George Michael's 25 Live Tour Coming to North America
March 25, 2008

After a 17 year hiatus from touring the American music market, popular British icon George Michael will soon be invading North America this summer on his upcoming 25 Live Tour in support of his upcoming retrospective album 25 (Twenty Five) to be released April 1. According to the tour's official press release, Michael's European leg of the tour has already been a huge hit with music fans across the pond, "The 25 LIVE tour broke several ticket sales records, most notably in Copenhagen. Michael's concert at The Parken Stadium sold over 50,000 tickets in the matter of minutes, shattering the previous ticket sales record at the venue, formerly held by U2. On the 25 LIVE tour, Michael left both fans and critics alike in awe."

As the rest of the press release indicates, the 25 Live tour will kick-off in San Diego on June 17 and close out on August 3 in Sunrise, Florida, with stops north of the border in Vancouver (July 4), Toronto (July 17), and Montreal (July 18).

"After performing 80 shows in 12 European countries for a staggering 1.3 million fans over the past year alone, legendary superstar George Michael will be bringing his smash 25 LIVE tour to North American Arenas in the summer of 2008 in support of his new retrospective record. This will be Michael's first North American tour in 17 years. The new record, titled Twenty-Five, will be released April 1st and is a 29-song, 2-CD set featuring several new songs (including duets with superstars Paul McCartney and Mary J. Blige) in addition to many of Michael's iconic songs from both his solo and WHAM! career. In addition, a companion 2-disc DVD of 40 videos will also be made available."

"The North American leg of the 25 LIVE tour will kick off in San Diego on June 17th and will continue through San Jose, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York and several other major cities. The tour will incorporate 22 shows over the course of seven weeks and Michael will perform material taken from the entire span of his career, including some classic Wham! tracks. Michael has recently teamed up with iTunes and Ticketmaster to produce an innovative media package which allows fans rare access to Michael's videos, songs, and tickets to one of his North American 25 LIVE concerts. The package goes on sale on iTunes on March 25th. Tickets to the 25 LIVE tour will go on sale to the general public the weekend of April 6th."

Michael, 44, one of the most popular pop-icons of the 80's and early 90s, was dogged by record label lawsuits over the years and has also been vocal over his feelings toward the new age of downloadable music. After fighting for his rights in a previous lawsuit during the 90s, Michael took a break from the music business so he could eventually have more control over his own music. At one point, the Fast Love singer only released music through his website, which helped to give him the necessary control over his career. In this day and age, as a recent USA Today article reveals, George Michael looks upon the new American Idol era of music with an uneasy sense of reflection and wants to give back to his fans one last time, "it's the end of a certain era, and I'm not sure how much I really want to be a part of what's next. So, it's a kind of a way of saying thank you to everybody before I move on."