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Nick Ahad: Jacko's legacy to the world of performing arts will live on forever
At this stage is there any more that I can add?
Perhaps not, but the compulsion to write something remains.
A week on and there is only really one significant story from the arts world. The death of Michael Jackson.
I was at home on Thursday evening, when the phone rang about 11pm. It was a colleague telling me to turn on the television and brace myself for the news.
The fact that I am, and always have been, a big fan of Michael Jackson, has left me open to a fair amount of ridicule over the years. It's not been cool to like Michael Jackson for some time now.
With his passing it's been heartwarming, as a fan, to see people look past the controversies of the past decade and simply celebrate his extraordinary talent.
Germaine Greer, in a national newspaper, almost got it right.
She wrote: "Nowhere will his contribution be more obvious and his influence more strongly felt than in the world of dance. No choreographer of the last 30 years has been unaware of Jackson's achievement."
I say almost because she's wrong. Yes, his dancing was extraordinary – Martin Scorsese who directed his Bad video said: "He was like quicksilver in motion."
But what Greer should have mentioned was that his influence stretched – and will continue to stretch – way beyond simply dance. As a musician, entertainer, performer, he was beyond anything that had come
before him.
In August 1992, I was 14 years-old and at the end of the month was my birthday. I wanted only one present. A ticket to Michael Jackson's Dangerous tour.
My mother kept trying to convince me that what I really wanted was a tent. None of my friends were that interested in going to see MJ and mum was a little worried about sending her boy off to a pop concert on
his own. Unfortunately for her, there was simply no convincing me. It was her fault really. When I was a much younger boy, she bought me a video called Michael Jackson: The Legend Continues.
The video (which I dug out to watch again last week) is essentially a potted biography of Michael up to the Bad tour in 1988. It includes a performance from Motown 25 (YouTube it and see just how remarkable he really was) which marked the moment when he went from pop star to global superstar unlike anything we had previously seen.
With the wide eyes of a 10-year-old boy I watched that video over and over and went from being someone who sort of liked Michael Jackson to an out-and-out fan.
I became an obsessive on August 16, 1992, when I stood about 15 feet from the stage at Roundhay Park, Leeds (I'd queued to get in for six hours) and watched this extraordinary human.
If you were among the 60,000 there that night, you'll remember the artistry, the performance, the music, the experience of watching a show of unbounded creativity.
Perhaps there is one thing to add: thanks for the memories.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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