Still Wearing His Heart on His Sleeve

George Michael was fashionably late to his own coming-back-out party Tuesday at Verizon Center. How . . . fabulous!

The British pop star hasn't toured for the better part of two decades, so an extra half-hour wasn't going to matter all that much -- particularly not with the crowd being treated to a pre-show soundtrack that included the melodramatic theme from "Gone With the Wind."

When he finally arrived onstage, it was to be heard and not seen: The erstwhile sex symbol sang a 1990 ballad, "Waiting (Reprise)," while hidden behind a high-tech video wall.

Such a tease, albeit a well-preserved tease, his tenor still sweet, smooth and supple. "There's a way back for every man," he crooned. "So here I am."

And then, at last, he was: George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou), 45 years old, bathed in light, looking almost exactly like the George Michael of the mid-1980s and early 1990s, the one who'd left the bubblegum pop duo Wham! and achieved enormous solo success as a soulful dance-pop singer with an arsenal of big ballads and bigger club hits.

Michael has since traded the old leather jacket from the "Faith" album cover for a sports coat, and his jeans no longer have strategically placed holes in them. But that designer stubble, those perfect teeth and those dimples appear to have changed not at all since his last tour, which ended 17 years ago, just as he was attempting to extricate himself from a recording contract with Sony -- which, he said, hadn't properly promoted his 1990 album, "Listen Without Prejudice."

Michael's run as an A-list pop star ended about that time, at least in America. But his best-known songs -- those complex confessionals and hypersexualized flirtations -- still sound potent, and nostalgia is always a powerful draw.

So Verizon Center was maybe two-thirds full for Tuesday's generous performance, which ran well past the two-hour mark and included the majority of Michael's most addictive hits, among them blue-eyed-soul ballad "Careless Whisper," the frisky, syncopated "Faith," the torchy "Kissing a Fool," the spiraling "Father Figure" and the gospel powerhouse "One More Try," the latter two standouts thanks in great measure to Michael's six soaring background singers. (The show also included an interminable 20-minute intermission, and a nearly interminable cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.")

There was a seriousness to the music, as Michael's songs tend to be centered on adult themes and mature sentiments. Backed by a sprawling band that was tucked away on platforms at the back of the stage, he sang of individuality, of equality, and, especially, of the complexities of commitment, as in "Spinning the Wheel," which was accompanied by scrolling video and still images of famous couples (John and Yoko, Sid and Nancy, Bill and Monica).

He's always tapped the sexual energy of the discotheque in his music, too, so there were plenty of come-ons -- though his biggest, "I Want Your Sex," was missing from the set, perhaps because with Michael, that message is always implied.

Whereas that sexuality was once at least marginally ambiguous, Michael is now, of course, an Official Gay Icon -- the John Philip Sousa of the gay and lesbian tribe. He accepted the role a decade ago when he came out, after his arrest for lewd conduct in a public restroom in Beverly Hills.

Here, he called "Flawless" "the gayest record I ever made" (debatable); dedicated the thumping, celebratory "Amazing" to his partner, Kenny; and introduced "An Easier Affair," an anthem about embracing his gayness, by saying "all things being equal -- which they never are -- boys in this country will be able to marry boys and girls will be able to marry girls."

And then there was Michael's turn as one-fifth of the Village People as he made a quick change into a police officer's uniform (complete with cuffs and mirrored sunglasses) to perform "Outside," a self-deprecating song that he rush-released after the Beverly Hills bathroom incident. "I'd service the community," he sang. "But I already have, you see." Far out.