Michael Jackson’s History World Tour 1996

Michael Jackson’s History World Tour was his final world tour and a very well rounded production. It was also his largest tour to date. He performed to over 4.5 million fans, grossing over $164 million spanning over 82 concerts from Europe, The far east, Africa, Australia and over to the United States. The tour commenced in Prague, Czech Republic on September 7th 1996 and ended in South Africa October 15th 1997.

The Tour, for the first time was not sponsored by Pepsi and the second leg was restructured by Billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, whom Michael had a joint company called “Kingdom”, they also produced “Ghosts” together. It made a big difference and we will address this a little later.

The opening night was in Letna Park over in Prague and it was performed to over 125,000 people. Fans reported that it was very dangerous and a scary experience with crushing and pretty tough security. The concert was also very interesting for Michael and the band. Michael on several occasions blasted his band director, the amazing Brad Buxer! First time it wasn’t Brad’s fault, I have to say!

Off the wall medley trouble!

This was a mild blast by Michael. During the last part of “Don’t stop til you get enough”, it sounds like Michael came in about 2 bars too early with his ending line “Don’t stop til you get ENOUGH”… the band are slave to the metronome and the pre recorded backing track, so if The King of Pop wants to end early, it’s a case of cutting the track live, as well as the band getting the cue live… a tough task! The drums and band got it, but Brad (or whoever controls the sampler) couldn’t stop it in time and the backing “sounds” continued on. If you listen carefully to the amateur rare recording, you will here Michael comment and say “hey?”

The next blast was a real good one!

Beat it! A true blast from the King of Pop! So it goes like this: Michael comes up on the crane, shouting his usual “Hoeeeeeee!”. The drummer gives a one bar timing and in comes the classic “Beat it” BASS….Boooomm, Boooooom! Good. Then we have 3 counts of 8 until the live drums come in (on this occasion, Jonathan Moffet). Then we have 4 counts of 8 until all hell breaks loose and the Guitars, Drums, Keyboards and everything kicks in for the classic start of “Beat it” and that riff! Well…. On this occasion, there was a mix up between the Bass and the first count in… Michael on his crane blasts Brad, “Come on Brad!”, all part of a great live show and a lot of fun. It’s interesting that you always find things on the opening night and this was no exception.

They had issues with finding the levels of the samples in “Dangerous” (smooth criminal VERY low), even Brad Buxers ending in “Earth Song” was very mellow and slow, which changed drastically through the tour (addition of more percussion and increased tempo).

A short while later, whilst in Bucharest, Romania the pre recorded backing tape messed up again, coming in 1 bar too late for the first line of “Billie Jean”…whoever had the trigger job had a hard task, as it looks like it is performed live (probably by Brad Buxer/Keyboardist, or by the technicians behind the computers on the left hand side of the stage. (Which is why you always see Michael looking to the left and signalling… turn my microphone up!). In fact whilst we’re at it, Michael microphone had many issues through the tour, and it would seem that who ever had the job of switching in on and off during songs was having a hard task!

Whilst we’re looking at some teething issues for the tour, it’s always very interesting for the fans who notice these things. Like in Moscow where the sheet for the introduction of “Smooth Criminal” stayed down and a furious Michael had to perform behind it whist his technicians literally held it 6 feet up so that the audience wouldn’t miss the performance totally of that classic! Although, the screens still broadcast a classic rendition.

Other points of interest include performing “The way you make me feel “with a hand held microphone, as opposed to the head microphone and singing a variation of the outro live, which is unusual. He toyed between Jackets for Thriller between these early dates too….for Thriller, Red sparkly to Purple with illuminous stripes, to his usual Green illuminous one. I suspect that the red classes with the next costume change (Red beat it Jacket), so they kept it green to keep up with some variation. Also, the original 80’s jacket came in lot’s of different colours, including the white and green (ish ☺) .

As we’re on a real eagle eye fan expedition let’s mention a few other too! Go and find the video of the very rare “Heal the World” in Kaohsiung and take a listen to the “choir sample” at the end…. It seems that Michael goes on at his own leisure and they only had a certain amount looped… have a listen and see if you can catch what happens. Also in “Heal the world” Bucharest (History tour) Michael’s Head Microphone fails to switch on and his Backing vocalist is forced to hand him his own microphone. In addition a few moments later for the reprise it would seem as if the “Choir” vocals failed to trigger… actually a really nice ending, more mellow with the live singers and the band… I think that was a one off on the tour (like the Dangerous tour version)

Talking about ending of songs: “Billie Jean” in Auckland! This was very unique indeed. It was a one off and instead of the usual ending Michael’s singers and band came back in and started singing the chorus. I suspect that the reason is this: That particular concert was a very long one indeed and when Michael feels like he wants to dance to Billie Jean…who’s going to stop him!? (Quincy Jones made reference to this in The Making of Thriller and recording of “Billie Jean” and a fun reference to “an intro you could shave to”), the rest of the crew know that the concert has a strict curfew and cut off point due to licensing and sound restrictions…they were probably running over, or anticipated that they needed to speed up the show.

Same show and his performance of “Thriller” was of note also, it seems like his vocals failed to come in on time but I suspect that this was also planned, as it was later in the tour, Gothenburg during “Scream”. I think the band and crew and Michael liked to add some variation and have some fun with the “Miming and not miming” crowd.

Some other fun points for eagle eye fans include, his lead backing dancer during the Malaysian History tour show, (not the full televised version) where at the first verse of “Smooth Criminal”, he makes a big mistake, turning to his left for a count of 4 early, he then corrects the mistake, which leads to another mistake….just behind Michael’s right shoulder….take a look at his face and smile. All part of show business and a lot of fun! (See the Malaysian 10 minute special). The lean was also playing up quite a lot during the tour! Michael even tripped and fell down in Japan during the lean, his backing dancer (Jennifer Lopez’s ex husband actually) gets hooked and caught on the stage, with a quick recovery, during the rendition of “Smooth Criminal”, in Munich. In Amsterdam, it looks as if Michaels and some of his dancers under floor technology failed because he was unable to do the lean at all and had to put his leg out.

The Amsterdam (1st concert) performance was pretty special actually. A “covered” stadium which was one of the last shows based on the first leg preparations. There was a distinctive change after this concert. The concert also had a different atmosphere, from his jacket closed in Stranger in Moscow, to the interesting first Bass notes of the same song, to his Criminal and the non lean.

Back to the amazing Levelle Smith, whom I think was one of Michael’s best choreographers and a real inspiration had another issue behind Michael’s shoulder but you will have to be quick to get it and eagle eyed! Let’s go back to the first couple of shows of the BAD tour and a clear mistake and recovery in “Shake your Body down”… at the climax of the song Michael and his 4 dancers recreate the classic Jacksons, head, lean and arm move! Lavelle jumped in with his arm first! A great recovery in the next move, and a true professional indeed… I love watching Lavelle Smith dance behind Michael Jackson, he knows exactly how to augment the King of Pop, which is why I suspect Michael used him for so many years.

If you have a close look at end of “In the Closet” and the beginning of “Wanna be starting Somethin” you will see a perfect reason why Lavelle was the man! He understood that his job on stage was to augment Michael and after his final pose of “Wanna be”, History Tour live in South Korea, Seoul, he freezes perfectly looking forward into space waiting for the cue of the next song. If you watch his dancer, again, over Michael’s right shoulder, you will see that he obviously doesn’t know his cue like Lavelle, as he is staring straight at Michael through the corner of his eye, waiting for Michael to move. As they are the only people in shot, it is a little too obvious…. Levelle really shines through with real gravitas, especially during the classic frozen montages. The irony is that the cue for “Wanna be starting something” is a musical cue and not a visual one (for the dancers), so there is no need to stare at MJ anyway. They should all be in the moment….just Like MJ and Lavelle.

Brad Buxer

Brad Buxer did an amazing job as Band Director on this tour. It is obvious and clear to see the close relationship that Brad and Michael had. Buxer worked for Michael for many years, through the Dangerous Tour and on songs like “Stranger in Moscow” and “Who is it”. It was obvious that Brad had room to move and some creative freedom that he could implement into the songs and interpretations that say, Michael Bearden later, who did not know Michael so well, could not. The songs on the “This is it” tour song, in many ways, say “Billie Jean” very much like the BAD Tour. Yet, the songs on the History tour sound very different, more electronic, more sampled, more power and certainly “cleaner”. In addition Brad Buxer obvious had Michael’s trust and could interpret songs in new ways, say Billie Jean, more BASS and more strings in the History Tour….a new version… Michael trusted him to do it. Talking about “Billie Jean”, it was Brad Buxer who introduced a more “orthodox” original Bass sound that was missing in all previous tours, and in say Dangerous, missing a complete musical note. Bad tour used a slap Bass, Dangerous tour an almost totally different spirit and technically a different Bass… History Tour Totally different. We now it’s Brad Buxer who introduced this because he also, for the absolute first time introduced it on his first occasion in charge, during his concert in Brunei between the Dangerous and History tours.

I also understand that Greg Phillinganes DID NOT travel to Moscow on the Dangerous tour so I presume that his second in command, Brad, was in charge, but have also heard the wonderful Ricki Lawson say that he was Director too. Either way, his first real tour in charge…. Was History!

Michael, as first mentioned, would have fun with Brad on stage and love to chastise him in a playful way! The funniest, actually in a previous occasion in between tours, in Brunei, was in “I just can’t stop Loving you” where the pre recorded backing vocals cut short and leave MJ asking live on stage. “Brad, what are you going to do? What are you gonna do?” as a new part of the lyric, to end the song! He certainly had a hell of a concert because after the Hat slap choreography in “Smooth Criminal” he came in with his keyboard solo 4 bars too early, but recovers perfectly with a clean repeat! Musically, this is one of my favourite concerts ever.

Michael would often talk about Brad, before his medley and would ask Brad “Brad, if you would accompany me, everything would be great”… Bradly also did a great job musically, obviously a very shy down to earth person and a great example… that really shines across. Even an amazing talent like him improves. Take a look at the Michael Jackson and friends 1999 concert in Korea, and listen to the final outro piano flourishes at the end of “Earth Song” and then go and take a look at the second charity concert for Kosovo of the same performance in Munich, Germany a couple of days later, and listen to the improvement and his flourish extensions… extremely beautiful and moving….I remember being there and the whole occasion bring the audience to tears.

We have read in the TIME magazine article that HRH Prince Alwaleed restructured the Michael Jackson History tour on the second leg… he actually spoke about the money saved. I am a big fan of the Prince but I think on this occasion, the changes did have an affect on the show and I will go into a couple of details now.

The main one was: REDUCTION. The Backing singers were reduced from 4 singers to 3 singers and this made a massive impact to the sonic quality of the tour. The female element was reduced and it reduced the power of songs and thinned out pieces. Take “Wanna be starting something”. Take a listen to the Romanian leg or the concert in Manila and then compare that to Munich or Gothenburg. In the latter 2 you can hear individual voices, where you should have harmony and you need that same force in the “Ma Sa, Ma Ma Coo Sa Ma Ma Se, Ma Ma Sa, Ma Ma Coo Sa”… 3 voices doesn’t cut it. It weakened the situation and I think it was regrettable, whatever the reason.

The same goes for dancers! Reduction, reduction reduction! The tour was basically cut down from 6 – 8 male dancers (see Manila or Russia or Korea) to 4 main male dancers along with 2 female dancers. Let’s take a look at pieces like “They don’t care about us”. The impact really reduced this song, because the military intro went from say, 6 dancers in Moscow, to 2 later on….the stage is too big to fill and I think that there needed to be more to make more of a spectacle. An army needs soldiers! It could be argued that Michael doesn’t need the dancers but as half the concert was MJ on stage alone, I think they were missed. The dynamic of a song like “Smooth Criminal” is obviously transformed (using a vocalist in the part before the lean has no comparison to Taco and the Dangerous tour, or even History tour in Manila, same with Thriller… I just think the reduction in dancers was a pity. They had it balanced to perfection of the first leg and it went a bit thin on the second leg. Too much space to fill! (Especially in terms of height! Way too much! No amount of lights can fill that space and a reduction in dancers make the space even bigger) and it affected the spectacle in my opinion. It was still, obviously an amazing show but not an improvement on the first leg.

Exactly the same goes for sound. Something happened half way through the tour. Sometime after Amsterdam the sound changed. The Bass kick in the drums seemed altered…less bass in the percussion. In addition songs like the amazing “Stranger in Moscow” lost the lower register strings and deep roundness in the second leg of the tour. Maybe this was intentional….maybe they lost a keyboardist? I certainly prefer the first leg and it’s depth in sound. It’s interesting, because the opposite happened in the Dangerous tour. The number of dancers in the show INCREASED into the second leg, great songs were added and the sound changed in the opposite direction. More BASS in songs like JAM and Thriller as compared to almost none in JAM in the first leg… either way, very interesting… but I’d rather they didn’t have to cut personnel at all, but that is part of life and the logistics of a massive tour!

If you have a chance to check out the tour on youtube, obviously go and do it! The only commercially released History tour concert was the Seoul, South Korea concert and this was only released locally on VHS. Other televised concerts include:

September 14, 1996 – Bucharest, Romania

(One of my favourite concerts. Travis Payne was amazing. See dancer block MJ’s way in Criminal. Cool red jacket in Thriller. Total crazy edit, many samples from the Dangerous tour. Issues during Heal the world, read above)

October 13, 1996 Seoul, South Korea

(Great concert. MJ had a few early missed dance steps and looked pretty man at the beginning of TDCAU. Stranger in Moscow was amazing. Commercially released in Korea. Criminal sheet stayed down for too long. Jennifer Batten was not performing this date, so the guitars sound very different, especially the solos which were performed by Greg Howe. Earth Song was nuts…. Crazy fan ran up the crane and went around with MJ. Pity the director didn’t pan out to get some great shots of that. Great concert)

FULL REVIEW/ARTICLE of Michael Jackson’s concert in Korea HERE!

October 27, 1996 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

(Classic performance, one of his best. Great energetic dancing. Keyboard issues during Billie Jean and dance break in Thriller. Backing vocals were high during the beginning of Stranger in Moscow, which sounded great whilst it lasted! Brad varied the horns in Thriller slightly, also)

November 9, 1996 Auckland, New Zealand

(Wonderful concert, raining, different Billie Jean ending)

November 16, 1996 Sydney, Australia

(Michael was on form. AMAZING Stranger in Moscow performance, Keyboard mistakes during Billie Jean….great concert!)

December 8, 1996 Manila, Philippines.

(One of my favourites, especially musically… real powerful and deep). Nearly trips during his sideslide in Scream but a perfect recovery…dances at his best.

July 4 and 6, 1997 Munich Germany

(Televised over Europe. Great crowd atmosphere. See Dancer trip up during lean… filmed in High Def. Great sound)

August 14, 1997 Copenhagen, Denmark

(Great concert. During this part of the tour (not this televised version) He actually spoke the first rap type verse of Dangerous at one stage in Copenhagen (although not this date)

August 16, 1997 Gothenburg, Sweden

(Great concert)

August 24, 1997 Helsinki, Finland

(Really great concert. Hair down. Lot’s of smoke…. Great for lighting)

History Tour Set list

1 “Introduction”
2 “Scream” / “They Don’t Care About Us” / “In the Closet”
3 “Wanna Be Starting Somethin’
4 “Stranger in Moscow”
5 “Smooth Criminal”
6 “Interlude video”
7 “You Are Not Alone”
8 “The Way You Make Me Feel” (some concerts)
9 Jackson 5 Medley “I Want You Back”, “The Love You Save”, “I’ll Be There”
10 Off the Wall Medley (Some concerts)
11 “Interlude video”
12 “Billie Jean”
13 “Thriller”
14 “Beat It”
15 “Come Together” and “D.S.” (some concerts)
16 “Blood on the Dance Floor” (some concerts)
17 “Dangerous”
18 “Black or White”
19 “Earth Song”
20 “We Are the World” Video
21 “Heal the World”
22 “They Don’t Care About Us” Reprise
23 “History”

History Tour Performers (1st and 2nd leg)

History Tour Dancers

La velle Smith , Shawnette Heard, Damon Navandi, Courtney Miller, Anthony Talauega, Richmond Talauega, Lori Werner, Jason Yirbar, Thorsten Heize
Criss Judd, Stacy Walker, Faune Chambers and Travis Payne.

History Tour Band

Musical Director: Brad Buxer
Keyboards: Isaiah Sanders, Brad Buxer
Drums: Jonathan Moffett
Guitars: Jennifer Batten and David Williams
Bass: Freddie Washington
Vocals: Kevin Dorsey, Dorian Holley, Darryl Phinnesse , Freddie White, Marva Hicks.

History Tour Director: The wonderful Kenny Ortega!

Michael Jackson’s Tour Dance Style

I must comment on Michael’s dance style through the years and especially during the History tour. I think that dance vocabulary wise, MJ reached his pinnacle during the History tour. This is because he obviously had mastered and enjoyed his locking, robotics and popping and really showed this off during songs like “Stranger in Moscow” and “Billie Jean”. He also had a renewed sense of pace. He slowed down a lot compared to previous tours. Military wise and choreographically speaking he was amazing, there is a real dynamic sense of space in songs like “They don’t care about us”. He also had a renewed sense of control. Knowing to slow down and to pose and then move. A genius of dance.

Dangerous tour was his pinnacle in terms of energy balanced with dance moves. He did not have his later grasp of locking but his performance, vocals and energy were on another level. The live element of the band, vocals and show added to the crowd frenzy, which Michael reacted too. He certainly danced with more energy and a lot more pace. The songs were also faster.

Bad tour dancing: Nothing to say! On the next level! He was the man and will also be the man!

Thank you Michael for all the tours and amazing shows!

By Anthony King ©

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