TORONTO - The last time George Michael performed in Toronto in October 1991 as part of his Cover to Cover world tour, Nirvana's smash album Nevermind had been out for less than a month.

But judging by the reaction of fans last night at Toronto's Air Canada Centre, they never seemed to mind the 17-year wait.

The 45-year-old performer, currently on his 25 Live world tour, didn't play 25 songs but enough to make the faithful sold-out crowd forget that stretch of time between gigs.

After the introductory music of Waiting (Reprise), Michael and his large 16-piece band (including six backing vocalists) got things off on the right dance foot with the disco-laden Fastlove as the singer showed off his moves when not shaking his booty.

But perhaps the most surprising part of the first half was how involved the fans were, totally smashing the notion of Toronto being a reserved audience. Even Michael sensed this by stating it was the loudest and liveliest crowd on the tour thus far.

Following the punchy pop of I'm Your Man, Michael slowed the proceedings down with the soulful and signature Father Figure. It seems to be the perfect example of how he paced the two-set performance (with a 20-minute countdown intermission) with up-tempo dance tunes like the electro-tinged Everything She Wants alongside slower but groovy ditties such as Hard Day.

In front of a backdrop that featured a huge screen that curved at the bottom to make for Michael's dance floor, two smaller screens on either side and a multi-level area for the band, Michael told the crowd that he would try to atone for the time between tours. "I haven't made it easy to be a George Michael fan but I want to make sure everybody has forgiven me for my absence," he said.

For the first half of the show, he did just that, often working the stage quite well when not hitting all the notes that came easy to him in the late '80s and early '90s. Heck he even managed to let his former Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley appear, albeit in a short video snippet during one song.

Yet with all the palpable buzz in the venue which brought to mind shows by Madonna and, dare I say, Springsteen, Michael's second half took a long time to get going. The opening hit Faith seemed quite obligatory as an image of a vinyl record and needle from a record player appeared.

Sadly after Spinning the Wheel with its heavy dance beat, Michael slowed things down to an almost yawn-inducing crawl with a tedious jazz version of Feeling Good and a cover of The Police's Roxanne which basically sagged from the get-go. Equally lackadaisical was Kissing a Fool before Michael finally got the lead out with Amazing, a song he called a "celebration of love."

The homestretch of the evening featured more hits and favourites, but probably the biggest knock Michael had all evening was a simple question of time. Although the ticket read it would start at "8PM PROMPT," somebody forgot to tell him, resulting in him taking the stage at 8:50. Nonetheless it didn't dampen the spirits of too many.

Despite the boring opening to the second half, it's good to know at least there's one GM that's still going pretty strong.