me a mj fan..nah!...never. way too much of a snob to even listen to his music considering how big it was then. my cousin, pat introduced me to his music way back then even before i'd even heard of floyd n tull. but it was pop...cheee!...turned my nose up n walked away...until while at tv18, i couldn't resist any longer n joined the gang going for the concert. mj live in bombay! is really going to come? will thakeray "allow" him to perform? that too at the andheri sports complex...uncertainty prevailed...but then he came...and how!!...we had tickets way back from the stage...but that rocket capsule entry catapulted us over barricades and to the front...a few hundred feet away from the biggest stage i'd ever seen, speakers stacked higher than ever before and so many moving lights, etc that it filled four planes!!...
a hundred thousand watts of music...my heart hasn't pounded like that since...nothing after has come remotely close to the scale of that performance that night of november first...two hours non-stop back to back he moonwalked from one side of the enormous stage to the other...such energy...appearing disappearing magically just like he did in his videos, save that this was for real!...the stage and lighting effects were stupendous like at the end of thriller when this white sheet rolled down out of nowhere n covered the entire front of stage n the song ended with men falling in silhouette to a staccato of ear-piercing gun fire...
the concert ended as suddenly as it begun leaving us riveted to the ground mouth open unblinking...we did not know what hit us. i remember walking up to the stage which was some 2storeys high in a daze...shaking hands with the guys who'd worked backstage thanking them...
the next morning, in office, a colleague lay sprawled on the floor still in a trance...another walked in...no, you cannot share this space sonia, you weren't there last night...
like a shy pre-pubescent boy i trolled the music shops for HIStory, coyly asking, "would you by any chance have any mj cds?"...of course they were sold out!...three days later in sheer desperation, i send an sos to all my friends to puleeze pick up the cd for me...no luck...desperation to dismay...when hemu bails me out...he found one last album...blew the house down finally!
3 comments:
Shine on you crazy diamond Pink Floyd sang about Sid Barret...I guess the same could be said of MJ...he will shine on...and his spirit will live on...in his music and in the hearts of all his fans...and you can count me as one...
Like you, Aj, I too was blown away by MJ's concert all those many years ago when I took a group of teenagers to see him at Wembley stadium. I spoke to one of them, who's now 27, yesterday and he echoed my sentiments...the concert in 1998 was 'the most exciting experience of (my) life, even better than watching Arsenal in a Cup Final!'...and for him, an avid Arsenal supporter, to say that IS praise indeed!...hope Michael is entertaining them up there...
o patrick, i should say thanks to you! :)
...you're very welcome, my Aj. I am really happy that I have contributed something to making chaps like you and Sheni appreciate the good things in life...like good music...take care...
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