In April of 1985, the band british pop became the first western group to play in that communist country
In 1985, after decades of secrecy and a Cultural Revolution, China was opening up to the world and to the popular expressions of the west, in particular. It was the desire of groups like the Rolling Stones and Queen to be the first to cross this symbolic “Curtain of Silk”. Bring to a people rigidly controlled light, sound, and rhythm rampant of a rock concert.
But ahead of them Wham!, the duo of George Michael -who died yesterday, at age 53 – and Andrew Ridgeley, who were eager to prove that they were the pop group world’s most spectacular at that time and saw China as their big opportunity. After a process of 18 months and a spirited negotiation, the government in Beijing gave the green light to the historic concert by Wham!
Those who attended that April of 1985 seem to have been impacted by the same details:the spectacular lights, the overwhelming wave of sound when the music started, and the garments of the duet. The BBC correspondent in Beijing, Celia Hatton, interviewed several of them in 2015, to mark the 30th anniversary of the event.
The idea of a tour of several days in China was promoted by the representative of Wham!, Simon Napier-Bell, who was launched to convince the officials of the regime, during a lunch, that the concert would be good for the country. His argument revolved around the positive image that China would project to the outside world if allowed to George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley appear in concert.
The presence of Wham! it would be proof, he argued Napier-Bell, of the desire of the Communist Party of welcome to foreigners and the much needed investment. Not had to convince them more. Two weeks later, the chinese government gave the permission for Wham! make a tour with concerts in Beijing and in the southern city of Guangzhou, in April of 1985.
they Were the first musical artists of the West in tapping into China, in anticipation of others like the Rolling Stones and Queen, and had an impact that still lingers. “One day, I saw the announcement of the concert in a banner attached to a wall,” recalls Li Shizhong, Beijing, who was barely a teenager at the time. “The members of the set had long hair and curly. They dressed different. I thought that his music would be new and different because they looked so different to anything I had ever seen before.”
The chinese had not seen something like this, with the lights, the costumes, the movement and the volume of the concert by Wham! Unfortunately, he could not go to see them because he did not dare to ask their parents the five yuan, only about eighty cents on the dollar, which cost the input. “My parents would have never supported something like that. We didn’t have a night life. You was a 15 year old boy and I had to be home at 20.30″.
But Li explains that it was a rigid atmosphere, society of the time which was the great obstacle. “Then, if performing guitar on the street, I was considered a hooligan”.
“I only wore the colors blue, green and gray of the Cultural Revolution. If someone wore something else, the whole world would have noticed. Today we believe that it is the fashion but, in that era, meant trouble.”
Many of the entries were distributed between officials of the chinese government. “I saw because the father of a classmate worked at the Ministry of Culture and gave me a free entry,” recalls Lin Wenjun, Guangzhou. “Many do not know but I listened to his music on the radio of Hong Kong, which was not locked then.”
Notes that it seemed that a large part of the audience had received free tickets because they were old and did not seem to lovers of this music. “Before that day, the only thing I had seen was a ballet. So the concert was a powerful experience for all of the lights and the stereo sound,” he said. “I wanted to sing the lyrics with them but I did not dare because no one else was doing.”
Even those who were involved in the staging of the concert were surprised by the novelty. The now-famous television presenter, Kan Lijun, served as master of ceremony in the concert of Beijing, 30 years ago. Presented to George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley at the baffled audience. He then noted the concert backstage.
“No one had seen anything like it,” he said. “The singers moved around a lot and the volume was very high. We were used to, that people stay quiet when he sang”. But the young people were amazed, and zapateaban to the rhythm of the music. “Of course that’s not liked to the police, who feared that it would have unrest.”
Prior to the presentations of Wham!, many types of music were prohibited. Khan recalls that when they wanted to listen to music with that kind of letters, they did so in secret. “If you were amazed to do so, you could take to the police station and lock you there all night. It was a time of many taboos”. It is surprising, then, Wham! he was allowed to sing their songs with lyrics suggestive in front of thousands.
however, one of the successes of the duo, “Wake Me Up Before you Go-Go”, had a chinese version with additional letters which added a tone a communist. That version was presented by the singer Cheng Fangyuan, who acted as the opening act of Wham! A cassette with the songs of Wham! on the one hand and the interpretations of Ching Fangyuan in chinese, on the other, was distributed to each of the attendees to the concert. The cassette distributed to attendees had both the songs of Wham! as the versions of Cheng Fangyuan.
Lin Wenjun received one of the cassettes in the concert of Guangzhou, but sold it to a classmate in 20 yuan, a small fortune, then. For others, this cassette continues to be a treasure. “Some of my colleagues who were at the concert it was given to me,” recalled Li Shizhong, who was unable to attend when the group was presented in Beijing. “I still have it,” he said.
“I’m very grateful that they came to China. That concert was very significant for us.”
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