The pop star George Michael took over the world in the late Eighties before walking away entirely. A new concert film, George Michael: The Faith Tour, records the short period of his life when he fully embraced arena stardom, and it reaches theaters Dec. 11. It covers two nights in Paris during the spring of 1988, using footage newly found, and is directed by two of his longtime collaborators, Andy Morahan and David Austin.
George embarked on his first solo mega-pop endeavor following his departure from Wham!, the U.K. duo formed with his school friend Andrew Ridgeley. He swapped his polished appearance for leather and stubble during the shows, delivering tracks such as “Faith,” “Father Figure,” and “I Want Your Sex” with open sexual bravado. The film comes with a live album of previously unreleased performances, sharing the title The Faith Tour.
The Confidence of the Faith Tour
The trailer shows George at his most assured. He performs before a gathering of people he does not know, night after night, delivering the line, “If you ever hunger, hunger for me,” so that every person present feels singled out by it. It is the one moment when he actually met the wild expectations others had for him — including his own private imaginings about who he might be.
The tour ran from the spring of 1988 through the fall, wrapping in America. It included more Wham! oldies than fans expected, opening with the gritty one-two punch of “I Want Your Sex” and “Hard Day” before swerving into hits like “Everything She Wants” and “I’m Your Man.” He refused to sing “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” even once across the entire tour, a decision that made it a No Jitterbug Zone.
He also sang beloved Seventies soul covers, including Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s In Need of Love Today,” LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade,” and Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.” He performed the Aretha Franklin duet “I Knew You Were Waiting for Me” and mixed in more Stevie deep cuts as the tour went on.
The Secret Behind the Abandonment
No one who watched George take the stage in 1988 would have guessed it was the final time they’d see him there. He was determined never to go through that again. The strain of his private life made the act almost too much to bear. On two separate summer dates, he performed Gladys Knight’s poignant “If I Were Your Woman,” changing the gender pronouns. It’s a song about a hidden, forbidden, guilty longing, and it was plain he was pouring his own feelings into the performance.
At the June 1988 Nelson Mandela tribute concert at Wembley Stadium, where it was broadcast worldwide, he delivered it as a tortured wail from the closet. That explains why he couldn’t sustain this level of effort. “Life is so crazy and love is unkind,” indeed.
George arrived with Wham! ready to be whatever the public wanted him to be. He said himself that he was “every little hungry schoolgirl’s pride and joy.” Yet because he was George Michael, he carried deep conflict about it from the start. The opening line of his first hit, “Wham Rap,” was George stating, “Hey, everybody, take a look at me! I’ve got street credibility!” He burned out fast on both halves of that promise — not just the “street credibility” side, but the “take a look at me.”
Few artists have ever been so naturally gifted at the pop-star pose, yet few have walked away from it so quickly. Each evening on the Faith tour, George performed his most famous solo hit, telling the audience, “It takes a strong man, baby, but I’m showing you the door!” And in the end, that’s precisely what he was doing.
Why Faith Remains an Obsession
Faith remains one of the Eighties’ most complete pop statements, and it’s the only one George ever made. Back then, people assumed he’d keep producing a Faith every couple of years for the rest of his life. Instead, his quick climb to the top only proved to him that success was not what he truly wanted.
He was the world’s most glamorous pin-up boy, but he was also a closeted, tormented, lonely gay man in a brutally homophobic era. As George says in footage from the 2023 Netflix doc Wham!, “I suddenly thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m a massive star and I’m gay.’ The depression was about that. It was about the way I boxed myself in. You know, be careful what you wish for.” Faith sounded like a new beginning — but it turned out to be his kiss goodbye.
Key Facts Box
– Release Date: Dec. 11 in theaters
– Tour Dates: Spring to fall 1988
– Paris Nights Documented: Two nights in the spring of 1988
– Directors: Andy Morahan and David Austin
– Live Album: The Faith Tour, previously unreleased performances
The film opens with a gritty start of “I Want Your Sex” and “Hard Day”, then keeps things moving fast with hits like “Everything She Wants” and “I’m Your Man”. It pairs a duet with Aretha Franklin on “I Knew You Were Waiting for Me”, covers seventies soul tracks such as “Love’s In Need of Love Today,” “Lady Marmalade,” and “Play That Funky Music”, and closes with a tribute performance at Wembley on “If I Were Your Woman”.
The Faith Tour is a reminder that George Michael was a man of contradictions. He could sell millions of records and fill arenas, then turn around and refuse to do it again. The film captures a moment when he was at the peak of his powers, and it’s worth seeing precisely because it is so rare. He never tried this kind of spectacle again, and he never preserved it in a proper concert film or album. So it’s been easy to overlook, even though his story has been told and retold so many times over the years.
Few people have witnessed how he performed Faith live, night after night, even though the record is familiar to pop fans. This film remedies that gap, revealing the man at his most assured, most exposed, and most present. It also serves as a reminder of why his music endures.
See the video the story is built around at Rolling Stone.
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