Last night was the George Michael concert at HP Pavilion in San Jose. In a word? PHENOMENAL. He is such a great performer… charismatic, charming and his voice… Oh my. Perfection.

He thanked the crowd for being George Michael fans and promised to make this show worth the 17 year wait. And it was! Every bit of it.

He was quite chatty between songs, something I really enjoy. I danced, sweated, screamed and sang as loud as I could for a full three hours… resulting in a VERY hoarse voice this morning. Phaedra and I had both wondered what kind of a crowd it would be. We were surprised at the huge variety of fans there.

I’ve been a hardcore fan since I was a very little kid… my mom loved George Michael and the first cassette tape I ever owned was “Listen Without Prejudice”. I used to sit in my room, all angst ridden, listening to “Praying for Time” and “Freedom 90″ over and over again. Over the years he has remained a favorite and “Ladies & Gentlemen…” & “25″ are still my guaranteed ass shakin’ playlists for when I want to display my less-than-stellar dance moves (or at least have fun while I clean the house!).

We sat next to two sixty year old women who were most fond of his WHAM days… and those ladies got down! Of course there was a huge gay population there and I saw several parents with their kids. Most interesting was the group of super radical Christian protesters outside the arena. I wondered if they were there just because of Michaels, ahem, extracurricular activities. A local who was also in line for the concert told me that they come out for every event, even protesting at Christian pop diva Amy Grant’s concert. At any rate, they made the wait in line amusing.

Thank you GM!! I’ll always love you, no matter how many homeless men you have sexy time with!