Sony Music releases George Michael’s live album “The Faith Tour” on Friday, Nov. 6, the same day Universal Pictures opens the concert film “George Michael: The Faith Tour” in UK cinemas, IMAX screens included. Sony says its 18 tracks come from “the iconic Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy stop on the European leg of the Faith Tour in 1988.”
North American fans wait until Dec. 11, when Crosswalk, the event-cinema label of Bleecker Street, opens the film two days after IMAX early-access screenings. “An icon of his generation and beyond, George Michael was at the height of his creative and cultural power during the Faith tour, a defining moment that was made for the big screen,” Bleecker Street CEO Kent Sanderson said when the company picked up the film in July, Music Week reported.
Andy Morahan, who directed the videos for “Faith” and “Last Christmas,” made the film with David Austin, Michael’s friend and manager. “George was utterly unique, both as a man and an artist,” Lucie Avery, general manager of producer Globe Originals, said in the July deal announcement.
What’s on George Michael’s ‘The Faith Tour’ Live Album?
Michael opens and closes the set with “Freedom,” and he sings “I Want Your Sex” twice, according to the tracklist Sony published in September. (Yes, twice.)
His takes on “Lady Marmalade” and “Play That Funky Music” are on the full 18-track set, but the standalone 2LP drops “Play That Funky Music” and “Hand to Mouth” and runs 16 tracks, Sony’s tracklists show.
Mary McCartney’s ‘Finding Faith’ Opens the Film
“I wanted it to be his voice and him, and it’s very intimate, and it might have, like, the behind-the-scenes feeling,” Mary McCartney said of “Finding Faith,” her new short, before the film’s world premiere at London’s BFI IMAX last week, the Express reported.
Her short opens the feature with audio and images from 1986 to 1988, according to Sony’s announcement.
“She said, ‘This was the moment that he became that person, that superstar, that idol, that icon,'” Roman Kemp said at the premiere, recalling what his mother, Shirlie Kemp, Michael’s backing singer in the Wham! days, told him when he asked what the tour meant for Michael.
Sony says the concert film restores previously unseen 35mm footage from the 1988 Paris performances. “We are incredibly proud of ‘George Michael: The Faith Tour’ and the extraordinary craftsmanship that has gone into bringing this footage to life,” Ken Danquah, chief finance and commercial officer at Mercury Studios, said in July, Celluloid Junkie reported.
10 Years Before George Michael Came Out on CNN
Michael came out publicly in April 1998, 10 years after the Paris shows, in a CNN interview that followed his arrest in a Beverly Hills park bathroom. “I want to say that I have no problem with people knowing that I’m in a relationship with a man right now,” he told CNN, PBS NewsHour reported. “I have not been in a relationship with a woman for almost 10 years.”
He said in that interview that his first gay relationship came when he was 27. “I spent the first half of my career being accused of being gay when I hadn’t had anything like a gay relationship,” he said, as CNN recounted after his death.
Michael told more of his own story in “George Michael: Freedom,” the 2017 documentary he’d mostly finished before he died, Gayety reported.
Gotta Have Faith: IMAX Early Access Starts Dec. 9
“We also can’t wait for a whole new generation to experience just how extraordinary he was as a creative force, performer and musical auteur,” Helen Parker, executive vice president at Universal Pictures Content Group, said in July, Music Week reported.
IMAX’s “Gotta Have Faith” early-access event starts at 7 p.m. local time Wednesday, Dec. 9, with a collectible ticket while supplies last, BroadwayWorld reported, and the wide release follows Friday, Dec. 11, two weeks before the 10th anniversary of Michael’s death at 53 on Christmas Day 2016.
