Michael Jackson lip Syncing on the Bad Tour?

Did Michael Jackson “mime” any of the songs on the 1987 – 1988 Bad World Tour?

If you ask any fan, “which of Michael Jackson’s solo tours did Michael Jackson sing live?“, they would all surely say, “The Bad Tour!”. We have already taken a closer look at whether Michael really sang live on the Dangerous Tour (you can read part one HERE) and the History Tour (you can read part one HERE)

Michael Jackson BAD tour kicks off in Tokyo, Japan!

Michael Jackson performed his first concert of the Bad tour on September 12th 1987. Two weeks later Michael performed at the Yokohama Stadium in Yokohama which was televised on Japanese Television. The songs performed included:

Bad tour Yokohama concert set list:

Wanna Be Starting Something
Things I Do For You
Off The Wall
Human Nature
Heartbreak Hotel
She’s Out Of My Life
Jackson 5 Medley (I Want You Back, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There)
Rock With You
You Are My Lovely One
Working Day And Night
Beat It
Billie Jean
Shake Your Body
Thriller
I Just Can’t Stop Loving You
Bad

Some of the broadcasts didn’t show “Off the wall” for some reason.

One thing for sure is this:

MICHAEL JACKSON SANG EVERY SONG COMPLETELY LIVE!

What an amazing vocal performance! Crisp clean vocals. See the video below of Michael performing “Wanna be starting something”:

(You gotta love that first move!)

Anyway, Michael would return to Japan later on in Christmas 1988 with a totally different setlist, stage and vocal situation for certain songs!

Bad tour first leg, not so many Bad album songs!

If you think about it the opening of the Bad tour didn’t actually include many “Bad” album songs at all. No “Smooth Criminal”, no “Man in the mirror”, no “Speed Demon” …. only: Bad, I just can’t stop loving you. That’s only 2 new songs. Sherly Crowe has wrote about the rehearsals for the Bad tour. The band rehearsed in one room, the singers rehearsed in one room, whist the dancers rehearsed in another. They rehearsed for about 3 weeks for the tour and they used cassettes from the VICTORY tour as references. They also changed parts of songs to add dance sequences, which guitarist Jennifer Batten has also spoken about recently. Michael, later on during the tour would add some new songs from the Bad album!

2nd leg BAD Tour New song additions

Michael added some of the newer Bad songs on the second leg of the tour which kicked off in Kansas City on February 23rd 1988. We have footage of the rehearsals and the fact that they totally revamped the show was reported. We see Michael rehearsing “The way you make me feel”, which he said he wants to go through with “The fellas”. The new song additions included:

1) ANOTHER PART OF ME
2) SMOOTH CRIMINAL
3) DIRTY DIANA
4) THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL
5) MAN IN THE MIRROR

“Things I do for you”, “Off the Wall”, “Shake your body” and “Lovely one” was dropped in the second leg. Before Michael Jackson ended the tour in Los Angeles, he went back to Japan and performed his new concert.

Staging changes

The stage for this part of the tour was made slightly bigger, the dance space was increased and the back Band platform was raised with a couple of steps and straightened out. The stage was adjusted for concerts in indoor arena’s like New York City’s MSG, where space was limited.

Did Michael lip sync any of the new songs?

As we stated earlier, Michael sang the first leg completely live. Back in 1987 the technology wasn’t fine tuned to allow different tracks to play and interact with the band, with inner ear phones and monitors but this was more advance by 1988.

It’s probably best to go through each of the songs and take a closer look at which ones were mimed and which ones were not.

Which songs on the Bad tour were NOT mimed or lip synced?

Ignore the first leg completely … we will look at the second leg as a totally new show (as we know Michael sang the whole concert live on the first leg)

SONGS MICHAEL SANG COMPLETELY LIVE:

Wanna Be Starting Something: LIVE
Another Part Of Me: LIVE
Human Nature: LIVE
Heartbreak Hotel: LIVE
She’s Out Of My Life: LIVE
Jackson 5 Medley (I Want You Back, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There): LIVE
Rock With You: LIVE
Working Day And Night: LIVE
Beat It: LIVE
Billie Jean: LIVE
Thriller: LIVE
I Just Can’t Stop Loving You: LIVE
Dirty Diana: Live

Here is one of the new songs added to the tour, DIRTY DIANA (LIVE VIDEO):

Which song’s did Michael Jackson mime on the Bad Tour?

By the second leg of the tour you could clearly hear strain on Michael’s voice and he chose to mime some of the songs or large sections of the newer songs – this makes complete sense as he’d been singing for hours over many nights for over a year!

1) SMOOTH CRIMINAL: This song was lip synced up until the middle section of the song, after the crescendo. The lean had not been added to this tour so the point where Michael would usually do the lean in the song is the point in which the microphone was turned on … a very difficult song to sing and Michael never sang the song completely live in his career.

2) BAD: Although, Michael sang this completely live on the first leg, he mimed the song on the second leg and the microphone was turned on during the outro of the song. His voice was so good in these days that it is very hard to tell the exact point but it is after the full original vocals (usually when he says “I’m Smooth …”, is the point)

3) THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL: Michael actually mimed a very large portion of this song and for the first time in his career had the vocal track faded in and out to “fool” the crowd. He would cut the vocal track just before the main chorus and shout “every body sing” … and then a few bars later would continue lip syncing. The beginning of the song was live and so was the ending.

4) MAN IN THE MIRROR: As in the Dangerous Tour, Brunei Royal concert, Grammy Awards 1988, United we stand 2001, Michael mimed this song and sang the last parts live. Michael never sang this song COMPLETELY live on stage in his career.

What a show and what a voice!

By Anthony King (c)

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