WHAM! The First Western Band in China

WHAM! The First Western Band in China
May 25, 2009 By Fred Dintenfass , eChinacities.com

Last night hairy New York electro-prog-hip-hoppers Ratatat and their array of guitars, synthesizers, drum machines, and miscellaneous percussion turned MAO Livehouse into sweat bath. Despite getting Bjorked, and the occasional blocking of a band like Oasis, western music is everywhere in Beijing. Music festivals feature foreign bands playing all styles of music from all over the world and the clubs are bumping European techno and American R&B hits. Just like the real Prada bags and the cafes lining the Sanlitun streets, western music, and in particular performances by western bands, are a recent are a recent import. Seems strange now, but the first western band to ever play in China, in April 1985, was Wham! the British pop group fronted by George Michael.

It all started with Wham!’s dreams of world domination. In 1983, school friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgely were fighting Duran Duran and Culture Club for the top spots on the charts. A year later, “Freedom” was dominating the UK charts despite lacking a music video – the original video was so bad it had to be trashed and completely reshot. Wham! released their second album, “Make It Big” and were sitting pretty at the top of the pops. However, the young lads in Wham! still had their eyes on another title: biggest group in the world. Although they knew it wouldn’t happen instantly, they felt two years was an adequate amount of time to achieve become the biggest band on the planet.

Wham in beijing china

How to make this happen fell to the group’s manager, Simon Napier-Bell, whose book, “I’m Coming to Take You to Lunch” chronicles his 18 month effort to make Wham! the first western group to ever play China. Of course, number one in the world is easier said than done. “Biggest group in the world means biggest group in America – and you cannot do it in two years,” says Napier-Bell, “it takes four or fiver years to break, even when you’re having it constant number ones.”

The idea to tour China came from Wham’s co-manager Jazzy Summers, who half-jokingly suggested the group become the first to play communist China. George Michael, described rather unflatteringly by the projects first filmmaker Lindsay Anderson as a, “shivering aspirant plucked out of the street, who turns almost overnight into a tyrant of fabulous wealth, whose every command his minions must dash to execute,” immediately took to the idea.

Armed with orders from Michael, Napier-Bell dashed off to China. He took a plane to Beijing and installed himself in a hotel, working the phones, calling every government ministry he could find a number for, desperately trying to find someone who spoke English. Every time he found a receptionist he could communicate with, he left the same message: “Tell them Simon Napier-Bell has called to take them to lunch.” Although this eventually paid off, it wasn’t without mishap. The first person to return his call was a minister of energy who thought Napier-Bell was a coal buyer. Undaunted, Napier-Bell soldiered on, “It was two years of lunches – I fed the whole government [including the confused energy minister], 143 people tree times each,” he recalls.

Wham George Michael great wall

While Wham was back home enjoying their success, if not the flocks of adoring girls that came with it, Napier-Bell eventually lit upon a successful strategy. He convinced government officials that the best way to secure foreign investment was to prove that they were indeed opening up, and what could be more open that a British pop group known for shoving shuttlecocks down their pants for photo shoots?

Actually, it was a little more sophisticated than that. Instead of just pushing Wham!, Napier-Bell offered them a choice between Wham! and Queen. He made a brochure for each band: the Wham! brochure featured wholesome middle class fans; the Queen brochure featured a leather-clad Freddy Mercury striking provocative poses. The shell game was a success and two weeks later – Napier-Bell wanted to allow no time for minds to change – Wham!, their breakdancing opening act, and the soon to be embittered Scottish filmmaker Lindsay Anderson, were on their way to Beijing for the very first performance of a western rock group in all of China’s glorious 5000 year history.

 
The show was more of a symbolic than a literal success. The 15,000 fans at the Workers Gymnasium - 24 years before Kanye West disappointed a largely western crowd there - were prohibited from standing and the people on the lower levels thought the film crew were secret police and sat rigidly in their lights. “There were 7,500 people downstairs intimidated by the lights,” remembers Napier-Bell, ”and the police were standing around the outside, and upstairs you had 7,500 people getting more and more wild and crazy.”

Wham – First concert by western band in china

The show, and the following 10 day tour may not have been a musical success, but they forever changed the face of music in China. The original tour documentary by Anderson was canned, answering his question, “It’ll be interesting to see if there’s an limit to his [Michael’s] reckless autocracy.” Anderson later wrote, “I was struck by his total disinterest in China. His vision only extends to the top 10.” The second version of the movie, “Wham! In China: Foreign Skies” premiered in Wembley Stadium, in 1986, in front of 70,000 fans, making it the biggest film premiere in history. This did little to blunt emotions on the Wham! this side, however. In 2006, 12 years after Anderson’s death, a copy of the Anderson original long thought to be destroyed surfaced and was almost screened before Michael and Sony sued to stop the viewing. Michael’s manager Andy Stephen: ”It’s a dreadful film… It’s 20 years old and it’s rubbish.”

In defense of the Wham! camp, the Anderson tour movie only featured 4 songs, all performed at the end of the movie. However, archivist Karl Magee says Anderson’s film chronicled the meetings between band management and the Chinese government, and captured, “China on that turning point when all the consumerism and Western influences started to make an impact.” I, for one, hope Anderson’s film makes its way past Michael’s lawyers.

Next time you you’re heading out to see a western band in China, before you go go, remember it was Wham!, their wish to be the biggest band in the world, and the persistence of their manager Simon Napier-Bell that made it possible for you to shake your booty to Kanye, bang your head to Dragonforce, and do whatever it is that you do at Bjork show.

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