Last month, George Michael performed in Los Angeles for the first time in 20 years. A sold-out crowd gave him a hero’s welcome – and a cake. It was his 45th birthday, and a happy one. This year has seen a remarkable turnaround in a career that seemed to have stalled a decade ago.
In January, Michael signed a multimillion-dollar contract with HarperCollins for his autobiography. Soon afterward came the debut of ABC’s “Eli Stone,” a drama featuring Michael as an inspirational guardian-angel figure. Episodes of the show are titled after his songs.
In May, he was given pride of place on the season finale of “American Idol.” The finalists offered competing versions of Michael’s hits, and the singer himself delivered his first prime-time performance in years.
He is currently nearing the end of a two-year tour, “25 Live,” based on “TwentyFive,” his 2006 greatest-hits album. The tour has attracted rave reviews and included Michael’s first live US dates since 1991. It reaches Madison Square Garden tomorrow and Wednesday.
It’s a comeback that few could have predicted. Throughout the ’80s, Michael had the world at his feet. First came Wham!, the pop duo he formed in 1981 in the suburbs of West London with school friend Andrew Ridgeley. Songs like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “Everything She Wants” propelled them to the top of charts around the globe. And following the split of Wham! in 1986, Michael’s solo album “Faith” made him the most successful singer-songwriter in the world.
But the ’90s were, in the singer’s words, “a long line of disasters.” His pin-up image was at odds with his homosexuality, which he was only just acknowledging to himself. He felt isolated and tormented. “I had to walk away from America and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career,” Michael said, “because I knew otherwise my demons would get the better of me.”
So he stopped touring or promoting his work, and entered into a bitter legal wrangle with his label, Sony. In 1993, he lost his partner, Anselmo Feleppa, to AIDS. He endured agonizing back surgery, Prozac and cannabis dependency, and the death of his mother. In 1996, Michael met his current partner, Texan Kenny Goss, but in April 1998, he was arrested for soliciting sex from a police officer in a Beverly Hills public restroom1. It wasn’t the way anyone, especially an international superstar, would want to leave the closet.
Michael lampooned the incident in his next single and video, “Outside,” alienating many American fans – a feat he repeated with 2002’s “Shoot the Dog,” which satirized George Bush and Tony Blair’s response to 9/11. His last album of new material, “Patience,” came out in 2004, but a series of drug-related incidents hinted at another downward spiral.
The new tour has showcased a re-energized Michael, however. He lost weight to handle the demands of the show, a two-and-a-half-hour spectacular boasting a 15-piece band and multiple video screens – including a floor-to-ceiling screen showing everything from the singer’s music videos to a giant sunset.
The focus, though, is on Michael, who often stands atop the large screen, pumping out his funk and dance anthems, plus a Wham! hit or two. He also plays his new single, the standard “Feeling Good,” with a video featuring burlesque star Dita Von Teese.
Michael says “25 Live” will be his last major tour, but the positive response he has received might change his mind. As he sings in “Feeling Good,” “It’s a new day, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new life for me.”