Current Obsession: Wham’s Brief But Fascinating Gig History In Philly
BY JOEY SWEENEY | Good day, I am a 50-year-old man newly obsessed with the 1980s pop group called Wham! (Their exclamation point, not mine, but kudos to them for having it, because it makes it impossible to end a sentence with their name and put any other punctuation after it without looking like a typo.) The reason I’m obsessed with Wham! right now is likely the reason you are, too: The eponymous documentary on them currently among Netflix’s top new releases.
The doc scratches an itch I didn’t even know I had: By just focusing on the band’s career and nothing else — you’ll find none of the pathos that has marked media that uses George Michael’s later years as its jumping-off point — it’s a pop culture jewel box in which the band’s music, clothes, style and moment fit perfectly. And what a moment it is: Wham! were the biggest, gayest thing that ever happened that you couldn’t bring yourself to tell your Greek father about. (Sorry if that’s a spoiler alert.)
By the time Wham! broke in America, they were almost too huge to amass the kind of dives-to-stadiums gig history that other 80s megabands like, say, U2 or R.E.M. did. But they did play in Philly at least twice. The first time would seem to have been in February 13, 1985 at the Tower Theatre, Upper Darby — the date is one of the tour dates on the t-shirt above. (Sidenote: Will we ever see shows there again? What’s the holdup?) No set list, audio or video seems to survive from this date, but this Getty Images photo does.
Wham’s second Philly date later that year — September 8, 1985 at The Vet — has a much larger digital footprint. It was The Vet! The Daily News ran a ticket contest! The crusty local newspaper music critics had to go to it! And because soundboard recordings of the show exist, the show has been widely bootlegged — one gets the sense that this one in particular is kind of Wham! fan canon:
That’s the whole show, but if you dig in on any part of this, check out the lads covering “Good Times” by Chic. It is so earnest:
The following year, Wham! would put out their final LP, Music From The Edge Of Heaven. We now know that for at least two nights in ‘85, that edge was right here, somewhere between The Gallery and The King Of Prussia Mall, and you could get a hoagie right outside Club Tropicana.
