Did people really freak out during Michael Jackson concerts? How obsessed were fans? I saw a video by this youtube comedian, Caleb City where someone fainted because MJ did just the slightest move, and a lot of comments were saying how people nowadays don’t realize how accurate the depiction is.
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Yes, same with the Beatles or Elvis
Look at vids of Beatles concerts way back…. Crazy fans aren’t a new trend. Elvis, too. It’s nuts.
oh yeah they did.
I went to see him during the “Bad” tour in Nice, France back in like ’88. I think Taylor Dane opened. They had a first aid center set up and people were passing out and being crowd-surfed to the front and out.
My mom mentioned the yelling and panties with Tom Jones….Tom joked decades later he still got his fans but they throw Depends now. lol
All I remember about his performances is he did the same shit every time, over and over. Yeah he was talented but it was the same routine for years.
Jackson was so popular that pretty much every town in the UK had it’s own superfan who would dress like him and sing his songs in the town center.
I remember seeing teenaged girls fainting at Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons concerts in the 1960s.
It was devastating news when he caught fire filming the Pepsi commercial – that was all that was discussed in my world at the time.
I was in Junior High when Michael Jackson and his brothers stopped in my home town on their Victory Tour. My Dad took me to the concert. There was a lot of screaming and swooning. It was almost as entertaining as the concert. At one point, there was this girl sitting near us who was literally sobbing off and on through the whole concert over just “being in his presence.”
It was wild.
Elvis had to dodge underwear regularly.
It all started with Elvis. Maybe even Frank Sinatra. If people actually fainted I’d say they had something else going on on top of excitement.
Dunno. I was one of those white kids that didn’t give a shit about Michael Jackson except for Eddie van Halen’s solo on Beat It.
One thing that’s worth pointing out is that a lot of these massive concerts had very poor crowd control. People weren’t passing out from the overwhelming power of Jackson but mostly because they were overheated and being crushed. A friend of mine passed out at a new kids concert from heat exhaustion.
You can go look at the videos online to see all the things you’re asking about.
They could get a little out of control.
I had a pin on the lapel of my jeans jacket that said “Nuke Michael Jackson”.
I now think he was genius, but at the time I thought it was too “Top 40 radio with Casey Kasem” for my taste. I was still in my post-punk mindset.
MJ and I were roughly the same age. My first awareness of him was in the 1960s-early 1970s, when, as part of the Jackson 5, he sang with his older brothers. At the time, I thought he was cute and talented.
Later, I enjoyed his early work as a solo artist, starting with his ‘Off the Wall’ album, and moving on to ‘Thriller’. I wouldn’t say he was my favorite artist (I much preferred Prince and Madonna), or worthy of panty-throwing (I wouldn’t do that for anybody) but he was an interesting performer….
And then, he became strange. I’m not sure exactly when that transition began. Was it when he began having extreme facial surgeries? When he married Lisa Marie Presley in what seemed like a publicity stunt? When the first rumors of pedophilia began swirling? Whenever it was, I was out after that. No longer a fan, no longer interested.
The Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Elvis, Michael Jackson, and before him, the Jackson Five. People fainted. People screamed, sobbed, begged and pleaded for a look, or a touch.
People freak out over any of the bands they like.
I was 13 years old at a 1984 Jacksons concert. I was so happy I was almost incoherent. I was clapping and waving my arms so much, I think I may have accidentally hit my Aunt who was next to me. I still love the memory of the concert over 40 years later. I remember thinking that I might be breathing some of the same air as Michael himself.