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Which tour had the best set list?

Which tour had the best set list?

  • BAD Tour 1987

    Votes: 1 2.4%

  • BAD Tour 1988

    Votes: 25 59.5%

  • Dangerous Tour 1992

    Votes: 4 9.5%

  • Dangerous Tour 1993

    Votes: 1 2.4%

  • HIStory Tour 1996

    Votes: 5 11.9%

  • HIStory Tour 1997

    Votes: 6 14.3%
  • Total voters
    42
Setlistwise, HIStory comes in a very close second, with TDCAU and HIStory, 2 songs I am so happy that I saw live.
 
I know it's not truly considered part of the HIStory World Tour, but I loved the Royal Brunei set list. It was a real cool mesh between Dangerous and a bit of HIStory.

Check it out :)

1. "Brace Yourself" (Introduction)
2. "Jam"
3. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"
4. "Human Nature"
5. "Smooth Criminal"
6. "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" (with Marva Hicks)
7. "She's Out of My Life"
8."The Jackson 5 Medley: "I Want You Back" / "The Love You Save" / "I'll Be There"
9. "Thriller"
10. "Billie Jean"
11. "The Way You Make Me Feel"
12. "Black Panther" (Video Interlude)
13. "Beat It"
14. "You Are Not Alone"
15. "Dangerous"
16. "Black or White"
17. "Man in the Mirror"
18. "Earth Song"
 
I loved the Bad Tour 1988 European setlist.
 
I think it's very hard to answer this.
Bad 1988 had a very good setlist, but Dangerous and HIStory had most of my favorite songs, so the best one is probably HIStory because of TDCAU, BOTDF, Dangerous (which wasn't on the 92' leg of the Dangerous Tour), SIM and other stuff. But I have to say that I was very happy with most of the setlists he did, if anything, I would love if he would have done most songs, but that wouldn't have been possible because of the time.
So, HIStory had the best setlist, closely followed by Bad 88 and Dangerous. (If This Is It would have happened, I think it would be the best setlist)
 
Graf said:
I know it's not truly considered part of the HIStory World Tour, but I loved the Royal Brunei set list. It was a real cool mesh between Dangerous and a bit of HIStory.

Check it out :)

1. "Brace Yourself" (Introduction)
2. "Jam"
3. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"
4. "Human Nature"
5. "Smooth Criminal"
6. "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" (with Marva Hicks)
7. "She's Out of My Life"
8."The Jackson 5 Medley: "I Want You Back" / "The Love You Save" / "I'll Be There"
9. "Thriller"
10. "Billie Jean"
11. "The Way You Make Me Feel"
12. "Black Panther" (Video Interlude)
13. "Beat It"
14. "You Are Not Alone"
15. "Dangerous"
16. "Black or White"
17. "Man in the Mirror"
18. "Earth Song"
Click to expand...

Even though it came much later, I still consider Royal Brunei to part of the Dangerous Tour, because the costumes and staging was the same. And the set list was closer to a Dangerous Tour set list
 
Last edited:
Bad Tour 1988. No contest.

There was a wonderful mix of endearing ballads ("Human Nature," "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "I'll Be There"), stadium rock anthems ("Dirty Diana," "Beat It"), irresistible rhythm tracks ("The Way You Make Me Feel," "Billie Jean"), and songs that were just out-of-this-world FUN ("Working Day and Night," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Another Part of Me"). That's what you want to get out of a Michael Jackson concert - fun.

Dangerous comes in at a close second, if only for "Black or White," "Jam" and "Will You Be There" - but I insist that Michael lost two huge opportunities by never performing "Give in to Me" or "Remember the Time".

History feels like a watered-down cut of the previous two tours. Aside from "Scream," "They Don't Care About Us," and "Blood on the Dance Floor," the chosen History-era songs didn't translate well to the stage. What about "Tabloid Junkie"? Or "2 Bad"?

This Is It wasn't that wonderful (in my opinion). The set list was largely the same as it has always been - nothing new or fun or particularly surprising. Being his last tour you would think there would be a little variation.
 
The problem is that MJ has so many hits that his set lists get filled up very quickly
 
analogue said:
The problem is that MJ has so many hits that his set lists get filled up very quickly
Click to expand...

You're right. I think that people complain that Mike included similar setlists for every concert, but he had so many hits that he had to perform them, otherwise people would complain that "insert popular song" and "insert popular song" were missing
 
The problem wasn't that Michael had so many hits that he had to perform them; it's that he performed many of them the exact same way with remarkably similar sequences. He was always so fearful to deviate from the proven formula.

Dangerous is a beautiful example of Michael switching it up. The 1999 version is easily his most entertaining.

Beat It is another example of his restraint. Always begun on the crane, the dance sequence always kicks in at exactly the same pre-determined time, there is always a band ad-lib segment to end it. Same with Smooth Criminal - same choreography set up on the same sides of the stage. Same with Thriller and Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'.

There really is no excuse for never changing anything up. Maybe open a concert with Smooth Criminal! Or end one with Billie Jean rather than Man in the Mirror! It was always quite predictable.

That doesn't mean that he didn't do a phenomenal job though. He often did.
 
MJInTheMirror said:
You're right. I think that people complain that Mike included similar setlists for every concert, but he had so many hits that he had to perform them, otherwise people would complain that "insert popular song" and "insert popular song" were missing
Click to expand...
I would not complain, no matter what he did. I'm happy with the set lists the way they are, because I would be happy with it no matter what songs he performed and how often
 
I wish that he would have performed Another Part Of Me in later tours. That was a major highlight on the BAD Tour
 
I think History had the best setlist.
The History Melody in the beginning.
Performance of Stranger in Moscow and YANA, along with the 96 performances of Come Together/D.S was pretty good in my opinion.
Too bad it was all mimed.
 
A cross between Bad tour 1987 and HIStory tour 1996 with the Off The Wall medley, TWYMMF, and Come Together/DS
 
How could I forget in my comment above that HIStory had BOTDF, my favourite song of all time. And I got to see it.

That alone should have swung it for me haha
 
While I like that his concerts were so honed to perfection, the highly standardised set lists did start to get slightly jarring by the HIStory Tour. I wish he had mixed it up from time to time by adding more album cuts and other songs he performed more rarely. At least BotDF and Come Together/D.S. were there at some concerts. I think he shouldn't have dropped APoM and DD all together after the Bad Era, and it is truly a crime that songs like Give In To Me or Who Is It were never performed live. But enough complaining; I love all the tours.
 
There was a show from 1997 that had The Way You Make Me Feel, Off The Wall Medley and Blood On The Dance Floor. That would have been the best set list on the HIStory Tour.
 
I'm not sure that after Bad second leg he ever got the setlists right.

He presumed that everyone wanted everything the same way, when I think many wanted new songs and routines.

I mean the Dangerous Tour only had 4 songs from the album it was supposed to promote.

So Bad second leg for me, especially the ones that included TWYMMF.
 
While I think the best performance of "Man in the Mirror" is from Bad 25's remastered '88 Wembley concert, I always thought his concert at Yokohama in '87 was the best, set list and performance-wise.
 
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