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Kansas City, Missouri (Victory Tour)
Date of the “Dr. H. Claude Hudson Medal of Freedom Award” acceptance confirmed in “UPI” (“Friday [July 6, 1984]”)
“People” magazine (July 23, 1984)
Four hours before show time on Friday, the six musicians in the Jacksons’ tour band were pacing their rooms on the fifth floor of Kansas City’s Alameda Plaza Hotel. Studio and live-show veterans all, they had rehearsed the 110-minute multimedia extravaganza for more than three months (most recently during a sound check that had lasted until 4 that morning), but all the preparation couldn’t quiet their opening-night jitters. While they waited to board the unmarked vans that would transport them and the Jackson brothers to jam-packed Arrowhead Stadium, they smoked too much, consulted their watches and horsed around. “My stomach’s got a butterfly in it the size of [sci-fi monster] Rodan,” laughed keyboardist Pat Leonard, 28.
The Jacksons’ sixth-floor enclave—where “Do Not Disturb” signs hung on the doorknobs—was absolutely still. Inside Michael’s suite the Man himself was running through vocal exercises. In a room nearby, brothers Randy, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon—minus Jackie, sidelined by a knee operation—were rehearsing harmonies and bracing themselves for the start of the $50 million, 13-plus city tour that could mark the farewell of the family act that debuted in 1965. Little brother Randy was psyching himself up, trying to sear away the pain in his left leg caused by an auto accident in 1980. “You know how a boxer feels before a fight?” he asked. “That’s how I feel. I want to knock them out.”
“Pain pills,” added Marlon. “We tell the audience to bring pain pills when they come to see us. We want to be so good, so strong, it makes ’em hurt.”
Gluttons for the sort of punishment Marlon had in mind found it—and then some. The Jacksons packed Arrowhead Stadium for three nights running, and the chief complaints among the 135,000 who witnessed their spectacle was that the brothers hadn’t given them enough licks. “I’d like to see twice as much,” said 19-year-old Donna Slonaker, from Lydon, Kans., “but I’d pay $30 to see it again.”
After months of controversy, suspense and confusion, the Jackson Victory tour—named in honor of the newly released album that has already sold nearly two and a half million copies—was finally on the road, bound next for Dallas, Jacksonville, New York and points beyond. All told the five Jacksons expected to play 47 dates in 16 weeks to the tune of $50-$60 million in ticket sales—and a possible $8 million profit.
When they weren’t fielding criticism about the tour’s exorbitant mail-order ticket policy (which has been changed) and promoter Chuck Sullivan’s demands for reduced hotel rates and free newspaper ad space, the close-knit clan had spent its pre-V-Days polishing the act. There was none of the ambitious partying that once characterized rock tours: Meals prepared by the Jacksons’ two cooks were taken in the privacy of the brothers’ rooms. Idle moments were devoted to playing riffs and (in Michael’s case) autographing photos. The Gloved One slipped out of the hotel (via an elevator leading to the garage) to see Ghostbusters and to announce publicly that he would donate his share of the concert proceeds to charity. On [July 6] Friday afternoon he accompanied Tito to a local hotel to accept an NAACP award. After that outing, the Jacksons remained en famine until Friday evening, when dressers came to help them into the opening-number costumes. At 9 p.m. the five hopped into a van for the 30-minute ride to the stadium, where the frenzy was cresting.
The audience that awaited them was a Whitman’s sampler of Middle America. They arrived in muddy pickups and customized vans and sporty coupes—not just squealing adolescents in T-shirts emblazoned with Michael’s likeness, but old people as well, and mothers with toddlers, and a rainbow coalition that only these Jacksons could bring together: young people with their parents. Said Andrea Gilliland of Stanley, Kans., speaking from the promontory of 30, “You’re never too old to see Michael Jackson. It’s the best concert I’ve ever been to, and I’ve seen the Stones and the Beatles. But why didn’t he play ‘Thriller’?”
Well probably because he wanted to make his fans privy to the movie that screens daily behind his eyes. The script, for which the androgynous idol did the storyboards, is Arthurian legend as if spruced up by Star Wars creator George Lucas, with an assist from Muppeteer Jim Henson. At the show’s opening, towering animated monsters thunder onstage, to be challenged by Randy (Michael’s creative heir apparent), done up in glittering armor. Randy pulls a laser-lit sword out of a prop rock, slays one of the creatures and commands, “Behold the Kingdom.” Belching smoke shot with green and blue and purple, the set elevates and out come the brothers, who make a dramatic descent down a set of newly revealed stairs into a deafening wave of screams.
Although Jermaine sings lead on three of his own songs and the other Jacksons have their moments, Michael seizes center stage and holds it. Resplendent in a silver sequined jacket with a red-and-white sash (one of his four costumes), he leaps into the air, freezes, whips about, drops to one knee and curls into a fetal position. He’s arrogant on Beat It, tender on She’s Out of My Life, triumphant on Billie Jean. His Heartbreak Hotel is so full of pops, stops, bangs and breaks that by the time he’s done the crowd is inspecting its arms for imaginary bruises.
The Jackson tour is a spectacular production, and it comes with a spectacular price tag: in the neighborhood, says promoter Sullivan, of $15 million. The 375-ton stage, itself a costly proposition, is five stories high, 160 feet wide and 90 feet deep. It has seven computers and five elevators that require 22 men to operate. What with the 120 speakers, 2,200 lights, and the trestles and cables, the Jacksons’ baggage adds up to some 65,000 pounds. The crew numbers 1,500, including those recruited locally to stage the finale—a sky-splitting fireworks show.
At Arrowhead more than 170 officers from area police departments kept the peace. They were abetted by 375 security guards hired by the stadium management, nine paramedics, two doctors and six nurses. A helicopter and four ambulances idled at the ready, and the crowd was frisked at the entrances by nearly 70 hand-held metal detectors. In fact security was so tight that Sullivan himself was denied backstage access on opening night when he forgot his pass.
Happily, the Jackson tour brain trust—which had prepared for a disaster on the order of the Stones’ 1969 concert at Altamont—was confronted instead with the docility of a church social, a decorous reflection of Michael Jackson himself. Only nine arrests were made at Arrowhead, says a stadium spokesman, most for disorderly conduct. The only real high jinks came from Don King, the fright-wigged boxing czar and erstwhile tour promoter. Supplanted by Sullivan in June he nevertheless continued to hold forth as if he were running the show. “We’re traveling virgin territory,” he announced as he held court in the Alameda Plaza lobby. “There are no boundaries. If Michael had time to work as hard as Wayne Newton, 150 dates a year, he could make $200 million. But who wants to work that hard?”
The Jacksons worked hard enough as it was. But the threat of exhaustion seemed irrelevant to Randy, who elatedly hopped about on hotel chairs Saturday as he relived the electrifying opener. “It was great to be back up there,” he said. “My leg was killing me, but I know it was the best opening show we’ve ever done. Afterward I couldn’t sleep. My mother called just to say ‘I love you and thought you were good.’ My mother’s all about love.”
It was Michael Jackson's kind of crowd — mothers with toddlers, teen-agers with parents, blacks and whites together, low-key, sober and friendly. They had paid dearly for tickets and now here they were, filing quietly into Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium last Friday night for the debut of the most widely touted and hotly debated tour of recent years—Michael Jackson's "Victory" tour, his last with his brothers, the Jacksons. As the sun set and the lights dimmed, excitement mounted. When the Jacksons finally appeared, rising on a waffle grid of blinding lights, Michael bestowed a benediction with a jab of his trademark sequined glove, and the crowd of 45,000 roared its appreciation. Racing at full throttle, the band launched into "Wanna Be Startin' Something?"—and Michael leaped into nearly two hours of the giddy showmanship that has made him perhaps the most popular musician in the world today.
"Record Mirror" newspaper (July 21, 1984)
"Can I come down there?", says Michael Jackson, looking out into the Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium. Forty five thousand voices answer in the affirmative and Jackson allows himself a grin before his brothers move into a charged up version of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'".
Lasers scan the crowd, huge banks of lighting pick the band out of the Missouri night, and Michael shakes that body and those legs in a magical blur of spinning, body popping, and breathtaking spins.
After all those months of confusion, doubt, and controversy, the show is on the road...
Why it had to happen in Kansas, nobody knows. But happen it did. After bitter wrangling, one change of promoter and national controversy over ticket allocation, the Jacksons finally shifted their showbiz razzmatazz, their enormous stage set and the whole caboodle of security men, financial advisors, and hangers on to the middle of Missouri. And the world's press followed them there.
It wasn't like the opening of a rock tour, but more like the Olympics, a Presidential convention, or a Royal visit.
...Meanwhile in the Arrowhead Stadium, the final preparations are getting underway for tomorrow night's show. The stage set takes three days to erect and one day to dismantle. Each stadium the Jacksons play has to be hired for a week.
The set is Michael's design, an ambitious 90 by 150 foot stage. A massive superstructure is needed to support the 12,000 volt electrical system and the one hundred speakers are split between two 70 foot towers. The Hope 'n Anchor, it ain't.
Friday, 6th July
It really doesn't feel like you're approaching the most important rock gig of the year. Far too orderly. Small family groups rolling into the car park, young married couples walking hand in hand up to the entrance.
...Hanging around one of the entrances is the first lookalike I spot. He's executing a perfect sequence from the "Thriller" dance routine. "Me and Michael Jackson have a lot in common", he says, holding a Jehovah's Witness book.
To get into the stadium, all 45,000 of us pass through a metal detector. Cameras are confiscated, even innocuous ballpoint pens are taken away for fear that they might conceal a small camera or tape recorder...
Merchandising is only sold inside the stadium; posters, badges, Michael Jackson glasses... None of it is enough, by now the audience only want one thing...
The Show
The opening couldn't have been more dramatic. Disney, Star Wars, and War of the Worlds thrown into one. Huge monsters are rolling across the stage, frantic lasers are beating down on the audience, sound effects are crashing into the night.
THen someone appears. It's Randy dressed as a knight in shining armor, he stalks the vast stage, and then a huge rock rolls into view. Stuck into the rock is a sword. Remember those history lessons?... Yup, it's the old King Arthur and the sword legend. Randy plucks the sword from the stone, fights off the monsters, and pulls off his mask.
From behind him, the band rise on a giant platform, and are then lowered to the stage. Michael takes control and it's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin". Boy, and they are.
...It might have been billed as a Jacksons show, but there was only one star. And that was clear from the start. Through a 17 song set, Michael dominates all, dancin' and singin' his way into the very image of showbiz perfection.
When Michael leaves the set—for three rather weak Jermaine songs—the show dies; fans get up to buy Cokes, go to the toilet, or just wait for his return.
He's on great form; the vocals are practically note perfect copies of the records, and the dancing just never misses a step.
Audience participation is minimal. During "Billie Jean", Michael throws his hat into the audience... it's ripped to pieces. But he hardly talks.
If it's Michael's show, then the stage effects are a pretty close second. Taking their inspiration from film directors like Spielberg, the Jacksons have concocted a futuristic fantasy that simply wipes out any other rock pyrotechnics you might have seen. At one stage in the set, Michael is pursued across the stage by two giant pincers, and in the middle of the pincers is a giant eye that winks mischievously at the audience.
Before the beginning of "Beat It", Michael disappears on a coffin-like structure only to reappear on top of the piano. Added to the futuristic lighting and sound effects is a sense of magic and the supernatural.
Nothing supernatural about the song set though. No tracks from the "Victory" album—the band didn't have enough time to rehearse them—and no "Thriller" not because of any Jehovah's Witness complaints, but because Michael wanted Vincent Price up on stage with him, wanted to do it right.
Still, what you do get is a show that runs through the whole gamut of Jacksons material from the classic popcorn funk of "I Want You Back", and acapella version of "I'll Be There" to the ferocious rock driven "Beat It". It was loud, brash, gaudy, and worth every penny...
When the band leave the stage, the lights go off, and there's a huge fireworks display. Somewhere in the confusion, the Jacksons are making it back to their hotel...
The Circus Pauses...
Show over, it's time for post mortems. At one and a half hours, is the show too short? Is the lack of material from "Victory" a swizz and, well, what did the Jacksons think of it all...? "They felt very, very nervous", said an aide. "They thought it went off quite successfully, and there were lots of problems to be ironed out, but they should come right by the end of the tour."
The next night it all started again. Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson was in the crowd, the lasers were doing their business, and Michael was dancing those magical steps. Just the second night of a tour that will run and run. See ya 50 million dollars and two and a half million people later…
The opening concert of the Jackson brothers' 'Victory Tour' included the fanfare one might expect—lazer lights, smoke, fireworks and a little theater. But the real surprise was the show's length.
'People came from all over the world—just to see them peform for an hour. It's not worth $30,' Rodney Cole, 23, said after Michael Jackson and his brothers kicked off their 42-show tour Friday night at Arrowhead Stadium before 45,000 people.
'It was a good show and everything, but I don't think it was worth the hassle,' the Kansas City fan said. 'Nobody can dance or sing like Michael, but it was just a quick gimmick.'
Chuck Sullivan, who handled promotions for the tour, defended the length of the 100-minute concert, saying the group played 'a very reasonable period of time.'
The show opened—50 minutes after its scheduled 9 p.m. CDT start - with a 'kreeton' King Arthur-period scene with costumed creatures, an armored swordsman, eerie music and narration. After the theatrics, a platform originating at ground level lifted the group onto the stage, prompting screams from the crowd.
Later in the show, when Michael Jackson said, 'We're going to give you the old stuff,' the crowd rose to its feet and cheered. The Jackson brothers wove 'I Want You Back,' 'The Love You Save' and 'I'll Be There'—each a Motown label smash hit—into a medley to highlight the 18-song show.
The singers also received an ovation for 'Billy Jean' and closed the show with 'Shake Your Body.' The group then was whisked off to waiting vans under the cover of fireworks, leaving the crowd without so much as a bow.
Absent from the program was Jackson's 'Thriller' and no selections from the group's latest album—'Victory'—were performed.
Howard Bloom, whose New York firm is handling tour public relations, said he did not know why the smash hit was excluded but 'I'll try and find that out.' He said cuts from the 'Victory' album were omitted because the Jacksons think 'an audience gets bored listening to music they're not familiar with.'
After the Jacksons' performances tonight and Sunday night at the home arena of the Kansas City Chiefs, the tour shifts to Dallas, then to Jacksonville, Fla., and 10 more cities. Promoters said the shows will remain basically the same, including the length, throughout the tour.
Michael Jackson made at least four costume changes, but was without his sunglasses during the show and his trademark sequined glove was apparent for only about the first minute.
The crowd roared whenever Michael did his 'skate dancing' or held out his hand to the audience. And they cheered when the brothers danced in unison.
The spectators were well-behaved throughout the concert and police reported no 'significant arrests or incidents.' A total of 500 police and security officers were on hand during the concert.
A group of security guards who whisked hand-held metal detectors around each person entering the stadium, where cameras and tape recorders were banned by concert promoters.
The crowd was an interesting mix—families with members of all ages mingled with people dressed to look like Jackson—and white sequined gloves were in abundance.
The Jacksons were accompanied by 25 semi-trucks of equipment, 100 technicians and a five-story, 159-foot-wide and 750,000-pound stage that stretched from the 25-yard line to the end zone.
Michael and Tito Jackson late Friday accepted the NAACP's 1984 Dr. H. Claude Hudson Medal of Freedom Award on behalf of the family.
“Bam” magazine (November 30, 1984)
As fans filed into The Jacksons' first, Victory Tour concert in Kansas City, two blond and blue-eyed 15-year-old girls— every inch covered with Michael Jackson hats, purses. buttons, pants, shoes, socks, gloves, bumper stickers, T-shirts, probably underwear— plead with Michael Jackson's attorney to deliver a stuffed likeness of their 26-year-old heartthrob. Lawyer Gary Stiffelman promises to take it, mash note attached, to Michael.
"OMYGOSHHHHHHH!! I love Michael soo much!!! I can't believe it! He's going to give it to Michael!”, they yelp, pawing each other like puppies. After the concert, the doll sits in Michael's hotel room. The girls' fantasies were fulfilled. They'd connected with Michael Jackson.
When a television reporter caught up with the usher on duty when Michael Jackson and entourage snuck into a local Kansas City movie theater to see "Ghostbusters" between local "Victory" tour activity, the reporter wasn't interested in how many people came with Jackson or whether he even liked the movie. He wanted to know Michael had to eat. The answer: popcorn. Unbuttered.
Gerri Hershey, "Rolling Stone" (1986)
Before the first Victory show, I wandered around the shrouded, top-secret stage in Kansas City, with hordes of other media prospectors, panning for factoid McNuggets that might explain MJ's spooky intuition and near-molecular transformation. I saw Tito in his pj's, saw Marlon in a dragon-trimmed dressing gown, and watched Frank Dileo wrestle a styrofoam cooler of Mike's favorite ice creams into a hotel elevator.
Bill Bennett, friend of manager Frank Dileo, “Nashville Scene” (November 22, 2007) (archived)
Bill Bennett, head of Warner Nashville and a friend of Dileo’s since the late ’70s, has one particularly fond memory of the Victory Tour’s opening night. “We were in Kansas City,” Bennett says, “and I said, ‘Frank, I’m going to Arthur Bryant’s,’ which is one of the most famous homes of barbecue in the world. And Michael looked at me and said, ‘Oh no, Bill, Frank’s a vegetarian now.’ So Frank goes, ‘Yeah, Michael’s looking out for my health.’ As he walks me out the door, he gives me a key and says, ‘Meet me in this room when you get back, and bring some barbecue.’ ”
“Michael used to moderate everything I ate,” Dileo says. “It’s amazing—when I started with him I was 210; when I ended with him, I was 265. So that’s what eating healthy does to you.”