HIStory World Tour: Around the World in 83 Shows

[Snek]

In celebration of HIStory 25, I want to have a look at the HIStory World Tour by the numbers, and perhaps prompt a discussion about the tour.

The HIStory World Tour took place from September 7, 1996 to October 15, 1997. That's 1 year, 1 month, and 9 days; or 404 days.

The tour was split into 2 legs: September 7, 1996 to January 4, 1997 and May 31, 1997 to October 15, 1997.

The tour comprised of 83 shows taking place in 35 countries. Those countries are as follows, in alphabetical order:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Brunei
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Hungary
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Luxembourg
• Malaysia
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Philippines
• Poland
• Romania
• Russia
• Singapore
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Tunisia
• United Kingdom
• United States

The tour also planned to go to the following countries before these dates were cancelled:

• Egypt
• Morocco
• Slovenia

The tour saw the first time Michael Jackson would perform in Africa, in Tunisia and South Africa.

Michael Jackson performed in the state of Hawaii, making it his only US concert and North American concert of this tour.

This tour featured no dates to take place in the South American continent.

Here is a visual representation of the countries visited during the HWT:

Songs performed on this tour are as follows, in order of appearance on the setlist:

• Scream / They Don't Care About Us / In the Closet
• Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
• Stranger in Moscow
• Smooth Criminal
• You Are Not Alone
• The Way You Make Me Feel (performed at 50/83 concerts)
• I Want You Back / The Love You Save / I'll Be There
• Rock With You /Off the Wall / Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough (performed at 43/83 concerts)
• Billie Jean
• Thriller
• Beat It
• Come Together / D.S. (performed at 22/83 concerts, first leg only)
• Blood on the Dance Floor (performed at 28/83 concerts, second leg only)
• Dangerous (performed at 80/83 concerts)
• Black or White
• Earth Song
• Heal the World
• History

Broken down by representation of albums/eras:

The Jackson 5 - 1 medley
Off the Wall - 1 medley
Thriller - 4 songs
Bad - 2 songs
Dangerous - 3 songs + In the Closet
HIStory - 4 songs, 2 medleys
Blood on the Dance Floor - 1 song

Overall - 14 songs, 4 medleys


This tour grossed around $165,000,000 and was the most successful solo tour of the 1990s. The average show grossed around $2,010,000.

The tour was attended by around 4.5 million people. The average attendance of a show in the tour was around 54,878. The highest attendance of any show was around 127,000 in the opening concert in Prague, Czech Republic.

A recording of a concert in Seoul, South Korea was made available to buy on VHS in South Korea. No other recording of this tour has been released to purchase anywhere in the world. Many full professional recordings have been leaked to the internet or broadcast on TV.

This tour was Michael Jackson's third and final solo world tour.


So what does MJJC think of the HIStory World Tour? Do you wish MJ had visited more countries? Is the setlist appropriate? Was the tour in its entirety a success to you? Do you want to see a release of this tour?

Hope this post can be informative and help celebrate the epic milestone of the HIStory album :clap:

 

[MOR316]

Hate it!

I know he didn't want to tour, hated touring etc but, I personally see a lot of this tour as a piss take.
If you're going to mime, fine. But, don't make it so obvious. The miming from the Michael and the band during TDCAU and the OTW medley makes me cringe. It was very lazy. Did he really believe that people would think the original vocals from Thriller and OTW were gonna pass for a guy approaching 40?

The opening medley didn't flow and it was all mimed.
Like the Dangerous tour, I don't like the big long delay between the end of Closet and Startin' Something.
What's with the video vignettes before YANA and Billie Jean?
I fully understand him miming the end of Earth Song. The vocals at the end would kill anyone's vocal cords. However, what's with the tank, man?

Nah...It's not for me this tour. Parts of the Dangerous tour ain't for me either and I know why.

The guy was just that good on the Bad tour that everything else that followed seemed below par to me

 

[Hulkamaniac]

^spitting straight facts.

 

[analogue]

What's with the video vignettes before YANA and Billie Jean?

I think they were there to give the audience something to watch while Michael was changing costumes for the next song.

 

[AlwaysThere]

In my opinion, the HIStory tour isn't worthy of its namesake. Not by a long shot.

- The set list was a lazy hodgepodge of recycled bits (e.g., a disappearing act prefacing the cherry picker sequence for "Beat It," the sequencing of the J5 medley), wasted opportunities (e.g., not having choreography for "Blood on the Dance Floor," the embarrassing "Come Together"/"D.S." mashup), and outright bizarre decisions (e.g., "In the Closet" bookending a "Scream"/"They Don't Care About Us" opener, using an extract of "Smooth Criminal" in "Dangerous"). There was no ingenuity whatsoever, and it's even worse that the early configurations of the show were actually pretty interesting.
- Other than occasional ad-libs at the tail end of a number, only two of the 18+ songs -- "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' and the J5 medley -- were sung live. 38-year-old Michael Jackson was miming vocals recorded by 20-year-old Michael Jackson, and it was just sad. (At least for This Is It, Michael started re-recording these songs to reflect his current voice.)
- Michael sounded abysmal. People often blame this on a bout of laryngitis, but (1) I haven't been able to find any credible sources that can confirm this, and (2) treatment of laryngitis is vocal rest, a.k.a. no singing whatsoever. (Michael caught laryngitis in 1988 and had to cancel/postpone several Bad tour shows because of it.)
- I've never cared for Michael's backing bands (other than the This Is It bunch, who were outstanding), but the HIStory band was particularly inferior, largely because they were forced to pretend to play and sing over pre-recorded backing tracks. (Watch "Stranger in Moscow" and tell me it isn't irritating that they couldn't even bother to mix the live singers in with Michael's vocal track.)

I feel terrible being so dismissive of something Michael did, but I can't lie. Both Michael and his career would be much better off if we just pretended the HIStory tour didn't happen (and we absolutely should not release it).

 

[ChrisC]

You know we talk about how MJ didn't perform in the US, apart from Hawaii, but what about Canada? How was Michael's popularity there in 1996/97? Was it much the same scenario as the US?

 

[Snek]

You know we talk about how MJ didn't perform in the US, apart from Hawaii, but what about Canada? How was Michael's popularity there in 1996/97? Was it much the same scenario as the US?

It’s a great question, MJ didn’t seem to have much love for Canada after the Victory Tour

I can’t find chart data for Canada, but HIStory did peak at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was on the chart for 36 weeks. The album seems to have been out of the charts by the time the HIStory Tour had started, but I’m not sure how these things work or if that even matters when planning a tour.

 

[ChrisC]

It’s a great question, MJ didn’t seem to have much love for Canada after the Victory Tour

I can’t find chart data for Canada, but HIStory did peak at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was on the chart for 36 weeks. The album seems to have been out of the charts by the time the HIStory Tour had started, but I’m not sure how these things work or if that even matters when planning a tour.

Looks as though the HIStory singles underperformed in Canada too.

 

[Nite Line]

You know we talk about how MJ didn't perform in the US, apart from Hawaii, but what about Canada? How was Michael's popularity there in 1996/97? Was it much the same scenario as the US?

No idea why MJ didn't go to Canada after the Victory Tour. Thriller is the best selling album there and Bad, Dangerous and History albums did pretty well as well. I don't know why Michael abandoned Canada for his solo tours.

 

[Nite Line]

Looks as though the HIStory singles underperformed in Canada too.

They performed similar to how they did in the US, with the exception of You Are Not Alone. And History album did well in Canada.

 

[analogue]

Something positive I can say about the tour is that the end dance for Billie Jean was fantastic. Probably the best one he did out of all his tours, and the beatboxing at the end was a nice touch.

 

[mj_frenzy]

In my opinion, the HIStory tour isn't worthy of its namesake. Not by a long shot.

- The set list was a lazy hodgepodge of recycled bits (e.g., a disappearing act prefacing the cherry picker sequence for "Beat It," the sequencing of the J5 medley), wasted opportunities (e.g., not having choreography for "Blood on the Dance Floor," the embarrassing "Come Together"/"D.S." mashup), and outright bizarre decisions (e.g., "In the Closet" bookending a "Scream"/"They Don't Care About Us" opener, using an extract of "Smooth Criminal" in "Dangerous"). There was no ingenuity whatsoever, and it's even worse that the early configurations of the show were actually pretty interesting.
- Other than occasional ad-libs at the tail end of a number, only two of the 18+ songs -- "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' and the J5 medley -- were sung live. 38-year-old Michael Jackson was miming vocals recorded by 20-year-old Michael Jackson, and it was just sad. (At least for This Is It, Michael started re-recording these songs to reflect his current voice.)
- Michael sounded abysmal. People often blame this on a bout of laryngitis, but (1) I haven't been able to find any credible sources that can confirm this, and (2) treatment of laryngitis is vocal rest, a.k.a. no singing whatsoever. (Michael caught laryngitis in 1988 and had to cancel/postpone several Bad tour shows because of it.)
- I've never cared for Michael's backing bands (other than the This Is It bunch, who were outstanding), but the HIStory band was particularly inferior, largely because they were forced to pretend to play and sing over pre-recorded backing tracks. (Watch "Stranger in Moscow" and tell me it isn't irritating that they couldn't even bother to mix the live singers in with Michael's vocal track.)

I feel terrible being so dismissive of something Michael did, but I can't lie. Both Michael and his career would be much better off if we just pretended the HIStory tour didn't happen (and we absolutely should not release it).

The HIStory Tour is not worthy of its namesake also because of the fact that Michael Jackson lacked interaction with the audience while he was on stage (the overall performance looked sterile and very predictable).

As for his bad voice during the HIStory Tour, this was due to a combination of different factors.

He had already been suffering from severe problems with his nodules in his throat, which made him cancel the remaining Dangerous Tour (in 1992) and he immediately had to visit a throat specialist at Harley Street (located at Marylebone, central London).

He increased taking prescription drugs/medicines and other substances after August 1993 (for battling his anxiety and stress by the accusations), and these substances altogether began taking a toll also on his voice in the following years.

He also had recurring bouts of his chronic laryngitis during the HIStory Tour (due to his predisposition, he never really managed to get rid of that inflammation).

There was also another thing: as he said, he wanted to lip-sync the ballads/mid-tempo songs (during the HIStory Tour) also because he wanted to give to the audience the best sonic quality of these songs.

There was only one exception to that and it took place on October 10th (1997) during the HIStory concert at Johannesburg.

When he finished lip-syncing ‘You Are Not Alone’, he grabbed his hand-held microphone and he re-sang the song a cappella, much to the audience’s satisfaction.

I agree about his backing band (during the HIStory Tour) that was forced to pretend to play and sing over pre-recorded backing tracks (at least, they should have avoided taking close camera shots that made it look even more embarrassing).

 

[Lassoboy]

In my opinion, the HIStory tour isn't worthy of its namesake. Not by a long shot.

- The set list was a lazy hodgepodge of recycled bits (e.g., a disappearing act prefacing the cherry picker sequence for "Beat It," the sequencing of the J5 medley), wasted opportunities (e.g., not having choreography for "Blood on the Dance Floor," the embarrassing "Come Together"/"D.S." mashup), and outright bizarre decisions (e.g., "In the Closet" bookending a "Scream"/"They Don't Care About Us" opener, using an extract of "Smooth Criminal" in "Dangerous"). There was no ingenuity whatsoever, and it's even worse that the early configurations of the show were actually pretty interesting.
- Other than occasional ad-libs at the tail end of a number, only two of the 18+ songs -- "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' and the J5 medley -- were sung live. 38-year-old Michael Jackson was miming vocals recorded by 20-year-old Michael Jackson, and it was just sad. (At least for This Is It, Michael started re-recording these songs to reflect his current voice.)
- Michael sounded abysmal. People often blame this on a bout of laryngitis, but (1) I haven't been able to find any credible sources that can confirm this, and (2) treatment of laryngitis is vocal rest, a.k.a. no singing whatsoever. (Michael caught laryngitis in 1988 and had to cancel/postpone several Bad tour shows because of it.)
- I've never cared for Michael's backing bands (other than the This Is It bunch, who were outstanding), but the HIStory band was particularly inferior, largely because they were forced to pretend to play and sing over pre-recorded backing tracks. (Watch "Stranger in Moscow" and tell me it isn't irritating that they couldn't even bother to mix the live singers in with Michael's vocal track.)

I feel terrible being so dismissive of something Michael did, but I can't lie. Both Michael and his career would be much better off if we just pretended the HIStory tour didn't happen (and we absolutely should not release it).

This is your opinion. I love HWT, so a concert release (from Wembley for example) would be nice.

 

[Themidwestcowboy]

There was only one exception to that and it took place on October 10th (1997) during the HIStory concert at Johannesburg.

When he finished lip-syncing ‘You Are Not Alone’, he grabbed his hand-held microphone and he re-sang the song a cappella, much to the audience’s satisfaction.

Is this the same Johannesburg concert that leaked some time ago or another date? I don't ever remember seeing that.

 

[dethorro]

Is this the same Johannesburg concert that leaked some time ago or another date? I don't ever remember seeing that.

No, the one that leaked is October 12th.

 

[Themidwestcowboy]

No, the one that leaked is October 12th.

Oh okay. Where does this info come from though? Is there an amature audio of this concert floating around?

 

[dethorro]

Oh okay. Where does this info come from though? Is there an amature audio of this concert floating around?

No idea. And here we go again lol: mj_frenzy, could you post your source?

 

[michael555]

[*]Dangerous (performed at 80/83 concerts):

What were the reasons for Dangerous to be removed from these concerts?

 

[analogue]

What were the reasons for Dangerous to be removed from these concerts?

There probably wasn't enough time to include it into the setlist. This is why TWYMMF was cut from some BAD Tour shows

 

[Snek]

What were the reasons for Dangerous to be removed from these concerts?

I imagine it was due to time constraints. The missing dates are December 8, 1996 (Manila), December 20, 1996 (Tokyo) and December 22, 1996 (Tokyo).

 

[analogue]

Speaking of Dangerous was there a show where Michael performed the song without the white shirt and black tie? I remember seeing pics of that online but it could have been from a rehearsal.

Edit:
Here's the pic I was talking about. I think this might have been from a 1993 show

 

[Serious Effect]

Speaking of Dangerous was there a show where Michael performed the song without the white shirt and black tie? I remember seeing pics of that online but it could have been from a rehearsal.

Edit:
Here's the pic I was talking about. I think this might have been from a 1993 show

Probably Bangkok

 

[Rocketeer]

Speaking of Dangerous was there a show where Michael performed the song without the white shirt and black tie? I remember seeing pics of that online but it could have been from a rehearsal.

Edit:
Here's the pic I was talking about. I think this might have been from a 1993 show

I never noticed this, how cool. But yeah, it’s probably Bangkok or Singapore, because an outfit difference would be more plausible in the first shows

 

[Serious Effect]

I never noticed this, how cool. But yeah, it’s probably Bangkok or Singapore, because an outfit difference would be more plausible in the first shows

Could also be a rehearsal

 

[mj_frenzy]

Is this the same Johannesburg concert that leaked some time ago or another date? I don't ever remember seeing that.

Oh okay. Where does this info come from though? Is there an amature audio of this concert floating around?

No idea. And here we go again lol: mj_frenzy, could you post your source?

There is no available amateur footage of that floating around, but it has been confirmed by various sources that it happened.

One of those sources is the ‘King Of Pop’ Magazine:

“…The first Johannesburg concert on 10th was absolutely amazing and turned out to be my favourite for many reasons… Michael did something different during ‘Billie Jean’ and during ‘You Are Not Alone’… When Michael finished singing ‘You Are Not Alone’, he just walked up to the microphone and started singing YANA a cappella! It was the best moment of the whole SA Tour. It is just impossible to describe in words how I felt at that moment…” (‘King Of Pop’ Magazine, Issue 15)

The different thing about ‘Billie Jean’ on that particular concert was that Michael Jackson in the beginning of that song he sat on his suitcase for five minutes dead still just staring at the crowd.

 

[analogue]

The different thing about ‘Billie Jean’ on that particular concert was that Michael Jackson in the beginning of that song he sat on his suitcase for five minutes dead still just staring at the crowd.

I've seen footage of that. I think he might have done that at several shows.