and then said, “People at the top, I can see you all.  You look like you’re risking your lives up there.”  He thanked everyone for the last 25 years and said that with this show he would make us forgive him for being out of sight (i.e. not touring North America) for the past 17-18 years.

He mentioned how he didn’t perform then next song during last year’s European tour.  They then performed a song with which I wasn’t very familiar.  It had a fast dance beat and the main chorus seemed to be the line “don’t bring me down.”  The screens seemed to move through smooth and bumpy contour grids.  For the next song he asked us to help him out because “I’m an old man.”  The music then went to the opening bars of “Everything She Wants” and the crowd went wild.  Nearly everyone stood up and moved to the music.  He began a little slower than the song normally goes but the music quickly went to the familiar tempo.  While singing he would often turn the mike towards the crowd to sing parts of the song.  The screens showed images of many diamonds that formed outlines of spheres and the dollar sign when he sang “to give you money.”

After that popular song ended, the audience sat down and the backup singers stood in two lines facing each other in front of George Michael.  With them he sang, “One More Try”.  They sung the beginning more soulfully than the original recording.  Blue symmetric shapes moved up the screens.  George Michael sat down again for the next song, the slower mid-eighties Wham! tune “A Different Corner”.  The screens showed the sky with birds flying across it and leaves falling down it.  The blue sky turned to rain that soon became a colorful rainbow.  The screens then showed the night sky, stars and a red nebula in space and a large moon.

George Michael stated that the next song was for those who wanted to live their lives and “not give a f***.”  That less familiar song was “An Easier Affair” and it had a strong dance beat.  He followed that with “Too Funky” that also had a dance beat along with some appropriate funky guitar sound.  The screens switched between showing red, green, yellow, and blue equalizer bars and strutting models including Linda Evangelista, Nadia (we didn’t know her last name), and Tyra Banks.  The song also had a strong percussive beat and ended with the repeated line “Everybody wants to love.”  They continued the less familiar danceable songs with “Star People” from the album Older.  The screens showed colorful shooting stars that seemed to form their own galaxy.  The side screens had projected the image of George Michael on stage for most of the songs and this time they showed him among the stars.  The song ended with a repeated line that sounded like, “Why you want to tell me that.”

After that song ended at about 9:55 pm, George Michael, the backup singers, and the band left the stage.  A time with the words “Back in” counted down from 20 minutes for the intermission.  It was like the break between periods in a sports game.  Many in the audience got up to take a break.  When there was about five minutes left in the intermission a recording of George Michael’s “John and Elvis are Dead” played over the speakers and the screens displayed pictures of John Lennon and Elvis Presley.

As the intermission timer reached zero, the lights went out and the strong organ part at the beginning of the song “Faith” played.  The spotlights shined on George Michael, now wearing a grey jacket, and two of the guitarists on stage.  As he sang he snapped his fingers.  The screens showed arms with hands snapping fingers.  The crowd was on their feet, dancing, and singing along.

The next song began with a saxophone playing.  What looked like newsreel clips rolled up the middle screen.  The song was “Spinning the Wheel” and its lyrics sounded political.  The clips showed what looked like Grace Kelly’s wedding and footage of the late president, JFK.  The beat of the song got faster as he sang the repeated line that sounded like “one of these days, bring hope to me.”

They finished the song and George Michael complimented us saying, “You’re a f***ing wicked crowd.”  He then thanked some people by name for coming including Victoria, Mel B., Brooklyn, and Romeo.  He went on to describe how he sang the next song for the series finale of the TV show “Eli Stone”.  It was called “Feeling Good”.  He sang the song a capella for the first minute and then the band joined in.  It was a smooth nightclub-lounge type of song.  The screens showed images of hardly-covered showgirls moving and posing provocatively.

Between that song and the next George Michael said he would “Chat a bit while the musicians gather around me.  What you’re going to see is film I shot eight years ago in the Red Light district of Amsterdam.”  More spotlights came on revealing a bass player (playing what looked like an electric standing bass), guitarist, keyboard player, and saxophone player all standing or sitting around and behind him.  He then sang a smooth cover of “Roxanne” originally by The Police.  On the screens the footage seemed to have been shot with a dark red lens.  It showed the ladies putting on makeup and posing in their rooms from the doorways and windows.

The musicians stayed with him for the next song that was in the same tone: “Kissing a Fool”.  The musicians then returned to their places on and under the platforms.  George Michael mentioned how great it was that “in California we can get married.”  He stated that the next song was “for Kenny.”  The song, “Amazing” was a loud, larger-than-life song with a strong dance beat.  The colored lights on the screens danced quickly to the music and the venue itself seemed to shake to the rhythm.  The next song, “Flawless (Go to the City)” was also loud and fast with a strong beat.  The screens moved through colored outlines of right prisms that looked like buildings along a city street.  At the end of the song the spotlights turned off we heard what sounded like a loud helicopter.  On the screens the large image of a helicopter came to a landing and then took off.  The spotlights turned on to show George Michael in a dark blue police uniform with short sleeves.  He and his backup singers performed the loud and kinetic song “Outside”.  The screens showed the point of view of a helicopter flying above the high rises of a modern city.  A couple of buildings looked like the Capital Records building in Hollywood.  The song stopped abruptly.  George Michael said, “Thank you” and he and the others left the stage.  The lights went out.  It was 11 pm.

No one left the venue but rather they stayed, cheered, stomped, and waved their lit cell phone screens.  After ten minutes a spotlight came on, they set out a chair, and George Michael returned.  He sat down and sang “Praying for Time”, a slow song with heavy lyrics.  The screen showed the sun and sky in the background and ripples of clear water on the stage.  After finishing the song, he said, “You’re going to like the next one.”  The sound of the saxophone playing the first bars of “Careless Whisper” brought everyone to their feet.  We could hear everyone singing along.  The screens stayed black.  There was no need to show anything but the spotlight on George Michael.  The crowd cheered loudly as the song drew to a close and again he left the stage.

This time some people left but most stayed and cheered.  George Michael returned and asked us to make the loudest noise of the night for his band.  He thanked us again for coming and said, “I know many of you are going through tough times.”  He pointed to the screen and said, “This blasted thing cost me all the money from the tour.  I’m not doing this for money.  I’m doing this for you.”  He said there was time for just one more song and asked us what we wanted to hear.  We couldn’t make out anything in all the shouting.  We shouted, “Wake me up before you go go.”  Instead, George Michael sang the rousing anthem, “Freedom ‘89” that suited the mood.  The crowd gave him a standing ovation at the end and the credits rolling up the middle screen signaled that there would be no more encores.

We followed the crowds of people to the parking lot and then the lines of cars north to Ball Road.  From there we took the 57 North and the 210 West back to Azusa.  George Michael put on quite a show.  He didn’t sing some of his more familiar songs such as “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”, “Monkey”, and “Freedom”.  But he put all his energy into every song he did perform.