‘Quincy Jones Presents’…Well, he didn’t – The Review of the ‘Michael Jackson’ show.

Last night was the Quincy Jones Presents show at London’s O2 Arena. Originally billed as Quincy Jones Presents ‘Off The Wall, Thriller, BAD, three iconic albums – Back to Back’, the show was later changed after tickets had been sold to ‘Quincy Jones Presents Soundtrack to the 80s’. The promoters ignored requests for clarification or refunds insisting the show ‘hadn’t changed’, except it had. I’d liken it to booking to test drive a Ferrari, only to be presented with a Skoda and told “Well you’re still test driving a car, so what’s the problem?’.

Anyone who follows me on twitter will have seen my many attempts to get my money back for the tickets. £100 a seat does not come easily when you aren’t going to get what you paid for. 

With AXS tickets and Senbla, the promoter, flat out refusing refunds, I decided to go, have a few drinks and just bitch about it with my friends. We decided we were going to call this a ‘Michael Jackson Celebration’. Quincy continues to not mention Michael, even when promoting Michael Jackson’s albums, so we decided not to mention Quincy. Petty is as petty does!

Pulling on my Michael Jackson ICON t-shirt, I was ready to get this over with as my friends and I took to the O2 with our expectations dragging behind us. 

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Drinks in hand, we took our seats and waited to see how this would unfold.

The show opened with a self-gratifying video about how ‘incredible’ Quincy was deemed as told through some vintage footage of Oprah, when she was still mildly relevant and Bono from U2. About 2 minutes into the VT Michael Jackson appeared on screen, a clip of the explosion from the Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough Short film and the crowd gave an overwhelming cheer, although it was short-lived as we were back to another three minutes of being told how great Quincy was, courtesy of archived interviews. 

The video finally ended and the stage lit up, then the same video started again, then cut out. Pause…a second video started, this time about Thriller. The short presentation spoke of how Michael and Quincy were equally responsible for the album’s success (yes, because Quincy danced through all those short-films too *rolls eyes*) and how the album’s most recognised and celebrated song was…’Thriller’. Myself and almost everyone around me shouted ‘Billie Jean!!!!’.

Finally it was show time, on came the blue lights…directed squarely at the audience, meaning we couldn’t see the huge orchestra on stage. So we’d paid to see a live orchestra, who were there, we just couldn’t see them. 

The first performance was Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, which one of the chorus screamed through with failed falsetto and terrible screeching.

Thankfully, it ended after what felt like forever (one forgets how long Michael used to make his songs that HE wrote) and Beverley Knight was introduced to the stage to perform ‘Rock With You’. In true Beverley fashion, she delivered an incredible performance. The soul in her voice generated the perfect rendition, a true tribute to Michael. 

After the first two songs, I started to think that maybe we were going to get the show that was originally advertised – The three iconic albums, back to back. I readied myself for Workin’ Day and Night…Sadly, it didn’t come. What came instead was just a mess. 

Quincy-managed artist Jonah Nilsson took to the stage to perform ‘Off The Wall’…seconds into the first few lines, he begins mumbling and humming…he didn’t know the words! And this carried on throughout the rest of the song. For a man that has spent the later half of his career trying to insist that he was as integral to the albums as Michael Jackson, you’d think he’d ensure his own protege (Nilsson) would bother to learn the lyrics. 

Next we jump to She’s Out of My Life as performed by ‘Daley’, which was well performed. Then it’s time for the Thriller album and Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ kicks in. At this point it’s evident that we will not hear the albums in full as originally promised. They then just begin hammering through the songs at a rapid pace. Conductor Jules Buckley introduces the cycles of performers, who appear, sing, then leave the stage. With the tracklist for Thriller being performed in the wrong order, it was anybody’s guess which song we’d hear next, Michael Jackson or otherwise. 

With only eight of the nine tracks from Thriller performed, many in a shortened version (Beat It was around 2 minutes, with no vocalist). It’s on to the BAD Album, beginning with The Way You Make Me Feel followed by Liberian Girl, Another Part Of Me, I Just Can’t Stop Lovin’ You, before finishing with James Morrison appearing to perform Man In The Mirror. Morrison’s performance lacked any emotion as he stood reading the lyrics from the music stand, before finishing without the iconic final line ‘Make That Change’. He then walked off as unbothered as he performed. 

The Michael-slog of the show was now over. They managed to perform 17 Michael Jackson songs without mentioning his name in between them, once. Performers didn’t speak to the audience and there was no acknowledgement that in two days time we’d be marking 10 years of the loss of the man we were all there for. It was completely disrespectful. 

Singer Shaun Escoffery was welcomed to the stage to perform three other, non-Jackson, Quincy produced tracks. For such a talented singer it was unfortunate that he wasn’t asked to save us from one of the others, who hadn’t bothered to learn the lyrics. 

Finally, Buckley said “Thank You and Goodnight” and walked off stage. With no sign of Quincy, the audience began to boo. Before too long Buckley returned and asked the audience to welcome Quincy to the stage. 

That was my cue to leave. Quincy has spent years using countless opportunities to insult Michael. From signing over his face when giving autographs, to stating that Michael’s assertion that he had vitiligo was ‘bullshit’, I was not going to applaud nor was I going to offer any kind of respect to a man who, by what he called Michael, is himself ‘Machiavellian’.

So what went wrong with this show? 

Aside from the fact that promoters have been shocking in their non-communication to the consumers of tickets and ahead of last night’s show, the owner of the promotion company – Ollie Rosenblatt, put his twitter to private – perhaps in anticipation of the fall out from the shoddy production he pulled to the stage kicking and screaming, there were many other things wrong with last nights’ ‘karaoke’.

Firstly, it was not what was advertised originally, or what was advertised after they changed the concept of the show. It was not Off The Wall, Thriller, BAD back to back, nor was it a Soundtrack to the 80s featuring lots of songs by other artists. It didn’t feature Quincy introducing the show and each act as billed and it didn’t feature the documentaries of the making of each of the three albums. There was no structure, no flow and most of the people on stage seemed genuinely confused by their own presence.

The lighting was terrible, there were a number of technical glitches and absolutely no personality. There were rows upon rows (and even entire blocks) of empty seats and if you were unfortunate enough to have purchased a front row ticket, the barriers were so high, you’d have had to stand for the duration to see over them. 

Jonah Nilsson was given Off The Wall, Billie Jean and Thriller and didn’t appear to know the full lyrics to any of them. Completely unacceptable. 

Simply put, it was a hot mess! 

What went well?

Beverley Knight and Shelea were the stand out performers of the night – Both are powerhouse vocalists and really didn’t disappoint. To hear Liberian Girl live with an Orchestra was the one highlight for me, I truly adore that song and I think the arrangement was beautiful, although I’m not surprised as it was written and composed by Michael Jackson. 

Daley was also good, if a little obscure and over-used. It would have been preferable to see more, black soul/funk artists invited to pay tribute to a black legend instead.

As it was almost impossible to see anything due to the lighting and with some not-so-great renditions, I resorted to just singing at the top of my lungs, imagining Michael on that stage and taking in the instrumentation of his compositions. It’s like finding £50 on the floor and then getting mugged straight after – Utterly confusing. 

I’m sure if you’re reading this, you may be wondering why I bought tickets in the first place. The truth is that I wanted to hear the BAD album performed by an orchestra – Liberian Girl, Smooth Criminal, Speed Demon, Leave Me Alone etc.- That was a dream for me to hear live, and so I saw this as an opportunity to hear that, as that’s what was advertised. Sadly, I was wrong to think that honesty and Michael would be at the heart of this show – they were not. 

That said, the audience were the best performers of the night. They danced, they sang, they cheered Michael and they showed that Michael Jackson will not be muted and he and his work will be celebrated for generations to come! Anyone looking for hate against Michael would not find it in that crowd.

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As I learned after, Quincy had taken to the stage and mentioned that he couldn’t ‘distance himself from Michael’ and that he understood fans were disappointed they replaced a few songs with other 80s tracks – 13 songs were not played Quincy, that’s far more than a few. 

Apparently he told the audience, there were “6,000 people in the audience”. With only the lower half of the arena open and widely vacant, it’s worth reminding him that the man he loves to diminish, sold out that same venue, in its entirety, 50 times!!!! – That’s 1 million people.

Pez Jax
Follow Pez on twitter – @PezJax