In 1985 English pop group Wham! took to the stage in front of a crowd of 12,000 people at the Worker’s Gymnasium in Beijing. The band became the first western act to perform in the People’s Republic of China.
George Michael and Andrew Ridgely were riding high in the mid-1980s. Their second album Make It Big had topped the charts and they had a string of hits including Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Careless Whisper, Freedom, Everything She Wants and the festive Last Christmas.
The band’s management came up with the plan to make the dup the first act to play in China. To secure the spot their managers came up with a devious plan to swart another popular band from gaining the honour.
Simon Napier-Bell gave Chinese officials two brochures, one that presented Wham as a clean-cut wholesome act, and another that showed Queen leader singer Freddie Mercury in flamboyant poses. The Chinese picked Wham!
The band didn’t make any money from the shows in China, but they got global press with shots of George Michael and Andrew Ridgely visiting the Great Wall of China and playing shows in Beijing and Guangzhou.
People in China didn’t know who George Michael and Andrew Ridgely were, but the rest of the planet knew that Wham! were in China.
They also took with them a huge documentary camera crew to document the trip. Director Lindsay Anderson brough a 35-member crew for the project.
When director Anderson delivered his finished film titled If You Were There, taking its name from one of the band’s album tracks, it was rejected by the band and their management. Anderson had created an insightful documentary about consumerism arriving in the communist nation, but it didn’t have enough of the band as its focus.
His version was not released, he was fired at the footage was re-edited to create the documentary film Wham! in China: Foreign Skies. That version of the film got its premiere the following year at Wembley Stadium ahead of the band playing their final ever show.
It became a huge seller on VHS, and clips from the documentary were used to create a video for the song Freedom which had already been out in most territories for quite a while.
It wasn’t what the band’s manager had hoped for. In his autobiography I’m Coming to Take You to Lunch, Napier-Bell shared that he’d originally hoped to create a film that would get a cinema release. Just five years later Madonna would make history with her tour documentary Truth or Dare: In Bed with Madonna.
In an interview with British music program The Tube the following year reflected on the experience of playing in China recalling that there was announcement that dancing and clapping would not be allowed during the show.
Michael also shared that because it was close to impossible to take money out of China at the time, they were offered payment in bicycles.
“It wasn’t a financial venture.” Michael said, sharing that the appeal had been to introduce Western music into Chinese society and culture.
In his memoir Wham! George and Me, Andrew Ridgely recalls that when the duo was first presented with the idea of playing in China, they thought it was “crackers”
The original version of the tour documentary of the tour is held by the University of Stirling. George Michael’s estate have blocked any public screenings of the film, but it can be viewed privately for research purposes.
Prior to the two shows from Wham! only French electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre had played a 1981 show in China. It would be another ten years before a second Western pop act played in China, it was Roxette who were next to visit the country, playing the same venue a decade later.
