Wham in China with Simon Napier-Bell

This week we are joined by legendary music impresario Simon Napier-Beill to tell use about how he got Wham into China in 1985 for a groundbreaking trip.

Simon’s book about the trip I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch is out now in the UK & across the US.

Simon & his co-manager Jazz Summers are trying to break Wham in America much quicker than the conventional wisdom. It had previously taken an act 6 years to get to stadium shows but George Michael is insistent they must achieve this within 2 years.

With that in mind Simon sets about landing the group a gig in China which will create enough publicity & media attention to break the band in the US.

Making 13 trips to China in the lead up & the story is as much a tale of espionage as the work of a music manager, featuring spies, dignitaries & more.

Queen nearly got there first but Simon makes sure Wham are favoured by the Chinese government & eventually gets the go ahead after many expensive lunches with government ministers & officials.

The gig is announced immediately before anyone can change their mind, with only 18 days to organise the trip.

A deal is agreed whereby a cassette is given away with each ticket, with Chinese language versions of Wham tracks on Side A & the original on Side B. This serves the purpose of flooding the marketplace with there music as cassettes were heavily bootlegged in local markets in China in the 1980s.

The trip is expected to cost £500,000 & Simon approaches the bands label CBS to foot the bill, they agree providing a documentary/concert film is also filmed, allowing the label to release a document of the trip.

This increases the cost to the best part of £1m when legendary director Lindsay Anderson is chosen & insists on multiple top of the line film crews.

George Michael initially changes his mind about the trip but is persuaded to travel as the band travel to Bejing with hundreds of journalists, photographers, camera crews & other media.

Anderson proves a difficult choice when his behaviour becomes increasingly cantankerous & he dislikes the country & holds Andrew Ridgeley & George Michael in contempt.

The concert itself goes off without a hitch although the audience is arranged carefully by the Chinese government with the quieter government officials seated at the front & the actual fans of Wham toward the back in the upstairs.

A second concert takes place in Canton, which with its ties to Hong Kong is much more open to western culture.

Simon enquires after the fact about the royalties on the several hundred thousand records Wham sold in China throughout & as a result of their visit. He is informed payment cannot be made in cash so he takes 6000 bicycles in lieu.

Director Lindsay Anderson is fired upon returning to London after George & Andrew label his finished film ‘boring’.

The trip to China achieves its desired result as Wham are suddenly household names in the US as a result of the wall to wall media coverage & are able to book a stadium tour across the country in the aftermath.

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