Beijing Owes a Special Debt to the Late, Great George Michael
The sudden passing of George Michael in the UK this morning has resonated deeply with fans in China, as the iconic pop star was quite literally the first foreign pop act to perform in China – at Beijing's Workers' Arena.
A tribute tag on Weibo #georgemichaelhasdied has over 8.5 million views and 2,700 comments as of 11am this morning, many referring to the legendary concert on April 7, 1985, when George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley's band Wham! played to a crowd of 15,000 at Gongti.
From the perspective of Beijing's music scene circa 2016 – where we're being treated with a visit from Metallica next month and local punk bands are having 10-year anniversary tours – it's hard to fathom the revolutionary impact of a visit from any foreign band, let alone one that at the time was one of the most popular acts worldwide.
It took 18 months to get the show off the ground, and that it was a bit of a consolation prize for the duo now making it bigger in the US earlier, according to the group's former manager, Simon Napier-Bell. "Jazz (Summers, the group's co-manager) came up with the idea of perhaps we could make you the first ever group to play in China. George [Michael] just liked the idea – he said, 'yes – fix that.'"
As is still somewhat customary at rock performances here in Beijing, the crowd did not go wild. After a breakdancer he had hired was asked to go dance with the audience, the authorities got antsy and announced over the PA system that the audience must remain seated, Napier-Bell told the BBC in 2005. "Everyone had to sit down through the whole show – which was 100 percent my fault. It really killed the atmosphere," he recalled.
Biography has a nice recollection of the event here in which we learn that Napier-Bell engineered the pioneering concert by pitching it to the Deng Xiaoping-era government as a sure-fire signal that China was now open for foreign investment. He also recalls his successful attempt to sabotage the attempts of Freddie Mercury-led Queen to become the first major rock and roll act to play China.
If you'd like to see how far Beijing has come since those heady mid-90s, check out this hour-long documentary of the concert on YouTube here.
You can also read Napier-Bell's amusing account of the 143 meetings with Chinese officials he had to have over 18 months in order to get permission for the event in his book on the topic, I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch (available in Kindle edition here).
The band's 1985 Beijing concert had incredible crossover appeal – even legendary Beijing rocker Cui Jian told Sina.com he learned a lot from attending the gig.
Some additional amusing images can be found on the Tiexue bbs here and more anecdotes from Beijingers that attended the show in Celia Hatton's BBC writeup here.
Since that time, China has gone back-and-forth multiple times on its willingness to let foreign bands to play. Sometimes it seems the floodgates are opening, other times it seems waves of conservatism take over.
Nevertheless, Wham's appearance paved the way for more, and since then we've been relatively spoiled for choice, with everyone from Elton John and Kanye West to Nine Inch Nails and Iron Maiden. Check out our post on 12 iconic gigs penned last year on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Wham's gig.
