Even if George Michael is an underachiever by other ‘80s superstars’
workaholic standards, there’s a difference between slacking off and
picking your battles. Releasing his Twenty-Five greatest hits album and
launching an accompanying world tour gave us the opportunity to see all
the things he had done right in his career. Thursday night’s Air Canada
Centre concert was packed with hits that have aged far better than
pundits predicted, and Michael kept the crowd in his thrall the entire
time. Tabloid headlines to the contrary, he knows what he’s doing.
It
wasn’t a huge surprise when, in a series of minor run-ins with the law
in 2006, Michael was outed as a pothead. It explains a lot — his long
stretches of inactivity between projects, his ever-present sunglasses
and the slight jowliness submerging that iconic face’s formerly
Adonis-like sharp features (the munchies, like middle age, are without
mercy). Age and lifestyle may have taken both his washboard stomach and
the uppermost ends of his vocal range — on hits like Wham!’s
“Everything She Wants,” Michael let the crowd sing the really high bits
— but his voice still has that boyish, velvety grain, and he’s retained
his impeccable control over his phrasing and a hint of bite when he
wants to use it. Opening with an offstage “Waiting” while the three
elaborate videoscreens, one of which sloped down onto the stage and on
which Michael spent most of the show walking, he entered through hidden
doors in the screen to “Fastlove,” hanging off the notes like a man in
love with the sound of his own voice — but then, so were we.
Whether
you think he’s an underrated practitioner of blue-eyed soul or a boy
band puppet, you can’t argue with the sheer visceral pleasure of
listening to him soar his way up into the chorus of “Father Figure” or
navigating the mood swings in “Kissing A Fool.” He doesn’t go in for
mountains of melisma or worse, soul-boy shouting, inviting you instead
to soak up his voice’s sheer smoothness, sustained like the gleam that
runs the length of a Cadillac. His pipes were in better shape than the
rest of his body, but his wry self-deprecation was better than either,
insisting “I know I have’t made it easy to be a George Michael fan”
before launching into a gospel-ized reworking of “One More Try” that
was an improvement on the dated sound of the original.
(In
fact, his band were a true joy to listen to, not least because they
perfectly balanced reinventing the songs while maintaining the sonic
elements — drum sounds, synthesizer patches — that keep these songs
rooted in their era. Not once did the songs fall prey to Las
Vegas-tiki-lounge syndrome, with even Wham!’s “I’m Your Man” sounding
almost contemporary.)
Through two sets and two encores, Michael
drove home why he has so many devoted fans, even if it’s been 17 years
since his last North American tour. He’s about ten times more genial and
likable than Prince or Madonna, and a much better singer than either.
For all of his protestations against the industry following his promo
juggernaut for Faith, he’s not really a maverick, delivering a string
of disco- and house-inflected singles (“Amazing,” “Too Funky,”
“Outside”) while eschewing complicated choreography in favour of
working the crowd by shaking his ass. But he did deliver mild shocks as
the show went on, with a saucy video starring a barely-covered Dita Von
Teese for “Feeling Good” and another with girls from Amsterdam’s red
light district for a jazzy cover of “Roxanne,” which, sadly, the crowd
of straight-laced ladies didn’t seem to much appreciate.
But a
two-hour-plus George Michael show that covers a swath of his career,
climaxes with two encores and includes “Careless Whisper” (cleverly
done as a duet with the audience) and ending on “Freedom” (whose
rainbow-coloured visuals rammed home both the song’s economic and
pride-ful implications) is the pop-fluff equivalent of the Leafs
beating the Habs in a Game 7 overtime, and the crowd rang the hockey
hall’s walls with screams that were roughly on par with how that would
sound. When Michael retreats to his den with the big screen TV and the
bong for another 17 years, he won’t have to worry about his legacy.
It’s assured.