Wham!'s final concert: The Final at Wembley Stadium, June 28, 1986

About the artist

Wham! were George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. The two met in 1975 at Bushey Meads Comprehensive School in Hertfordshire, England, and formed Wham! in 1981^[1][2]. Ridgeley played guitar^[3], and early on the pair agreed that creative control would rest with Michael^[4]. Their debut single, “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do),” came out in 1982^[1], and “Young Guns (Go for It!)” reached No. 3 in the UK later that year. The albums Fantastic (1983) and Make It Big (1984) both went to No. 1, and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” became their first UK No. 1 single in 1984^[5]. In April 1985, after two concerts in Hong Kong, they played Beijing and Canton, becoming the first Western pop group to perform in China^[6]. In Japan, the duo appeared in TV commercials for Maxell cassette tapes in 1984 and 1985, and played their first and only concerts there in 1985^[7].

Why this was the last show

George Michael announced the split in early 1986. Appearing on the talk show Aspel & Company on March 1, he said the duo had more or less achieved what they set out to do when they formed the band four years earlier. There was “absolutely no rift whatsoever” between them, he said, and it should be “the most amicable split in pop history” if they did it properly^[8]. In an interview with Rock! that year, he explained that neither he nor Ridgeley was 18 anymore, that they knew they would not be enjoying it in another year or two, and that they had decided to quit while they were ahead. There was no point in denying the split, he added, but “a lot of point in saying that we are still friends”^[8].

Ridgeley has described the ending as all but predestined. Speaking to the BBC in 2023, he said that keeping to the Wham! format would have restricted Michael's growth as a songwriter, and that they had both outgrown the band^[9]. In his 2019 memoir, he wrote that one reason it ended was that Wham! could not outlast the two men's youth^[4].

Their last show would be a single concert. Even as he talked about the split, Michael said they would like to play Wembley Stadium that summer^[8]. Ridgeley would have preferred a farewell tour to say goodbye to fans around the world, though he said he understood the thinking behind having just one show^[10][9]. Their last single, “The Edge of Heaven,” with Elton John on piano^[11], was No. 1 on the UK singles chart for the week of the concert, June 22–28^[12].

What is known about the day

The venue was the original Wembley Stadium, built in 1923 as the centerpiece of the British Empire Exhibition of 1924–25^[13]. The year before, it had hosted Live Aid^[13], where Elton John handed Michael the microphone for “Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me” during his set^[11].

On June 28, 1986, 72,000 people filled the stadium^[2][14]. Michael and Ridgeley were both 23^[14]. The event ran for eight hours^[10][15] and included a screening of Foreign Skies, the film of the duo's 1985 trip to China^[6]. Wham! themselves were on stage for about two hours of it^[10].

We have found no press report listing the night's songs in order. According to the fan-edited setlist.fm and Wikipedia, the duo opened with “Everything She Wants” and played 21 songs^[16][17]. In an excerpt from his memoir, Ridgeley recalls running through the hits one last time, among them “Club Tropicana,” “Bad Boys,” “The Edge of Heaven,” “Wham Rap!,” “Careless Whisper,” “Freedom,” “Young Guns (Go for It!)” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”^[4]. Backing singers Pepsi and Shirlie joined them for some of the songs^[14][4].

Partway through, Elton John, a friend of the duo, made a surprise appearance^[2][11] in Ronald McDonald make-up and costume, playing piano while Michael sang Elton's 1973 hit “Candle in the Wind”^[11][14].

The last song was the encore, “I'm Your Man.” Elton came back to join in^[11], and Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon came on stage to sing backing vocals^[14][4]. Ridgeley remembers it as an “anarchic” encore^[4]. As the show ended, the two embraced, and Michael, shouting to be heard over the crowd, told Ridgeley he couldn't have done it without him^[18].

What the show left behind

No official video or audio of the concert has been released. In 2019, Ridgeley said he would love to see it come out, but the show was never filmed or recorded for broadcast, and Michael felt it was not of a quality he would be prepared to make public^[19]. He also said they should have toured that last show to bid farewell to their global audience, and that ending with one concert felt like a slight betrayal of the fans who had supported them around the world^[19]. In 2023 he again said he regretted not giving fans the chance to say goodbye^[20].

The greatest-hits album that shared the concert's name, The Final, entered the UK albums chart in July 1986 and peaked at No. 2^[5]. It collects the hits from “Wham Rap!” to “The Edge of Heaven” and is not a recording of the show^[21].

The two went their separate ways. In January 1991, Ridgeley turned up at George Michael's show at the second Rock in Rio festival in Brazil and sang with him^[22][18]; it was a George Michael concert, not a Wham! reunion. When talk of a reunion surfaced in 2014 after Michael joked about one, Ridgeley laughed it off^[3]. George Michael died on December 25, 2016, at the age of 53^[23].

The songs have kept finding listeners. “Last Christmas,” held at No. 2 in 1984, reached No. 1 in the UK for the first time in 2021 and was the Christmas No. 1 in 2023 and 2024^[5][24]. In Japan, the song spent a combined 26 weeks at No. 1 on Oricon's weekly international singles chart, and a 2020 Japanese CD and DVD collection of the duo's singles includes the Maxell commercials^[7]. On July 5, 2023, Netflix released the documentary WHAM! worldwide^[2]. It tells the story in the two men's own words, with Michael's drawn from BBC Radio 1 interviews^[20].

With no official film or recording, the farewell at Wembley on June 28, 1986, is known today mostly through the memories of those who were on that stage.