It’s Friday July 6, 1984 in Kansas City at the Arrowhead Stadium. The first night of the most anticipated concert of the year: The Jacksons’ Victory Tour. It will be also the first time that the 6 brothers will be performing together (Jackie was injured and did not make it to the debut concerts) but the over 2 million people who have tickets for across the 55 concerts are there to see Michael as he is dominating the charts with his album “Thriller”.
The 45,000 fans who packed the stadium on Friday night were an extraordinarily well-behaved crowd. Officials of the Jackson tour said things went so well that for subsequent concerts they were considering a reduction in Friday night’s complement of 500 private security guards.
”From a security standpoint, it was just kind of a yawner,” said Russ Cline, the local promoter coordinating the event. ”It was a very family-oriented crowd, people with kids, very well mannered. Not even one person tried to go up to the stage.”.
This was the first time I heard the name of Russ Cline.
Today, with Taylor Swift performing at the same venue this week-end, a local news crew tracked him down to ask him to compare the two concerts.
“When he went on that stage, the charisma coming back from the crowd, you could feel it,” said Cline, who promoted Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5’s Victory Tour. “It would knock you down like a tsunami of cheering. When he went on the stage, he left it all on the stage. He never came out with nothing left.”
Cline’s work with Arrowhead Stadium helped him land the “King of Pop” in KCMO for the first stop on the Victory Tour. He got to be there for Michael Jackson every step of the way.
“His manager said, ‘Michael wants to meet,’ and I said, ‘I’ll be back,'” Cline said. “It was 2:00. I said I would be back in two hours and Michael and I watched the fireworks in the Plaza together.”
So, what has changed from going to a concert in 1984 to one almost 40 years later?
“The highest-priced tickets were with tax — $30. Face value — $28. All done by mail order,” Cline said. “All these thousands of tickets were ordered and you could only order six at a time and they were filled by hand. Today, we have Ticketmaster.”
“Someone asked me the other day, will there be bigger? Probably, there is always bigger coming,” Russ Cline said.
