Thriller Live! @ New Theatre, Oxford, Thursday September 20
When I was a kid I used to try and moonwalk. I could never get it right and would usually back myself into an expensive vase and then try and blame it on the dog when it smashed.
And then back in the early Nineties I saw the man himself Michael Jackson doing the ‘moonwalk’ live on stage and I was blown away.
When I say ‘saw’ I mean as a distant speck as I tried to catch a glimpse of him on a stage far, far away when I saw him on the ‘Dangerous’ tour in Cardiff. (He was supported by Kris Kross - remember them?)
The show was amazing though. A proper spectacular from easily the best performer in the world at the time. I never saw him live again although I was one of the ones repeatedly trying to get tickets to his residency at the Millennium Dome in 2009 which sadly never came to pass.
So we come to Thriller Live! The show is currently touring the UK having had an extended West End run. And what a show it is.
A celebration of everything that made Michael Jackson great from the out of this world dancing to the songs that still reverberate today. There are five main vocalists joined by a host of amazing dancers and they will all really blow you away. Act One opens with a bang with a bit of History, Don’t Stop and Billie Jean and then we settle in for a journey through MJ’s early stuff from The Jacksons to Off The Wall (with a few journeys back to the modern day with Remember the Time and Dangerous.
If you were expecting a quiet affair and for you to not join in you would have another thing coming as the performers made sure that the whole auditorium were up on their feet and joining in the fun.
Act Two immediately launches into his later albums with Bad and the eponymous Thriller taking center stage. And it was bloody brilliant.
By the end of the show you are elated and walk out with so many good songs in your head that you expect every paving stone to suddenly light up with every step.
This is a great show and is the closest thing to going to see Michael Jackson today. And that is not ‘Bad’.