Wham! / Pointer Sisters Concert 9-6-85

What Is This?
I was asked by many about my musical influences when making stamps and asked to share some of the stories behind the concerts I have seen. I have been to 1200+ live concerts (all national touring bands/singers with albums, not local club bands or tribute/cover bands, have seen plenty of those too) and have saved every ticket stub and backstage pass (when I had one) and kept notes (like a journal) on every show I have ever seen. So from time to time I will scan in the ticket stub from a show I saw (going in no order, skipping around) and talk a little about the show and my opinion. All information property of dA--stamps/dA--bogeyman (me). This is entry#43.

The Concert:
Wham!
The Pointer Sisters (Opening Act)
September 6, 1985
Miami Baseball Stadium, Miami, Florida (USA)

Just So You Know:
Wham! (George Michael & Andrew Ridgeley) were touring to support their second album 'Make It Big'. The tour was called "WhamAmerica" and was very short (only nine shows on the whole tour). Wham! only played a total of fifteen concerts ever in the United States (Wham! broke up in 1986). The Pointer Sisters (June, Ruth & Anita) were touring to support their eleventh studio album 'Contact'. Both groups were riding a big wave of success at the time with massive radio play and heavy video rotation on MTV. Sadly June Pointer died of cancer in 2006 and George Michael died in 2016.

Personal:
Ah the Wham! concert, this was an unplanned one. My friend Manny and I went to Miami for the weekend to see Bruce Springsteen on September 9th and were staying at our friend Ed's house. Ed's sister had four tickets to the Wham! concert a few nights before the Springsteen show but could not go so we ended up with the tickets. We debated for a few hours on what to do with the tickets - burn them, sell them or go to the concert - we had many beers while we talked about what to do with the tickets. Our friend Dave showed up, and since he had not been drinking, we decided to make him our driver and go to the concert drunk as a skunk (Dave wasn't too happy but he went along with it). The Miami Baseball Arena was in a very bad part of town and we parked on a public street (free parking) but a few African-American gang bangers wanted to charge us $10 for parking in their "hood" (they were charging everyone). I am a pretty big guy (so was Ed, Manny and Dave were average size) and three of us were drunk so I said "Hell No!" and three of us prepared to fight (not Dave) and probably would have gotten killed or at least beat up badly if Dave didn't quickly stand in front of us and hand over $10 to the gang bangers. I was pissed at Dave at the time but he was right and moved us along and got us inside the concert stadium. We arrived late and missed Katrina And The Waves (they performed first) but that did not seem to bother us. More beers were in order and we even bought Dave one.

The Live Concert (Opener):
The stage was huge and had two monster screens on both sides of it that showed the musicians performing live on stage (all performers used the screens). There were thousands of teenyboppers there (most with their parents) and we felt a little out of place but were feeling no pain and decided to go with it. It was a general admission show so we were down on the baseball field and right in front of the stage. The Pointer Sisters came out dancing and singing "Dare Me" and they crowd began to shake and move to the beat and my friends and I were all high fiving each other and shaking our booty. The Pointer Sisters do put on a high energy dance show and had a cool dance band backing them up. We danced and sorta sang along (more like mumbled) to many of the songs throughout the one hour set. Songs I remember grooving to (LOL) include "He's So Shy", "I'm So Excited", "Automatic", "Slow Hand", "Neutron Dance", "American Music", "Fire" and "Jump For My Love". Whew that was a high powered dance set, time to catch our breath and have another beer before Wham! comes out.

The Live Concert (Headliner):
Stage techs came out and moved around/changed instruments and set it up for Wham! and their band. The young teenybopper girls were very excited and a few even made small talk with us before the show (we tastefully dodged any of them that wanted to "hang" with us during the concert or wanted a sip of our beer, we were underage but older teens). So the band and Andrew Ridgeley come out and start a super long intro of "Everything She Wants" and boy did that drag that out (like at least ten minutes) before George Michael finally came out and added vocals to the tune. I am not a big fan of starting a concert with a slow song but hey the crowd was squealing and singing along together so we went with it LOL. George Michael sang to the crowd and the screen cameras were on him most of the show. Both members of Wham! did a lot of dancing and bopping along to all of their songs (same stuff they did in their videos) and I will say I had 'fun' at this concert even thought it wasn't really my type of music. The crowd loved the whole hour and a half performance (and boy did those teenyboppers buy a lot of tour t-shirts). Some familiar songs were "Freedom", "Bad Boys", "Careless Whisper", "Love Machine" (Miracles cover), "Young Guns" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (that was fun to drunk dance to LOL). We were wore out when the show ended and made it home safe and sound.

Check out my 'Concert Memories' dA gallery for more of my concert musings da--stamps.deviantart.com/gall…