Billie Jean – The Dangerous Tour Rehearsals – Michael Jackson

“Michael Jackson rehearses Billie Jean for his 1992 Dangerous World Tour”

Michael Jackson rehearsed a new version of “Billie Jean” for his Dangerous tour, with an extended introduction and a different presentation.

During the rehearsal, presentation is a hot topic for Michael, and we are privy to his discussions and concerns about staging.

He had already said that he could never change the dance because the fans wouldn’t allow it, so this was obviously a very special song to him. Today we’re going to take a closer look at the rehearsal footage.

Billie Jean Rehearsal video (Youtube)

Billie Jean Dangerous Tour Staging

The footage above shows a version of rehearsal but not the whole picture. Michael had already started the song on the second stage and was unhappy with it. In the previous song, “Thriller”, Michael was taken up on to a second stage that is raised up hydraulically, creating two stages.

“Thriller” was then performed on the bottom stage. The split stage has two real uses. Firstly, the “Thriller” coffins and stage props are connected underneath it, so that when the stage is raised it raises the staging on to place automatically.

We also have the additional element that the whole audience can see Michael, which is usually an issue. Even the audience members in the front row rarely see Michael’s feet due to the height of the stage and the members of the audience further back are blocked by the audience in front of them.

The split stage changes that and gives Michael an opportunity to dance at a height where the majority of the audience can see it.

Michael was pretty adamant (and this is not shown in the footage above) that the dance should NOT happen at the top of the stage. He waited for the stage to travel down a substantial distance before stating the classic “Billie Jean” dance.

In the end, for the final show, Michael did indeed do the main dance pretty high up and this worked well.

That said, Michael and Kenny Ortega were not satisfied with the speed of the stage and wanted it to drop a lot quicker, so that the focus was on Michael quicker.

Michael Jackson Billie Jean live COLOGNE 1992 (YouTube)

Michael close to getting hit in the head!

Michael was close to getting struck in the head by a stray wire/lead, that swung down from the side of the stage very close to his face. Michael reacted very quickly and said, “that was interesting!”. Michael was obviously not satisfied with that or with the speed of the stage and decided to stop the song and restart when Michael was totally happy.

Music and the band

The band made quite a few mistakes with this one. Michael had to remind them to watch him at the beginning and not to cut him off.

The bass line is weak and tinny and is so far away from the original that it doesn’t work for me. It is improved slightly during the actual tour but I think they got it spot on later in the “Royal Brunei” concert. Also, with the “History Tour“.

In addition to this, on the other hand, some of the original sounds from the album don’t work live and that’s evident here.

The “History Tour” version was a kind of representation of “Billie Jean” but not an exact reproduction. You can’t reproduce that studio version live on stage exactly, so it’s probably better to go with something slightly different sounding. This is why Michael’s “History tour” musical director was so good. There is some kind of harmonica type sound which sounds weak also.

One thing which I think sounds brilliant, in this rehearsal is the strings and the pads. Very, very good, in fact.

They had it spot on. I think that the strings, especially during the end parts of the song should ALWAYS be played “Legato”. They could have done with a little more depth, but overall, this version needed improving and it was improved for the show.

The Dance

Michael doesn’t perform the moonwalk because he is rehearsing and there is no need. He also doesn’t need to dance too hard, as, as he always said, he is saving his energy for the show. I think this is a much better way of doing it, as compared to “This is it”.

That’s it for today!

We’ll be moving on to “Working Day and Night” next. If you want to learn the moves from “Billie Jean”, just like Michael then you can click HERE.

By Anthony King

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