George Michael returns to the release schedule with “The Faith Tour,” a live album issued by Sony Music on November 6, 2026. The collection features 18 previously unreleased live recordings captured during his Paris concerts on May 30 and 31, 1988, documenting his first major solo tour with restored audio, expanded physical editions and a setlist built around “Faith,” Wham! songs and carefully chosen covers.
George Michael is heard again from the stage of Paris in 1988 on “The Faith Tour,” a newly released live album built from two performances at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. The collection brings together 18 recordings that had not previously been issued in this form, preserving a concert set from the period when his solo career was moving rapidly beyond Wham!.
The timing of those shows is central to the album. “Faith,” released in 1987, had established Michael as a solo artist, but his live repertoire still had to connect that new material with songs audiences already knew from the previous part of his career. The Paris recordings document exactly that balance.
The set opens with “Freedom Opening” before moving into “I Want Your Sex” and “Hard Day.” A version of Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s in Need of Love Today” follows, bringing one of Michael’s strongest soul influences directly into the concert.
Among the most substantial performances is “Everything She Wants.” The Wham! song runs for more than nine minutes, giving it far more room than the original studio version and showing how familiar material was reshaped for the stage. “I’m Your Man” provides another link to the Wham! catalog later in the set.
The slower side of the show is represented by “Father Figure” and “A Different Corner,” while “Faith” closes the first section. The sequence moves between ballads, pop and soul without separating Michael’s solo work from the songs that had already become part of his live identity.
The second half begins with “Monkey” and “Hand to Mouth.” The latter, taken from “Faith,” brings the album’s more socially focused writing into the live setting before the set turns toward funk with a cover of Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.”
“One More Try” appears in a performance lasting more than six minutes, followed by “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” the 1987 hit Michael originally recorded with Aretha Franklin. Its inclusion adds another part of his pre-tour solo history to a set already moving freely between different stages of his career.
“Careless Whisper,” written by Michael with Andrew Ridgeley, stretches to almost eight minutes. The set also includes “Lady Marmalade,” originally made famous by Labelle, before returning to an extended “I Want Your Sex Pts 1 and 2.” “Freedom Finale” closes the program and mirrors the opening track.
The archival recordings were prepared for release by people with direct connections to Michael’s work. Chris Porter, who worked with both George Michael and Wham!, handled the mixing with David Austin, while John Webber completed the mastering. Their work turns the original 1988 concert tapes into a modern release without changing the fact that these performances come directly from the Paris shows.
The different physical editions do not all contain the same material. The complete version runs to 18 tracks and is available on formats including double CD and triple vinyl. A separate double-vinyl edition contains 16 tracks, leaving out “Hand to Mouth” and “Play That Funky Music.”
A deluxe box set expands the package further with three vinyl records, two CDs and a 136-page book featuring previously unseen photographs from Michael’s first solo world tour. Additional colored vinyl editions and a picture disc have also been announced, with the main differences centered on presentation and, in the case of the double vinyl, track count.
There is also an audio-only Blu-ray release in the SDE Surround Series. It contains Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Surround and stereo mixes in 48 kHz/24-bit resolution, allowing the full concert program to be heard on a single disc.
That Blu-ray should not be confused with the separate concert film “George Michael: The Faith Tour,” which also uses footage from the Paris performances. The film and album draw from the same period but offer different ways of revisiting the material.
The longer performances are where the live album becomes most revealing. “Everything She Wants,” “Careless Whisper” and “I Want Your Sex Pts 1 and 2” all run well beyond standard single length, while the covers underline the soul and funk references that were already central to Michael’s musical language.
Almost 38 years after the Paris concerts were recorded, “The Faith Tour” now gives those performances a standalone place in George Michael’s discography. From “Freedom Opening” to “Freedom Finale,” the 18-track set captures the sound of his first major solo tour at the point when “Faith” was turning him into one of the defining solo performers of the late 1980s.
