The day that I saw MJ in concert
The concert was in Wembley on the 21st of August 1992 , I had managed to get myself two tickets for the Dangerous tour and was planning on spending an evening with my wife, just her, myself and the 10,000 others that had packed the stadium wall to wall. The plan was to drop my two daughters off with a friend while my wife and I get our moon boots on. However on the way to the babysitters, my eldest daughter at the time 8 years old, who always had a bit of a gift for being able to talk people into things, managed to talk my wife into giving her, her passport to Jackson Joy. As I remember it, there is a certain infectious feeling that you get even before you get into the stadium, as we exited the station and the carnival atmosphere took effect. My daughter, who clung to me amidst the thousands of peoples of all colours, races and ages at first wide eyed and quiet. But like all children, that didn’t last too long, the quiet part that is.
Are we nearly there yet? What station is it? What is that man doing over there? And so on.
The closer we got, the thicker the atmosphere got, the excitement was palpable in the air. That’s one of the most amazing things about someone like Michael Jackson, he just seemed to appeal to whoever and whatever your background was.
So eventually we found the spot that was going to be ours for the next few hours, the crowd was dense and my 8 year old daughter couldn’t see a thing. Reaching down and scooping her up I placed her on my shoulders, that was going to be her spot, were she was going to spend the next few hours with the occasional, “are you ok dad?” and “I’m not getting too heavy am I?”
The lights went down, the music went up, we were all watching with anticipation. OK, we knew that this was the point were Michael comes onto the stage, but were from, looking left, right, then, bang, he came up from the floor, and there he was in the flesh, Michael Jackson, the youngest member of the Jackson 5, the crowd went crazy. I told my daughter at the time, this will be the only chance that you get to see him, thinking to myself at the time, this will be the only time that I will take you.
The show was amazing and everything that it was hyped up to be and it literally took days for the sense of buzz to wear off. My daughter was at school telling all her friends I saw Michael Jackson. It was a great time, something to be remembered.
And then a few days ago, I was lying in bed at around 12 midnight, when my daughter now 24 burst into the room and announced that Michael Jackson had passed, I shouted back, “get out! I’m trying to sleep, I’ve got work in the morning.” She made her retreat, I was so bleary eyed, I can’t remember clearly the look on her face, I just rolled over and tried to sleep, and then it hit.
Michael Jackson, dead?
Sleep was taken from me the whole night long. I wasn’t a very big fan of Michaels. Yeah, I liked his songs, but I didn’t make it a habit to make sure that I owned every album or anything like that. For me, it’s more like a crossing of paths, more than anything. He was a great entertainer and will be sorely missed. Just one man, but the world would have been a poorer place without him.
These are just my thoughts from what I remember; I even found footage of that very night on YouTube. Brings back memories to see him with a jet pack flying off the stage again.
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