Keeping the faith in a pop icon pays off MUSIC

Published on Tuesday 19 June 2007 01:04

GEORGE MICHAEL ****

HAMPDEN PARK, GLASGOW

CONSIDERING he hasn't released any new material since his fourth studio album Patience in 2004, George Michael has managed to keep his name near the top of the headlines lately. Of course, his recent court case for driving while under the influence of drugs - settled just prior to the start of his new tour with a driving ban and a period of community service - must have been one profile-raiser he neither deliberately courted nor welcomed. But it seems strangely fitting, somehow, that an element of controversy should follow him into his 25th year in the music business.

For all that the past decade of his life has been dogged by vehicular offences, prescription drug addiction and, of course, his famous arrest for "engaging in a lewd act" in a Beverly Hills public convenience in 1998, a show on this scale re-established certain other key facts about the man and his career. Namely, that he numbers among the most successful British recording artists of all time, with somewhere in the region of 85 million records sold globally, with twelve UK number one singles and nine British number one albums amongst their number.

Those statistics also include his years as one half of Wham! - as does the number of years in music mentioned in the name of this 25 Live tour - and that's fortunate indeed for the thousands of fans who were in attendance here. Michael is at his best as an unreconstructed singer of out-and-out pop music, and one who marries an unashamedly populist club rhythm to a lyrical element of unsubtle gay innuendo and anti-authoritarian cheek.

Despite the reverence in which he's held by a certain section of the British music media's older firmament, he's neither a pusher of boundaries nor a national tastemaker. What he does do, however, is spot a trend well, and his infrequent album releases are perfectly of their time - musically, lyrically, and in the style with which Michael presents himself.

So just as sculpted stubble and dressing all in black will never go out of fashion, his back catalogue also weathers well, particularly when presented together in a spectacular, stadium-sized format. It was highly appropriate that the first UK date of this celebratory tour was also the one that opened the new Wembley Stadium last weekend. One critic said of that performance: "To be part of this show was to be part of a party that will go down in history," though it was unclear whether this was meant for the stadium or for Michael himself. For the North London boy, it must have been an honour.

The show he puts on is suitably enormous. The main stage area is a sheer surface, a flowing platform which drops down vertically from the ceiling, levels out into the singer's main performing area, and then curves off again, dropping out of sight at the front of the stage. On to the hanging portion of this and the two large screens at the widest points of the stage, are projected the show's pre-recorded visuals, while behind the three tiers of musicians on either side of this combination screen and dancefloor are projected images of the concert's live video feed.

It's an extravagant, futuristic spectacle, perfectly in keeping with the shiny, polished nature of Michael's performance and demeanour. He's a smiling cheerleader of a performer, and one who very early on got into the loosely funky stride of songs like Fast Love and Too Funky, affecting the kind of hip-swinging, medallion-tossing strut around his audience-encircling walkway that only the best divas can manage. "Everybody wants a lover like that," he panted excitedly - maybe they do, but only in Michael's reflective, 24-hour catwalk world do they end up with the array of supermodels sashaying on the floor-screen behind him. After that, he took to a silver stool for one of the night's less exciting passages, Father Figure. Like the later Jesus to a Child and Careless Whisper, these don't represent him at his best, crooning po-facedly and emoting with his hands in the manner every Pop Idol winner is taught from day one.

Far better were the array of copious, vaguely disco hits from across his career; Flawless, Faith, and Outside (performed, as in the video, dressed as a Los Angeles cop - he just won't let that one go). Or the crowd-pleasing renditions of old Wham! Hits, like Everything She Wants, I'm Your Man, and the audience-participatory Edge of Heaven.

The personal touch, as much as there can be one on a two-and-a-half-hour show of this scale, came when he dedicated Amazing to "the man I love [his partner Kenny Goss] - if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here today". The punchline to the vaguely political Shoot the Dog was also amusing to see amid such a populist show, although perhaps a little too unsubtle for many tastes - as Michael walked off for the mid-show break, an inflatable cartoon caricature of George W Bush emerged, with a beflagged British bulldog nuzzling his crotch.

Perhaps not a historic party, then, but certainly a great one, and one which should reassert Michael's claim as a great pop artist once more.