Autumn and the First Day of Summer

So picking up where I left off from the last blog, my sister was finally coming out for a visit. After months of coordinating and looking for dates and flights, what happens? I have to go out of town for a business trip. So, I arranged to fly back on a god awful early flight so I could try and get home at around the same time she was flying out. Turns out my flight was delayed a bit, but it all worked out fine. She ended up waiting on me at the airport.

Our itinerary was very easy-breezy. We only had a couple of events actually scheduled for the 4 days she was going to be here, so it left a lot of time to just sit and visit. I have far too many pictures for this one blog, so I will pick and choose just a couple. First up, the webcam. Autumn brought a webcam with her so she could call home and see the kids. To make it more fun, we put on my fun Halloween wigs before we called them. Here is how that turned out. Actually, after the kids’ initial reaction, Autumn had to take the wig off so the kids would do more than just stare at her. It was kind of funny.

Autumn also brought me a birthday present. She made me a fun little doll which I named Pepper. We decided to take Pepper to the Strip and take some fun pictures of her. Here are a couple of the better ones. I think her favorite stop was Sephora, naturally.

On Saturday night, we headed over to the MGM Grand to see George Michael in concert. Ok, let me just take a moment here and tell you what a big deal this was for me. I LOVE HIM!!!! The very first cassette tape I ever purchased was Wham! Make it Big. George Michael is the only celebrity to whom I have ever penned a fan letter. The first time I saw him in concert was back in 1991. It’s been 17 long years of no US tours. Finally, the wait was over!!!! Here is a picture from the first concert.

For this concert, Autumn and I ended up being reseated to better, closer seats. Not sure why, but it was great. We got all dolled up and I basically dipped her in glitter because we both needed to sparkle. Getting ready was a fun process and reminded me of all the times growing up when I would experiment on both of my sisters with hair and make up. They were like my living Barbies.

Sorry sis, but I think the rest of the blog is going to be about the concert. So, let’s talk about the stage. For this, I will quote directly from the program since it describes it better than I could. “The centerpiece is a curved, armchair-shaped video screen that stretches forward and merges with the floor of the stage.” And speaking of the program, I tried to grab a couple of pictures from it so I could show you what I mean. This first picture is when he first appears on stage. I’ll show you the set list in a minute, but basically he starts singing the song Waiting from the Listen Without Prejudice album. The last line of the song is “Here I am.” It was at that point that the screen slid open to reveal him. And as they say “The crowd went wild….”

So here is the set list. I loved everything except his version of Roxanne. It came from an album titled Songs from the Last Century. I owned it, I hated it, and I got rid of it. Some songs just shouldn’t be remade. Roxanne just isn’t a torch song to me.

First Half

Waiting (Reprise)

Fast Love/I’m Your Man

Father Figure

Hard Day

Everything She Wants

One More Try

Different Corner

Easier Affair

Too Funky

Star People

Interval

John & Elvis video

Second Half

Faith

Spinning The Wheel

Feeling Good

Roxanne

Kissing A Fool

Amazing

Flawless

Outside

Praying For Time

Careless Whisper

Freedom 90

He had 2 encores. He ended the second half with the song Outside. He even came out dressed as a police officer. It was fantastic. The first encore was for Praying for Time and Careless Whisper. After that, he left again, but since the lights stayed off and he had never acknowledged the band, I knew it couldn’t be over yet. Sure enough, he came back out and said that the audience was going to pick the last song. Honestly, it was amazing the hear everyone on the same page with this. Right on cue, we all shouted Freedom.

Throughout the concert I would say there were 3 distinct times that the audience sang so loud that he never had to sing a note. Those songs were Faith, Careless Whisper and Freedom. It wasn’t until the end of the show that I realized he never sang I want your sex. Honestly, I never even missed it. I am so glad I had the opportunity to see him again. I hope he doesn’t wait so long next time.