After I wrote my last blog on George Michael and his upcoming last tour in
So, with a ticket I got at a discount on Ebay, I went to the arena named after my employer. The crowd was very big. Outside the stadium there were quite a few protesters. Last week the state of
To my surprise, the audience has as many men as women. But they are either accompanying their female partners, or, gay (and contrary to the stereotype, many were bald and overweight). Unlike a Justin Timberlake, or even better, a Miley Cyrus concert, no one seems under the age of 25. I have to smile to myself.
George Michael had been gone for so long. He actually jokes about it. He says, “Imagine this is 1984. The person next to you had 5 times as much hair.” He looks great for a 45 year old. But he is no longer the Greek God he once was. The perfect features are blurrier. The famous superbly shaped tushy is hidden carefully under a jacket. His voice is still great though at times he has to hide behind the backup singers.
But the fans, I at most, can’t care less. We are here to root for him. He had seemingly everything at a very young age. Yet he lacked happiness. He wanted to be taken seriously as an artist but was forever labeled a heartthrob. He was the dream of countless young women but he only longed for men. So he hid away. And he had to appear in a public bathroom to show the world who he really was.
Tonight he seems really happy, and relaxed. He dedicats "Amazing" to his partner of 12 years Kenny Goss. And he congratulats all the people from
I do. Sometimes we just want to move on. We are tired of the endless routines and crave to do something different. As I feel and dance to his music tonight, memories start flooding back. His songs are forever associated with a certain time of my life, like the set of a play frozen in time. They marked the end of a chapter and I hadn’t looked back since. It is surprising how fragile our memories are. I once thought the events of that time, much like his music, were so engraved in my mind that I could always watch back in slow motion. But now I can hardly remember his lyrics. It’s like a box of barbie dolls locked away for years. With his music it gets unwrapped and I can almost peak inside. Then it is sealed again with one more layer. Tonight is another box I will open some day.
It is no coincidence he chooses “Careless Whisper” as his finale. He has the audience sing most of it, and we oblige merrily. These words seem perfect for the occasion:
Tonight the music is so loud
I wish that we could lose this crowd
Maybe it’s better this way
We hurt each other with the things we want to say
We could have been so good together
We could have lived this dance forever
But now who’s gonna dance with me
Please stay
Stay he won’t. He seems determined to once again move on. As I leave the concert and get in my car, the radio station is playing once again “Careless whisper”. So I know, we’ll always have his music, just as I’ll always have my memories. Eeriely, I feel I finally have a closure.
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