Any songs you wish MJ had performed at the 30th Anniversary Celebration?

AO98

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In 2001, Michael Jackson did two concerts at the Madison Square Garden in New York City to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his solo career. In addition to several different artists paying tribute to him, Michael and his brothers (The Jacksons) reunited for a live performance of their biggest hits and of course Michael took the stage for some of his own solo hits.

Michael was on stage for the Jacksons reunion, his solo performance and then of course "We Are the World" (performed at the first of the two shows, but was not shown in the TV broadcast). However, he only performed five SOLO songs in total: "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Billie Jean", "Beat It", "Black or White" and "You Rock My World".

Considering how important these two concerts were, you'd think he would have done a few more solo hits and maybe some more songs from Invincible since that was his newest album at the time.

Is there ANY songs you wish Michael had performed at the 30th Anniversary Celebration? Solo songs, J5/Jacksons songs that he could have performed with his brothers, duets (for example: "Scream" with Janet or maybe a medley of the duets he did with Paul McCartney).

Also, if you can, create your own setlist for the 30th Anniversary Celebration that includes the songs you wished Michael and/or The Jacksons had performed.

If you're satisfied though with what we got from the shows and don't wish to change a thing, that's no problem.

Thank you :)
 
Heartbreak Hotel with the Jacksons
Man in the Mirror
Unbreakable
Break of Dawn
Threatened instead of Thriller
Don't Stop til You Get Enough
 
Well, its important to know that Michael was resistant to doing the show at all to begin with. According to the late David Gest, the main reason Michael agreed was because David said he and Michael would own the production. On one of the show's evenings, Michael was very late in arrival; Frank Cascio had to wake up him because he'd taken too much sleep medication. Frank even said he thought Michael purposely took the meds, to get out of doing the show. Jermaine had also been a pain during preparations, which probably stressed Michael out. Katherine was instrumental in getting Jermaine to behave, and Michael cooperated to honor his mother.

As for the songs, I'd have loved to see Michael perform more songs from the "Invincible" album. I really enjoy "Unbreakable", "Speechless", and "Privacy". It would have been good to see him do "Blood on the Dance Floor" as well, or even a live rendition of "Come Together". But I think a real treat would be if he sang "Smile", to the crowds at Madison Square Garden.
 
I am quite surprised he didn't do Dangerous as that was one of his most performed songs in the 90s. He even did Dangerous twice in 2002 which turned out to be his final performances sadly.

Also Man In The Mirror. It was one of his signature songs so I'm bit disappointed that he didn't perform it.

It would have been nice if he did Scream with Janet as a part of his tribute show. But Janet was on her tour at the time so I know why that couldn't have happened.

It also would have been nice if he performed more songs from Invincible but obviously he didn't know that Sony would not promote it properly. MJ though he would have more opportunities to perform songs from Invincible in 2002 which sadly didn't turn out to be the case.
 
Smooth Criminal
Man In The Mirror
Dangerous (I'm surprised he didn't perform this)
Earth Song (I'm surprised he didn't perform this)
More songs from Invincible
 
Bad
Another Part Of Me
Man In The Mirror
I Just Can't Stop Love You
Ghost
Whatever Happen
 
I remember hoping to see how he'd perform dangerous.. Of course man in the mirror I was hoping for as well as wanna be startin' something.

To me honestly it was more specific moves I was hoping to see that I didn't.. like the james brown shuffle. I just told myself it was because of his ankle....
 
Definitely Smooth Criminal. And Earth song would have looked epic in that arena, especially with the cherry picker. Why didn't he use one for Beat It? As it was to celebrate 30 YEARS, it would have been nice if he'd performed at least one of his Motown songs - Music and Me would have been very fitting, for example. And something from Off the Wall. And yeah I actually would have been interested to see Dangerous (again lol). PLUS something he hadn't performed live before, such as Remember the Time. And no Thriller?? Why was there no Thriller? Not even anybody else performed it which was odd - could've worked nicely with multiple performers like they did with Wanna Be Startin Somethin, and others.
 
I always thought he should have performed more songs...

Man In The Mirror, Speechless, Whatever Happens would have been nice. - maybe Scream with Janet - that would have been awesome.
 
Rock With You
Give In To Me
Who Is It
Stranger In Moscow
Come Together
Whatever Happens (instead of YRMW)
Man In The Mirror (to close the show out)
 
I did not mention it before but I would have loved to see Human Nature and/or Stranger In Moscow! Mike could have done either of those just fine!
 
I wish the guest star performances had been cut down. I would've had it like this

Usher, Mya, Whitney Houston- Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
Monica, Al Jarreau, Deborah Cox, Jill Scott- Home, You Can't Win, Ease On Down The Road
James Ingram and Gloria Estefan- I Just Can't Stop Loving You
Destiny's Child-Bootylicious
Dionne Warwick- I'll Never Love This Way Again
Usher and Luther Vandross (no need for 98 Degrees)- Man In The Mirror
Missy Elliot- Get Your Freak On
Gladys Knight- Midnight Train To Georgia

The Jacksons:
Can You Feel It
ABC
The Love You Save
I'll Be There
I Want You Back
This Place Hotel
Dancing Machine (no need for N Sync)
Shake Your Body Down To The Ground)

Michael Jackson:
The Way You Make Me Feel
Remember The Time
Rock With You/Off The Wall/Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
Billie Jean
Beat It
One Day In Your Life or Got To Be There
You Rock My World
HIStory

Ensemble- We Are The World
 
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