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"Dangerous World Tour" (Undated Stories)

Greg Phillinganes, keyboardist, "Sonics with Guitarist" magazine (November/December 1993)

When you're trying to get on the

inside of one of the biggest tours

of the decade, it seems it's not who you

know, but who you really are that counts.

At least, that's the case with the mysterious, secretive, super hi-tech and mega-everything world of Michael Jackson's Dangerous Tour. Our port of entry is supposed to be musical director, Greg Phillinganes who got his big break playing keys for Stevie Wonder. But getting through to him is not going to be an easy thing...

A different telecom operator asks if I'd like to speak to (honest to God!) Bruce Wayne.

"Why not", I say, "it might be more interesting."

"Well", says she, a shade irritated, "is that the person you want?"

"It could be."

It was.

...It was Greg Phillinganes, keyboardist extraordinaire and sidekick of the world's biggest stars, is

Bruce Wayne of Room 327 in a major international

hotel. “It's just necessary, that's all”, he replies when I ask what this is all about and if he does a few odd jobs for the KGB in between gigs. He reveals nothing and we move on to more musical matters...

The show, at the time of this interview, had been on the road for several months. The scale of it is simply mind-bogglingly huge in every way--1,000 tons of equipment are transported on 65 big trucks, 235 people travel in 13 custom tour buses, it takes 18 hours to set up the lights, sound, and special effects, and three days for crews working round the clock to break down the stage. But, while they're doing that, an exact replica is being set up at the next venue. Then, 166 speakers, hundreds of lights, and 10 miles of electrical cable are powered by two generators with enough power to light up a small town.

The concept? To bring the audience into a multi-layered "Dangerous" album cover scenario. This is achieved on a stage which is 260 feet wide and 90 feet deep with four smaller stages linked together. How it is achieved in terms of special effects remains confidential as do many other burning issues like... what sequencer does Michael use? Bruce Wayne doesn't know and doesn't give a damn.

Getting back to the stage which, for some reason, is not classified information... While it was being built in England, six representatives of the design company staging rehearsals in Los Angeles and transmitted Michael's requirements back by computer graphic faxes. This way, as the choreography developed, the stage (a continent away) grew with it. It's awesome to think about the impact one imperfectly executed dance step might have had on legions of hammering, nailing, welding craftspeople! Construction of the stage requires 24 crew and 40 local stagehands hired in each city.

According to Phillinganes, the most spectacular moment in the show is Michael's exit... via Jetpac. The pyrotechnics which precede this act sound pretty wild too. Four cameras are used during the show to capture Michael's every step and those images are projected on two "Jumbotron" screens — a new technology which can project strong, clear images even in bright sunlight. Each screen is 21 ft tall and weighs six metric tons. Another two screens are used for other projections. It takes 225,000 watts to operate the video system plus a video director and 14 staff. There are lots of lights — 103 Varilites, three lasers (two Krypton and one Argon-based laser) — and a zillion effects which are mega top secret. We do know, however, that during each show, 230 shots (or three pounds of explosives) are used and nobody dies.

Given that most musicians can have at least 10 catastrophic accidents in a small Midi studio or on a (comparatively) naked stage, there must be a lot of things that can go wrong in this show?

“Nothing has”, says Greg. “Nothing technical, I mean. We've had a few people getting injured, broken feet, that kind of thing."

THE SHOW: The show rehearsed for nearly three months before the tour kicked off in Germany in June. Grey says his role, as musical director, mostly entails making sure the band is flexible enough musically to follow the choreography.

Do you mean live? Aren't the routines set? "Yes, they are, but there's still room for spontaneity. In some shows, he (Jackson) has that extra spark and it blows everyone away, It lifts the whole performance."

How have the songs had to adapt to the performance?

“You'd still recognize them, they haven't been drastically changed, just stretched in places. Michael likes the songs to sound familiar, but he's open to ideas too. He's not a tyrant. We're doing quite a range of songs, 17 in total, from all his solo albums. The highlights of the show for me are "Smooth Criminal", "Workin' Day and Night", and "Jam". I particularly like playing these songs."

Why?

“The feel.”

The sound system was designed by Clair Bros and is engineered by Kevin Eison (who has produced albums for Journey, Europe, and Mr. Big and mixed live for them and others), and is run by an eight-person crew. There's a 115-channel desk, 180 speaker cabinets, and the system provides approximately 240,000 watts of power.

The actual band is quite modest--a mere seven-piece plus three backup singers (see separate box for who they are and what they play). Keyboard duties are shared by Phillinganes and Brad Buxer. How does the dual keyboard system work in terms of gear and who plays what?

“Well, I divide who plays what and usually it's a case of anything I can't play, Brad gets to do. I play all the lead piano parts and the rest we share. No, not acoustic piano! It's a mixture of synth pianos, mostly Korg, and it sounds quite good. We both use Yamaha KX88 controllers and Brad has five other sound sources, mostly Akai, I forget what exactly. I use a Korg M1, O1W ProX and a D50 plus a rack of stuff including a D550, but mostly Korg.

“Our drummer loads and fires the samples — you know, the Vincent Price laugh ("Thriller"), panther growls, breaking glass, the gong (on "Beat It") — and operates the sequencer. Everything is played live (to a click track) though we do use some sequenced percussion occasionally.

“We send two stereo feeds of the keys to front-of-house. That's it, pretty simple.”

You have difficulty itemizing the gear you've got in your rack, but you have no trouble remembering the old synths you have at home (including a Roland JP8, vintage MiniMoog, Yamaha TX816.)

“Yeah... I don’t like programming and technology makes my brain fry. I have a basic knowledge, but you can get lost in all that stuff and forget how to play.

I get other people to do programming for me.”

Is Michael techno shy too?

“He has a home studio and he writes his songs there, though he gets people to do programming for him. He likes to get musicians in to thrash ideas out. He usually starts with a drum pattern and then works on the vocal. The first time I went there, he was working on "Billie Jean" — it sounded pretty much then like it did on the record.”

...What do you like most about working with Michael?

“I like it when we get to go to an amusement park and they shut the whole thing down for us” This is not crazy, this is Bruce Wayne on tour.

Ricky Lawson, drummer, “Rhythm” magazine (July 2010)

According to Ricky, the rehearsal process was not for the faint of heart.

"Back in the 'Bad' and 'Dangerous' days, Michael was real hungry, so he could never rehearse enough. We would do three shows a day, with the lights, the pyros, wardrobe, because he wanted to make sure that everything worked and nobody got hurt", he says. "We would rehearse seven hours a day and then you had technical rehearsals, because you have to program all that stuff was necessary to play those songs. The rehearsals were harder than the gig. They pay you half of the gig salary, but you work harder. There were pretty intense rehearsals, because there were so many people involved in the different aspects of the rehearsals, lights, sound, staging, being in the right spot so you don't fall in a hole, making sure you don't get blown up by some pyro, because you're standing in the wrong spot. So, the rehearsals were pretty intense. I enjoyed it because it's good work, but you got home, by the time you get home, you've got another world you've got to deal with. Taking kids to school in the morning, homework, paying your bills, all that, and then you've got to start all over again."

A key to live performance was replicating the drum sounds from the original studio recordings. Michael was able to access the master tapes, so the musicians had direct access to the source material.

"I had a rack full of samplers made by Akai and what would happen is that we would sample the original sounds and I would play them from either an acoustic drum with a trigger or a pad", says Ricky.

In the live situation, Michael Jackson "wasn't a face-to-face kind of a guy", but didn't need to be, because, says Ricky, "he had one of the best keyboard players on the planet, Greg Phillinganes. Greg knew the music better than they did. We knew what time it was."

Ricky says the music itself was, "not that elaborate, but to see Michael in front of you, it would mess you up. A lot of times I'd be watching him and I'm supposed to be playing. He did such a phenomenal job."

Ricky's touring kit was a Remo and despite the prevalence of triggers and samples, for certain tracks, he would just be playing the acoustic drums. "Human Nature" would be the real drum set, all of the old Jackson 5 stuff would be the real drum set, 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', I figure a good half of the show was real drums, then the other half was triggers and things like that. 'Thriller' was real drums. That was one of my favorite tunes to play, that, and 'Rock With You'."

Kinnie Gibson, rocket belt stuntman, “KDAF” (July 7, 2009) (mirror) (archived mirror)

Professional stuntman Kinnie Gibson is today preparing for his next adventure, but it is one that happened 16 years ago that still stands out. A 1993 phone call from Michael Jackson's manager saying The King of Pop wanted what's called a rocket belt in his upcoming tour.

Kinnie Gibson says, "At that time, I was the only person who had a rocket belt. We were the only rocket belt company in the world...There wasn't anybody else to call."

Gibson and his rocket belt joined Jackson's Dangerous tour for 43 shows. It became signature finale. He says, "The fans loved it. They just went absolutely crazy." The launches also became the subject of widespread speculation, which Gibson's wife, Sheri, saw firsthand. She says, "The papers were always wondering where did he go, where did he fly to? Where did he land? And how did he get out there? If it wasn't him on the machine who was it?"

Over the years, Kinnie Gibson has been asked the question too many times to count. I, of course, had to ask one more time, "Was it you flying with the rocket belt or was it..." Gibson didn't let me get far. He smiled and finished my question. "Was it me or was it Michael? You know I think it would be good to just leave that as a mystery." Gibson says that's how Michael Jackson would have wanted it.

During the four months Gibson toured with Jackson, he says he was consistently wowed by the performer and the person. He remembers a genuine man who was kind to his children and others. All his actions contradictory to criminal allegations.

Kinnie Gibson says, "Everything that I saw Michael do was very good. He, on his days off when we were in all these different cities, he would go to orphanages and visit with kids and say hi to them and sign autographs. He just really had a big heart for kids."

Gotham Chopra, friend, “Beliefnet” (June 2010) (archived)

I was a junior in highschool when my friend Michael Jackson asked me to go on tour with him. He was spending the summer in Europe staging the largest ever (at the time) rock tour for his latest album DANGEROUS. I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go. We’d known Michael for a few years by then and grown quite close. He’d even come and stayed at our house in suburban Boston for a few days. Who could forget the time he clumsily tried to make his bed in the guestroom in the morning in an effort to impress my mother so he might be invited back? Or the ill-fated breakfast he tried to cook for my sister and I that we forced down our throats with strained smiles as he carefully watched us? Aside from being the biggest celebrity on the planet, he seemed like a pretty good guy so eventually my parents relented and let me go.

To describe it in one word: impossibly awesome (because one word is not nearly enough). To be seventeen and the sidekick of the greatest rockstar the world had ever known was indescribable. Paris, Rome, London, Munich, Athens and more. Every city we went to essentially shut down to host him. Where Michael roamed, a million cameras followed. A buzz reverberated and the bright light of fame trailed. And I felt the halo effect, often donning one of his iconic fedoras, his signature sunglasses, and one of the countless slick tour jackets Pepsi supplied us with. Private planes, police escorts, marching soldiers (an inexplicable MJ favorite), Michael was more than happy to share his celebrity because he had more than he’d ever know what to do with. He joked that I could ride “shotgun” with him anytime I liked. He knew I was living vicariously through him and he was happy for it.

Arriving to stadiums hours before showtime, while he’d have to go through elaborate pre-show routines and wardrobe sessions, I’d wander out onto the stage where dozens upon dozens of sound techs, engineers, and roadies would be rigging the massive stage and prepping the show. Even four or five hours before showtime, thousands of fans would push as far forward as possible so as to get as close to MJ when the show began. You’ve seen the videos of crazy fans, dehydrated and dazed, having to be dragged out of the crowd by hustling paramedics. I saw it up close and personal – even got involved once or twice when fans started dropping by the dozens.

During the show itself, sometimes I’d hang around just off the stage watching Michael kill it. The man knew how to perform and it was like a meditation to just to witness it. At other times, I’d hang in his dressing room, outfitted to the nines with candy, orange juice, and video games.

After the show, Michael would retreat back to the dressing room too and then be forced to stand around awkwardly and greet VIPs, celebrity guests, sponsors and others who’d earned backstage privileges. It was easy to see that he was far more comfortable singing and dancing in front of a 100,000 strong than socializing with a dozen.

After those formalities, he and I would retreat back to his hotel, usually the biggest and best suite in the whole city. Michael almost always had the place stocked with old movies, more candy, and more orange juice. Even as thousands of adoring fans chanted his name from the streets below, we’d chat about music, movies, video games, girls, and occasionally the meaning of life.

But then something unexpected happened. The awesomeness wore off for me. Believe it or not, I started to get bored of sitting up in that suite with just MJ. And then I started to feel claustrophobic. I was seventeen years old, in freaking Europe, surrounded by a rock band, sexy dancers who could bend in all sorts of ways and backup singers who hit octaves I fantasized about. They liked to rage every night after the show and openly talked about their exploits the following day. Soon enough, I gained the courage to ask Michael if he minded if I slipped out with some of the others after his shows.

Not only did he say it was okay, he encouraged me. Outfitted with his fedora, sunglasses, and tour jackets, getting the best table at the best restaurants, into the VIP sections of the hottest clubs, and the adulation of all the local girls was easier than could be imagined. Often when I got back from a night on the town, Michael would call me in my hotel room and summon me. I’d head up to his suite and proceed to narrate my night’s misadventures to him and debrief him on all the latest gossip surrounding his band. I didn’t really need to dramatize my exploits, but I did anyway because I knew that he was living vicariously through me and I was happy for it.

It’s a cliché to say that your highschool summers are the most memorable of your life, but I challenge anyone to say how mine could not be. For years, I wore the badge of that summer and my many exploits over it boldly and boastfully.

...One night while on that tour with him, toward the end when I was getting ready to go back to school and the real world, Michael asked me if I was glad that I had come, even though I couldn’t stay for the whole tour. He knew I was sad that I wouldn’t get to stay until the very end. Still, it was an insane question and I told him so. “Are you kidding?” I said. “Every second I was here with you was a privilege. Thank you for letting me ride shotgun even for a little while.”

Siedah Garrett, backing vocalist and “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” duet singer, “Ebony” (September 18, 2012) (archived)

EBONY: You were instrumental in being a part of this historic [“Bad”] album. What kinds of thoughts are going through your mind its re-release?

SIEDAH GARRETT: Oh my God. Probably just be remembering our gang on tour. You know, me watching him do his thing on stage and then learning of his humanitarian efforts the next day in the newspaper in whatever country we were in. I’ll just be remembering my time with him and the process of recording that record. I’m sure I’ll go back and check my journal and refresh myself with my thoughts and feelings at the time.

EBONY: How soon after the [“Bad”] album was released did the tour take place?

SIEDAH GARRETT: We toured a couple years after the album came out. I was on the Dangerous Tour. It was the tour that followed the BAD Tour. I was rehearsed for [the BAD Tour] for literally a week before I decided that I wanted to make my own record. The duet [“I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”] was out and I knew “Man in the Mirror” was forthcoming. So, I backed out of the BAD Tour and enter Sheryl Crow, who replaced me.

“MJJCommunity” interview (2012) (archived)

MJJC: What was the best part of being on tour with Michael?

Siedah: Watching him every night on stage was absolutely amazing. Also being able to see the world at the highest level possible. It was almost like traveling with Jesus.

MJJC: Did you ever see Michael do something that shocked you or took you by surprise either on stage or off stage?

Siedah: Yes! Every night! And I often did things that surprised him, like when I put on a blond wig without his knowledge to perform our duet.

MJJC: Was it hard to concentrate on your singing when Michael was rubbing your thigh during I Just Can't Stop Loving You on the Dangerous tour?

Siedah: Wow! The very first time he did it, it took me by surprise. After that, I began to expect it.