When I was in high school (so dating myself here) Wham! came along and suddenly none of us could have enough of them. We had the posters, the calendars, the albums and watched MTV until our eyeballs fell out. We were all in love with George and Andrew. So when I saw this book it was a Must Have.
The book is chock full of photos, color and black and white. While we get all the eye candy, we also get the heartwarming story of how Andrew and George met in school, became fast friends and rose to fame in the 80's. It follows the break up of the band through to George's death a few years ago.
Andrew writes sweetly and fondly of his time with George and it's lovely to see what a strong friendship they had behind the scenes.
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For the first time, Andrew Ridgeley—one half of one of the most famous bands in the world—tells the inside story of Wham!, his lifelong friendship with George Michael, and the formation of a band that changed the shape of the music scene in the early eighties.
In 1975 Andrew took a shy new boy at school under his wing. They instantly hit it off, and their boyhood escapades at Bushy Meads School built a bond that was never broken. The duo found themselves riding an astonishing roller coaster of success, taking them all over the world. They made and broke iconic records, they were treated like gods, but they stayed true to their friendship and ultimately to themselves. It was a party that seemed as if it would never end. And then it did, in front of tens of thousands of tearful fans at Wembley Stadium in 1986.
Andrew’s memoir covers in wonderful detail those years, up until that last iconic concert: the scrapes, the laughs, the relationships, the good, and the bad. It’s a unique and one-and-only time to remember that era, that band, and those boys.
Plume
October, 2019
