Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 26: Wham! in China

When the pop duo Wham! took the stage at Bejing's People's Gymnasium on April 7, 1985, it was the culmination of 18 months work started by their manager, Simon Naptier-Bell. The Chinese wanted a Western musical act to play in China to help spur foreign investment, and Napier-Bell wanted Wham! to be that act. The only problem: the rock band Queen was also vying for this groundbreaking opportunity.

So Napier-Bell resorted to a little propaganda/homophobia. He drew up brochures that showed Wham! members George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley as clean-cut Brits, while depicting Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the dress and poses common to Queen performances. The ploy worked, and China gave Wham! the OK to play.

The band wound up playing two shows in the People's Republic (one in Beijing and one in Guangzhou), and faced some unique challenges with regards to the audience and their cultural expectations for attending a concert. They were quiet, forbidden from dancing, and didn't understand the concept of clapping along to the music. These problems dissipated as the concert went along, but it might not be a coincidence that it was another 10 years before a Western act (this time the Swedish duo Roxette) was cleared to play in China.

A documentary about the tour, Wham! in China: Foreign Skies was released in 1986. Footage shot for that project was used to create the music video for the song "Freedom," which I'm sure the Chinese government appreciated.