By Barry Egan
Sunday May 27 2007

THE BOY George had sung emphatically about the power of faith the night before in Aarhus - "I need someone to hold me/But I'll wait for something more." And we needed it the next morning on the plane from Copenhagen Airport.

Minutes prior to takeoff, the pilot informed us there was an oil leak in the engine. We changed planes (and underpants).

But back to Captain George Michael, who will play to 90,000 bon vivants over two nights at the RDS in Dublin next week. From the moment he came on stage, he had the emotions of the crowd soaring at 35,000 feet in a moonlit sky over Denmark.

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou - for it is he - opened up to the booty-shakin' Waiting , which had 60,000 Danes dancing as if they were at some giant, and particularly exhilarating, outdoor wedding reception (their big fat Greek wedding?). And, as at any wedding, it wasn't long before he was singing about the specified joys of alfresco imtimacy . . .

"I think I'm done with the sofa/I think I'm done with the hall/I think I'm done with the kitchen table, baby," gorgeous George - the stubble-chinned superhunk in brown jeans and a torso-hugging black Prada T-shirt - sang on Outside, referencing his arrest in a Beverly Hills jacks in April 1998 by an undercover police officer. "I was followed into the restroom, and then, this cop - well, I didn't know he was a cop at the time, obviously - he started playing this game. I think it's called 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I'm gonna nick you!'" he fessed up to Jay Leno at the time.

Last Saturday night in Aarhus, George had the crowd on this hot summer night singing back the words to him: "Let's go outside!/In the sunshine!/I know you want to, but you can't say yes!" Sixty-five thousand Danes beg to differ, however, from the spontaneous outbursts of snogging (Danes French-kissing, anyone?) that song inspires.

You have to admire an international superstar such as George Michael for having the nerve to turn a song about shagging in the open air into a song grannies and teenagers alike can sing along to.

In reality, George Michael has always been about brave descions: in 2002 he wrote Wag The Dog, the merciless diatribe about Mr Blair's relationship with Mr Bush that would have been career suicide for most acts. (But then George is the artist who had the cojones to label his record company a slave-master and refused to publicise his then next album, Listen without Prejudice.)

When he played Wag The Dog in Denmark last weekend, the crowd roared their approval at the lyrics and the images of George (Michael) line dancing with Tony and The Other George in Stetsons and cowboy boots. To hammer home the point of the song, there is also an inflatable Tony as a dog, performing somewhat on The Other George's manhood.

There were equally uproarious scenes when he launched into his homage to promiscuity, Fast Love, complete with George dancing like a disco Eros on the enormous stage, with its circular runway that goes into the crowd, rather like the one U2 used on their last tour. The screens behind him flashed images of the goateed god of too-funky sass as George explained his sexual raison d'etre:

"Looking for some affirmation/ Made my way into the night/ My friends got their ladies/They're all having babies/ But I just want to have some fun."

Unlike most pop stars, this really is George Michael's truth. He has admitted that he has an open relationship with his boyfriend. The giant venue was situated near a park, so no doubt the goateed superstar of blue-eyed soul was right at home. Last summer a bleary-eyed Michael was photographed by the News of the World emerging from the bushes on Hampstead Heath at 2am with what the paper dubbed with characteristic ridiculousness a "pot-bellied, 58-year-old jobless van driver". For the record, the singer said his boyfriend Kenny Goss had no problem with him having casual sex with other men. "We [George and Kenny] had a lovely 10th-anniversary party. My present to him was a million quid, so I think I should get away with so-called fooling around with 'Bernard Manning'. I've no idea who that guy was, but thank you very much, whoever he was," George later told Richard and Judy.

Anyone with a pot belly would have lost it with the amount of calories burnt off dancing to George tonight, of course. The Middle Eastern introduction to Father Figure - whatever about the rockabilly thrust of Faith - was cue to have all the girls dancing around their Fendis. There was a near riot to Everything She Wants, which reminded us that George was already on the way to becoming one of the biggest pop stars in the world in 1986 when he made the insanely brave decision to split Wham! and go solo.

Jesus To A Child is particularly poignant. The song is about George's Brazilian partner, Anselmo Feleppa, who was diagnosed with HIV, which would kill him in 1993. His death sent George, understandably, into years of depression and darkness (a retreat from the music business), so it is great to see George never looking happier, and up on stage where he belongs again, making so many Danes happy as Larry. Or more probably Lars.

"It got to a point where I was smoking 25 joints a day," George once said of that dark time (adding that the Prozac course he took made him worse, not better, "flying around, snapping at people one minute, happy the next"). He was just, he says, coming to terms with the death of his lover when his mother died. He revealed recently: "I thought it was punishment because I turned round at the end of Faith and said, 'You know what? I'm going insane, and I know there's another way to do this.'"

"I thought, is it because I wasn't grateful enough for my talents? In terms of coming close to saying I don't want to live, that would have been after my mum died. I had this overwhelming feeling that the best was behind me. I so loved my mum, and respected her. I'd have to be mentally seriously disturbed to even consider suicide because of what it would do to the people who were already devastated from losing my mother - my sisters and my father."

My own mother rings from Dublin during the romantic cheese-tastic classic Careless Whisper to say that George Michael is on television being interviewed by Michael Parkinson so how could I be watching him in the middle of Denmark (I suspect it is merely a ruse by my mother to remind me that it is her 80th birthday the next day?)

The chisel-featured pop icon performs rousing renditions of Too Funkyand Star People. He takes a 20-minute break (presumably to get stoned backstage on those smelly ciggies he is so fond of) and then he returns triumphant once more for more more more. Spinning the Wheel showcases what George does best. Indeed the entire two-hour, 28-song show was a marvel. Part of me was thinking he couldn't top his shows at the Point last December - the concerts of the year - but this was just as extraordinary, a sonic soul spectacle.

At 11.20pm, his agent us informs it is time to go backstage to watch George leave the building, Elvis-style. A police escort is waiting beside a limo. A private jet - presumably one without a leaky engine - is waiting on the runway to bring the star and his people home to England (even though he is playing in Budapest in 48 hours, George prefers to sleep in his own bed every night when he can - but enough about his open relationship). There are photographers, who shoot his every move. There are even film crews. And hundreds of fans with bits of paper shouting his name, hoping for autographs or even just to catch his eye. The man born to a conservative Greek Cypriot father who once said, "I was never praised, never held. So it was not exactly Little House on the Prairie" is whisked out to the waiting limousine by bodyguards before they can sing Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.

George Michael plays the RDS Arena on June 6-7. Tickets from Ticketmaster outlets nationwide

- Barry Egan

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