The next song was “Smooth Criminal”, which is always a highlight of the show. This performance was FULL of mistakes and even the legendary David Williams made a mistake! Let’s take a look at a few points! Firstly, Michael sang the first verse of this song live (he didn’t do this again on the tour), and the Microphone was way too quiet, so you couldn’t hear anything. The most glaring musical mistake of this song was the guitar solo after the lean came in way way too early. Michael’s guitarist, David Williams, came in a full four bars early – obviously this never happened again. After the Smooth Criminal lean the entry into the climax of the song was extremely weak in the sense that horns/keyboards during the “Robotics dance” (after the lean) failed to be played and sounded, when they eventually did come in, too weak, not a lot of attack and just a few notes to indicate that the drop was coming – it sounded like the band didn’t know what was coming next. The same happened just before the moonwalk toward the end of the song – the attack of the keyboards was very weak …. finally to end the song, the explosives suit jackets of the dancers failed and came in very very late. These things happen in a live show, and would never happen again on the tour.
