So we went and saw George Michael at Madison Square Garden last night. MSG is huge, holds about 35,000 people. At $250 a pop (maybe the gods were cheaper) but still, that's quite a haul.
We were so excited and the audience even more so. It was such a warm happy audience, cheering, knowing the songs, just happy to be there.
But it didn't go well....
Firstly, the ticket warned us that there was no warm up band, the show starts promptly at 8. Prompt was their word. And this being an audience of responsible adults (looking around I didn't see anyone under 30) the vast majority of us were there at 8, or at least by 10 past. But GM himself didn't show till 8.40. So what was that about? I mean I know that Kanye West showed up 2 hours late (4am rather than 2am?) at Bonnaroo, and his fans booed him, but we weren't the same crowd at all. If you're going to start late, have someone start the show for you and open at 9 promptly, like Annie Lennox did.
Anyways, this amazing screen backdrop - some new concoction of LCD television, that was maybe 60 feet high and 25 feet wide. Maybe more, but huge in any case. This backscreen lights up and music starts to play. Then a sliding door opens in the screen and GM walks out, great visual moment and the crowd goes crazy, I mean really ear ringing crazy. The first number is great.
But the screen is so huge, that it totally dominates the tiny man standing before it. And the screen doesn't show images of him, but rather abstract fractal art. So pretty quickly you lose him, somehow, in the shadows. Because the other problem was that the lighting was appalling. I'm quick to confess that I'm not lighting expert (though DH is) but George Michael's face was in shadow half the time and if he left the front of the stage and walked into the T shaped cat walk, there was no light on him at all.
And then, he would sing a hit, and everyone would be up and dancing, and he wouldn't build on it. He kept going for the slower numbers. And he got a stool and sat through every slower number! Frankly he started looking like he was too out of shape to stand for 2 hours. It was acutally odd. I've never seen a performer of his fame just keep stopping the show to sit down and catch his breath.
The other problem was that the sound was really muddy. I could hear the people singing around me more clearly than I could hear George Michael at times.
DH was so disappointed he suggested leaving at intermission. And why did we have an intermission? I've never been to a rock concert with one before. It just reinforced the idea that GM needed a break, he couldn't do it for 2 hours straight.
But we didn't leave and the second set was better - they found the spot light for the T catwalk and the fractals calmed down, but George himself never really filled the stage. Somehow he jsut appeared to get smaller and smaller...
It was a really disappointing show and frankly, if he puts out a new CD, I'm not sure I would rush to buy it :(
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