It has has been less than a week since the untimely passing of Michael Jackson, and it seems like people the world over cannot get enough of the self proclaimed “King of Pop.” Not the minutest of details on his life has been overlooked and as opposed to the circus-like aspects of most media coverage for the last decade, there is an outpouring of genuine love and respect as most discussions are fittingly about the enormous contributions he made to the music industry. And the numbers are astonishing: last time I looked, there were over 44 million views of his groundbreaking Thriller video on You Tube!
The HIStory tour was just like the others in Michael’s solo career with the over-the top production values his audiences expected. But in his prime, he was more that the king of just Pop. Off the Wall was as good as anything Motown released in an R & B genre, if fact as good, if not more polished, than a lot of the great R & B recordings. Thanks in part to the great Eddie Van Halen, Beat It had one of the nastiest guitars riffs (and solos) that could stand up to the best guitar driven hits of the day. Michael proved that he could master almost any radio-friendly style and that of course, brought him the hits and the biggest selling album of all time.
When I first heard Michael was preparing to jumpstart his career with a series of concerts in the UK, I thought to myself, “I hope he goes back to his roots of R & B of Off the Wall, and the Hard Rock of his Thriller period.” To start out, maybe he would even play small venues with a lean & mean backing band so his fans could see him stripped down, up close and personal for the first time. That’s what I thought would make for an exciting comeback, and maybe less risky than to try and top his monstrous tours in the 80’s and 90’s. Once word got out that he was doing the tour to try to pay off some, or all, of his staggering debt rumored to be in the neighborhood of $400 million, and mega promoters AEG Live were producing the tour, I figured all bets were off. If 750,000 of his fans were willing to pay top dollar to see him live again after all these years, who am I to say that he shouldn’t give them the spectacle they anticipated. Production people that were at the rehearsals at the Staples Center in Los Angeles the day before he died said it would have been everything the fans expected and more. Now sadly we will never know.
