robertlove said:

Not getting into the was he wasn't he conversation - it's redundant and makes no difference. But wanted to address a few things...

The male dancers were on stage more because they had more numbers that have traditionally been presented with a male ensemble - think "Smooth Criminal" "Beat It" etc - but even in these routines the female dancers were on stage. The only song (shown) that had the female dancer/s in more of a lead role was The Way You Make Me Feel and the interaction dancing there was more jazz orientated in the moves with more flourishes of hands and extensions of feet, more flowing.

As for the hand on the thigh moment in I Just Can't Stop Loving You - yes it was forced because it was always there since the Dangerous tour - a subtle move that the audience would lap up. More natural were the moments when he would pull the female duet partner into his grip and hold her - minor moments but still evident.

One number that didn't make it to the edit (not sure if they had fully rehearsed it) was Dirty Diana. Although the film gives a glimpse of what was to happen, Michael would have been surrounded by pole dancing female leads and aerialists who would dance in "go-go" style chandeliers that descended on the stage, while the pole dancers would dance around a large bed being erected. A "fire goddess" would then seduce Michael around the stage with him being tied to the bed. A drape would have covered him and then pulled back to reveal him gone (this tour's disappearing intro into Beat It). This number definitely would have dialed up the interaction between Michael and the female dancers.

Just helping create a full picture of what was going to be shown.

Swa

whatsgoingon said:

In all honesty, for the casual fan, that would be akin to him saying, "Now here are some songs from my upcoming album." That's not what they are going to the concert for. They want to sing along to every single song. So, it has to be the big hits.

If it's some $10 concert, then maybe he could sing all the lesser known songs.
[Edited 11/5/09 15:18pm]

The answer is somewhere in the middle. Yes, he has to do Billie Jean and Thriller, but there were also plenty of songs he could sacrifice to do other hits, and it doesn't hurt for the concert to be between 2 and 3 hours. Blood On The Dancefloor, Stranger In Moscow, Heal The World, HIStory and a couple other songs could easily be sacrificed.

Superstition said:

Exactly. I hate it when these so called "hard-core" fans, who weren't even born when Thriller came out, think they know more about MJ music then anyone else.. I know many people who are not hard-core fans, who know songs "Let Me Show You the Way To Go". And considering it was a number 1 hit in England when it was release all those years back, I am sure if he had sang such a song at the London concerts many people would have known the song, hard-core or not. He didn't need to alway sing the number 1 hits for it to be a great concert.
[Edited 11/5/09 15:56pm]

Get over it. There must be a reason why he's chosen to virtually ignore all Jacksons material since the Dangerous tour onwards. He knew that the vast majority of people attending his shows would not even know songs from albums like Triumph or Destiny or The Jacksons.

I love that side of his career and I know that there is an older demographic who is more familiar with his pre-Thriller work. My mother is a perfect example, she is in her mid-fifties and has been a semi-casual Jacksons/MJ fan since she was a teenager. She knows the hits. She knows Can You Feel It and Show You The Way To Go and Blame It On The Boogie. She wouldn't know That's What You Get For Being Polite or Time Waits For No One if he performed that in a concert. Hardly anybody would except for HARDCORE FANS.

It's really not that difficult to understand.

I agree. It's incredibly annoying. I've been following Michael Jackson's music since I was a kid, I've been a hardcore fan for almost 15 years. I own every Jacksons album, every MJ album (including the pre-OTW Motown albums).

I don't need some old fart who grew up listening to the Jackson 5 preaching to me about how great his old music is and how I can't possibly know MJ's music as well as him just because I became a fan during the Dangerous era.

Fuck off you snob.
[Edited 11/5/09 16:19pm]

I agree. It's incredibly annoying. I've been following Michael Jackson's music since I was a kid, I've been a hardcore fan for almost 15 years. I own every Jacksons album, every MJ album (including the pre-OTW Motown albums).

I don't need some old fart who grew up listening to the Jackson 5 preaching to me about how great his old music is and how I can't possibly know MJ's music as well as him just because I became a fan during the Dangerous era.

Fuck off you snob.
[Edited 11/5/09 16:19pm]

MattyJam said:

And who is saying he shouldn't have play any of his very big hits? We are saying there is nothing wrong in mixing up the lesser well known songs with the big hits, it will make the shows more exciting and would have given the shows more variety.

And not every casual fan is like your mother, who only knows a limited number of his songs. NTriumph and Destiny did not sell like Thriller or Bad or even OTW but they sold over a million when they came out, so I guess only the HARDCORE fans bought those albums at the time
[Edited 11/5/09 16:23pm]

I think it depends on which country MJ is performing in that determines which songs he chooses to perform. I think in the USA with many of his fans being african american. Remember in 2001 r&b radio is what gave him luv. Not pop radio in the USA so a lot of r&b fans would be attending. Notice how many of the celebrities that attended This is it were black. Butterflies was a smash hit on r&b/hip hop radio in the US.

So for the USA had MJ toured i think a tracklist like this would relate to the audience


Wanna Be Starting Something
Heartbreak Hotel
Rock With You
Remember the Time
Human Nature
Billie Jean
Butterflies
Jackson 5 Melody
Off the Wall
Don't Stop to u get enough
Way You Make Me Feel
Dirty Diana

This is the perfect tracklist for a MJ USA concert

He could've performed obscure hits. I doubt fans of the HIStory tour were dying to hear They Don't Care About Us, HIStory or Stranger In Moscow, especially at the expense of hearing some funky material with live vocals.

A sample set, for instance:

Another Part Of Me
Remember The Time
I Can't Help It
Little MJ Medley:
Wanna Be Where You Are > Got To Be There > Ben
Jackson 5 Medley:
I Want You Back > ABC > The Love You Save > Never Can Say Goodbye > I'll Be There
Rock With You
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
The Lady In My Life
Keep On Dancing
Billie Jean
Thriller
Beat It
In The Closet > Who Is It
Dirty Diana
I Just Can't Stop Loving You
Earth Song
Man In the Mirror

I doubt anyone would walk away from that setlist going "What a shitty show!" Some of the songs could be shortened slightly making room for yet more hits like Black Or White, Jam, or whatever else.
[Edited 11/5/09 16:42pm]

I agree. It's incredibly annoying. I've been following Michael Jackson's music since I was a kid, I've been a hardcore fan for almost 15 years. I own every Jacksons album, every MJ album (including the pre-OTW Motown albums).

I don't need some old fart who grew up listening to the Jackson 5 preaching to me about how great his old music is and how I can't possibly know MJ's music as well as him just because I became a fan during the Dangerous era.

Fuck off you snob.
[Edited 11/5/09 16:19pm]

MyMyMy said:

If that were the case he shouldn't have sang "Heartbreak Hotel" during the Bad tour, afterall compare with BEAT IT, that wasn't a big hit. Stop being so narrow minded. Probably a 19 year old, casual fan wouldn't know anything pre-Thriller or pre-Bad, but I can ensure you many older, casual fans i.e in their late 30s/40s knew MJ existed way before Thriller and they probably know more about his music in general than the 25 year old "hard-core" fan, whose fandom always seem to start with Dangerous.
[Edited 11/5/09 15:45pm]
[Edited 11/5/09 15:46pm]

Superstition said:

I would've walked away from that setlist thinking that his career must've ended in 1991.
[Edited 11/5/09 16:44pm]

I think it depends on which country MJ is performing in that determines which songs he chooses to perform. I think in the USA with many of his fans being african american. Remember in 2001 r&b radio is what gave him luv. Not pop radio in the USA so a lot of r&b fans would be attending. Notice how many of the celebrities that attended This is it were black. Butterflies was a smash hit on r&b/hip hop radio in the US.

So for the USA had MJ toured i think a tracklist like this would relate to the audience

MattyJam said:

Come on now, be honest. You would've walked out of a Michael Jackson concert if he was singing Keep on Dancing instead of Blood On The Dancefloor?

The guy didn't need to sing the exact same 15 - 20 songs every concert for the last 18 years to please the concert goers. I can't believe this has turned into an argument. I didn't see anything wrong with the setlist in This Is It, but he clearly could have performed more obscure songs and left others out without fans bitching.
[Edited 11/5/09 17:12pm]

I don't know why people accuse MJ of always playing the same setlist. The HIStory tour had eight new songs on it's setlist, plus Dangerous and ITC which had never been performed in concert before. With MSG he performed Can You Feel It, Shake Your Body, Dancing Machine - these are songs he hadn't performed since the Victory tour.

I know the TII setlist was fairly predictable, but what do you expect from his first tour in 12 years? It wasn't as if he was touring to promote a new album. The setlist for Prince's 21 Nights mostly consisted of the same hits night after night.

I thought "Who Is It" was just the instrumental playing over some footage.. the band wasn't actually playing it at any point, were they?

An obvious solution would have been to have his set numbers and have a 3-4 song rotating section where he could get loose and play rare cuts or covers that he could change up for each different show. His band seemed well rehearsed but of course he's such a perfectionist I don't think he would allow himself that freedom.

BabyBeMine said:

That's a very good point. When I went to This Is It opening night the majority of people there were black people who obviously dug the older material more judging from the reactions during the J5 material, Human Nature and Billie Jean.

Look at how awesome that Speechless acapella was. Whether you like the song or not, you can't deny the vocals and how well executed it was. I so wish that One Night Only special had happened back in the 90's. Just to hear him talk a little bit about the songs and then perform them live with a full band would have been amazing. Really sucks that will never happen.

I watch that Babyface MTV Unplugged all the time because it was so well done... Ricky Lawson was on that show and he also played drums for MJ for a bit.
[Edited 11/5/09 19:54pm]