I Am a Fan, But... (What Makes You Heretic Among Other Fans?)

I don’t know if this makes me a heretic, but… listen , I love Sugarfoot. I think he’s one of the greatest drummers ever, but for some reason I prefer Ricky Lawson as MJ’s drummer and the way he played on the Bad and Dangerous tours.
 
I must admit Michael was quite unimaginative with his setlists. Once, he found the perfect formula in his mind, he copied and pasted it from one tour to the next.

Basically it's the same with his dance moves, ad-libs and albums, they all follow the same 'formula' (yes even History). And when he sang other peope's songs he almost copied their guide vocals exactly

I guess when Michael thought something was 'Bible' he knew it 'worked' and there was no need in changing it or adding up on it. Which is in a way a shame (little surprises) but might also gave him some rest and routine like he was used to from the Jackson years..?
 
Agree with that. It's a shame every night was exactly the same set list as the previous night. Would have been great to tailor it to play the songs that were more popular in each country. And to include more unusual songs, and stuff from earlier in his career.
It would have been nice if he did a surprise one off performances of songs like Liberian Girl, Who Is it, Lady In My Life. It's not like these songs needed choreography that he needed to rehearse and perfect before he could perform them live.

But the biggest issue wasn't even that he performed pretty much the same songs during each tour, but rather he performed them the same exact way on each tour. For example, Beat It was always performed with the cherry picker. Wanna Be Starting Something always had a pause during the middle of the song. She's Out Of My Life always had a fan come up on stage. There was no difference in watching them songs from one tour to the next and that is what frustrates me the most.
 
Basically it's the same with his dance moves, ad-libs and albums, they all follow the same 'formula' (yes even History). And when he sang other peope's songs he almost copied their guide vocals exactly

I guess when Michael thought something was 'Bible' he knew it 'worked' and there was no need in changing it or adding up on it. Which is in a way a shame (little surprises) but might also gave him some rest and routine like he was used to from the Jackson years..?
I suspect MJ didn't want to deviate from a proven formula because he was risk averse to the possibility of receiving negative feedback from such changes.
Its a shame he didn't take those chances, but I suspect it was an enormous challenge for someone with the international fanbase he had to keep everyone happy.
 
It would have been nice if he did a surprise one off performances of songs like Liberian Girl, Who Is it, Lady In My Life. It's not like these songs needed choreography that he needed to rehearse and perfect before he could perform them live.

But the biggest issue wasn't even that he performed pretty much the same songs during each tour, but rather he performed them the same exact way on each tour. For example, Beat It was always performed with the cherry picker. Wanna Be Starting Something always had a pause during the middle of the song. She's Out Of My Life always had a fan come up on stage. There was no difference in watching them songs from one tour to the next and that is what frustrates me the most.
I agree and can relate to your frustration, but I think there must have been some changes accounted for even with such rigid formulas. I say this because I love the 1995 MTV performance of Dangerous so much that I struggle to watch other renditions of this performance, even though they all look very similar to the untrained eye.
 
I agree and can relate to your frustration, but I think there must have been some changes accounted for even with such rigid formulas. I say this because I love the 1995 MTV performance of Dangerous so much that I struggle to watch other renditions of this performance, even though they all look very similar to the untrained eye.
Dangerous Live was amazing as Michael changed it constantly. The version of Dangerous live on the Dangerous Tour was different from the one on the History Tour, and he was going to change it again for This Is It.
 
Dangerous Live was amazing as Michael changed it constantly. The version of Dangerous live on the Dangerous Tour was different from the one on the History Tour, and he was going to change it again for This Is It.
That's a good point about TII, we never got to see any of those performances live, so we are missing a chunk of performances which may have included some of the variety we feel is lacking.
 
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