Another Candle Burnt Out, Legend Never Did

In my previous article, I wrote about how I started to appreciate music at a very young age. The age where I learnt to speak. It was through my interest of music which help me learn words and often at times had me asking my parents what the singers were singing and what they had meant.

One of the earliest artistes that I got to know was none other than the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. I believe that nobody else I knew at that time was as interested in his songs as I was. The first song I heard from him and learned how to sing easily was the chorus from Bad. Other songs begun to slowly emerge in my shallow knowledge of music. These were the likes of Billie Jean, where he debuted his moonwalk. His awesome "anti gravity" lean in Smooth Criminal.

Black or White made sort of a bigger impact on me when the video showed on television. I can still remember McCauley Culkin starting the video and Michael Jackson being in many different countries doing different styles of dances and the famous face morphing scene towards the end, showing people of various ethnics.

I can still remember the first and with the best effects for a concert that I ever went to was the HIStory tour that had Kuala Lumpur as one of the destinations. It was in 1996 and I was 12 years old; Standard 6 Primary School. I went for the concert with my sister, where she also invited her friends to go along. I still remember that it was a Sunday because my sister and I would leave after church to meet her friends at Stadium Merdeka where it was held. Her friends were kind and crazy enough to camp out to be the first at the entrance of the stadium starting from 6 or 7 in the morning. We only joined them at around 1 or 2 in the afternoon bringing them food.

It was towards the opening of the gates where annoying assholes; meaning everybody behind us, were pushing us against the gates. As if killing us would make the doors open. In other lanes toward the other gates, people were falling down all over the place due to the people at the back trying to push forward. I seriously don't understand the logic until today. Being sensible we brought our own water bottles which we had to leave outside because the idiotic staffs at the gates said we were not allowed to bring plastic water bottles in because it was to prevent us from throwing it at Michael Jackson on stage. Yeah, most of us were only sitting at least 100 meters away. I am sure throwing bottles at somebody I paid money to watch was more important than making sure I don't die of dehydration.

The show was delayed so while waiting they were playing random songs through their sound system and there was one guy old white guy dancing around my side of the stadium to which caught the attention of the entire stadium and cheered at him. It drizzled a bit and I was praying like hell that it would not come to rain. Thankfully it didn't. The crowd got bored, after much chanting of wanting to see Michael Jackson, the crowd actually started doing the wave. From one end of the stadium to the other. We were equipped with our foam hand, at this point of time I realize that it could have signified Michael Jackson's right hand glove. We also had glow sticks which some us swung around on a string when we got bored that produced nice visuals. We were bored.

Of course eventually he came out and did his thing. The choreography as usual was always perfect except for one part when one of the back up dancers fell down while doing the "anti gravity" move during Smooth Criminal. Which was still entertainment. I remember my dad lending us our grandfather's binoculars to use as mentioned that we were seated far away. It was this huge relic that weighed like a brick and a half. Since it was huge, it also "zoomed in" pretty well.

All good things must come to an end. We left and made our way across the city from the stadium to Petaling Street. At night it seemed so different, I was following my sister and her friends going through alleyways as shortcut. I had not the slightest idea where we were going. All I knew at that time was to keep up with the group to rendezvous with my dad who was waiting somewhere to pick us up. That is as far as I can remember.

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The media has made a lot of people believe a lot of allegations about Michael Jackson. I still find it amusing and sometimes annoying that people can easily believe any source with conviction just because they are from the news, mostly tabloids and internet articles.

I read an article that was relayed by The Malaysian Insider this morning and gained more insight on Michael Jackson's life and also come to agree with the writer in his views that I hope would dispel people's wrong perception of him.

I also hate the fact that people sought to make profits out of his death by selling his albums and merchandise.