BEIJING // It was strangely muted when George Michael, as part of the British pop duo Wham!, took the stage at Beijing's Workers Gymnasium in April 1985, recalled a well-known Chinese writer who attended that now legendary first Western pop show in communist China.
Around 15,000 concert-goers watched Michael and bandmate Andrew Ridgely sing hits such as "Careless Whisper" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" as police grimly looked on.
"I'd never seen so many police in my life," Mao Danqing said on Monday.
The security presence was so intimidating that people were too timid to make any noise during the songs, Mao said.
"When you see that many police you feel terrified. Everyone sat in separate sections and each section had police lined up in front, facing the crowd."
Michael, who became one of the pop idols of the 1980s with Wham! and then forged a career as a successful solo artist, died at his home in England on Sunday. He was 53.
China maintained strict controls on Western music and film in the 1980s, just a few years after adopting historic economic reforms in 1978 following the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. The music of Wham! and their contemporaries remained banned and authorities tightly controlled reports of the concert.
Mao's university gave him the ticket to the concert - one of several allocated to students studying literature.
"We were like blank pages back then. I'd never seen anything like this before in my life," said Mao, who said he was seated behind students from North Korea.
"In front of me, the foreign students jumped up to dance, the police quickly came and told them to sit down."
Despite the tense atmosphere, the Beijing concert has since become legendary among China's rock royalty.
"They certainly had an impact on China," said Kaiser Kuo, the front man of a popular Chinese metal band in the 1980s called the Tang Dynasty.
"Everyone knew Wham! songs, even people who would go on to play music that diverged starkly from pop."
Chinese took to social media on Monday to mourn the singer, whose 1984 song Careless Whisper was particularly popular in China.
"That performance marked the beginning of China's opening up its gate [to western music]," said one user.
"He changed China!"
* Reuters
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