Spent my Saturday night with The Girl at the Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour show at Staples. The show itself is performed sort-of live. I couldn't discern how much was recorded and how much was actually played live. They had some theatrical guitar playing going on but I think that was just motions while the music was playing off a recording. Michael's voice was definitely recorded (no trouble figuring that out) but the backup singers seemed to be doing it live as far I could tell. The drums and horns looked legit.
The show was pretty good. The parts that with were mostly cirque and/or older music were fantastic. The parts that were Michael reading his poetry and/or anything made after 1991 were seriously awful. At several points during his reading he could be heard to break down and cry. Gimme a break. Also lame: the artistic interpretations of his tree of dreams (WTF?) and his weird laments about how didn't have a childhood. If you ignored all that crap and focused on the dancing and acrobatics and aerials and effects then you would have a really great show. As it was you had a good show occasionally interrupted by crazy self-indulgent garbage.
Michael Jackson was a hugely talented, insane, drug-addled pedophile. Don't get me wrong: drug-addled pedophiles can make some really great art. But still: Jackson was best when he had a producer that could focus and direct his genius. When he got big enough that he could make his music on his own it all went to shit.
Most of his old songs have held up really well so it was fun to hear them re-worked and see the performances that Cirque put together. They even mixed in the hook from Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me, which was a nice touch. (At the time of this writing the second most 'thumbed up' comment on the Rockwell video is "I MISS MICHAEL A LOT =( " - this is a common theme on all the youtube vids for MJ. It's weird.)
The older Jackson 5 songs were a particular highlight for me. You think anyone will be listening to Justin Bieber songs in 40 years? Yeah me either.
Check this out and try not to dance. If that doesn't get you moving then you probably need to turn it up.
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