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Was This Is It going to have the longest setlists out of all of Michael's shows?

analogue

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Before This Is It a typical Michael Jackson concert would usually have about 15-17 songs, but for This Is It it looked like he was going to perform around 19 songs. I know that not every song from rehearsals makes it to the actual shows, but the amount that might have been planned is just interesting to me.

For those who don't know this is what was planned. Setlist order won't be 100% correct

1. Wanna Be Startin Somethin
2. Jam
3. They Don't Care About Us
4. Human Nature (Sometimes replaced with Stranger In Moscow on certain nights)
5. Smooth Criminal
6. The Way You Make Me Feel
7. Jackson 5 Medley
8. Rock With You / Don't Stop Til You Get Enough (Medley)
9. I Just Can't Stop Loving You
10. Black Or White / Dirty Diana (Medley)
11. Beat It
12. Thriller (With Threatened outro)
13. You Are Not Alone
14. Dangerous
15. Earth Song
16. Heal The World
17. Billie Jean
18. Will You Be There
19. Man In The Mirror
 
analogue;4322446 said:
Before This Is It a typical Michael Jackson concert would usually have about 15-17 songs, but for This Is It it looked like he was going to perform around 19 songs. I know that not every song from rehearsals makes it to the actual shows, but the amount that might have been planned is just interesting to me.

For those who don't know this is what was planned. Setlist order won't be 100% correct

1. Wanna Be Startin Somethin
2. Jam
3. They Don't Care About Us
4. Human Nature (Sometimes replaced with Stranger In Moscow on certain nights)
5. Smooth Criminal
6. The Way You Make Me Feel
7. Jackson 5 Medley
8. Rock With You / Don't Stop Til You Get Enough (Medley)
9. I Just Can't Stop Loving You
10. Black Or White / Dirty Diana (Medley)
11. Beat It
12. Thriller
13. You Are Not Alone
14. Dangerous
15. Earth Song
16. Heal The World
17. Billie Jean
18. Will You Be There
19. Man In The Mirror
Click to expand...

I don’t think Michael was going to do 19 songs per show. More like 15-16 songs. Some songs, he would perform at every show but some songs would be swapped with other songs.
 
Last edited:
The setlist on the day Michael passed was:

1. WBSS
2. Don't Stop/Rock With You
3. Drill/TDCAU
4. Human Nature
5. Stranger in Moscow
6. Smooth Criminal
7. TWYMMF
8. IJCSLY
9. Dangerous
10. Dirty Diana
11. Beat It
12. Thriller
13. Earth Song
14. We Are The World/Heal the World
15. Black or White
16. Billie Jean
17. Man in the Mirror

Source: Michael Prince on the MJCast
 
dam2040 said:
The setlist on the day Michael passed was:

1. WBSS
2. Don't Stop/Rock With You
3. Drill/TDCAU
4. Human Nature
5. Stranger in Moscow
6. Smooth Criminal
7. TWYMMF
8. IJCSLY
9. Dangerous
10. Dirty Diana
11. Beat It
12. Thriller
13. Earth Song
14. We Are The World/Heal the World
15. Black or White
16. Billie Jean
17. Man in the Mirror

Source: Michael Prince on the MJCast
Click to expand...

Jesus Christ, those last 9 alone ("Dangerous" - "Man in the Mirror") look like they could've wiped him out. I mean no disrespect but none of those are laid-back breezy songs to perform
 
Really, you should just add up the time in minutes of all of those songs. For example, the Dangerous DVD is 122 minutes. Was the Bad DVD 118 minutes? Each show will vary by 2-3 minutes

But don't forget the trend was towards medleys of 2-3 songs, rather than full length versions of songs. So it could be anything.
 
dam2040;4322450 said:
The setlist on the day Michael passed was:

1. WBSS
2. Don't Stop/Rock With You
3. Drill/TDCAU
4. Human Nature
5. Stranger in Moscow
6. Smooth Criminal
7. TWYMMF
8. IJCSLY
9. Dangerous
10. Dirty Diana
11. Beat It
12. Thriller
13. Earth Song
14. We Are The World/Heal the World
15. Black or White
16. Billie Jean
17. Man in the Mirror

Source: Michael Prince on the MJCast
Click to expand...

There’s room for at least one song from Invincible on there... right? Guess he didn’t think so.

A typical HIStory show ran for around 2hrs 15 mins, so this set may have lasted around the same amount of time all-in-all.
 
Snek;4322461 said:
There’s room for at least one song from Invincible on there... right? Guess he didn’t think so.

A typical HIStory show ran for around 2hrs 15 mins, so this set may have lasted around the same amount of time all-in-all.
Click to expand...

I read somewhere that You Rock My World was scheduled to be rehearsed before the start of the tour.
 
Nite Line;4322464 said:
I read somewhere that You Rock My World was scheduled to be rehearsed before the start of the tour.
Click to expand...

I would hope so, but I recall hearing Travis Payne suggest that since Smooth Criminal was on the setlist, You Rock My World wouldn’t be included. Apparently the theme of the choreography was too similar (gangsters).
 
Looking at it again, the This Is It set list is such a disappointment. I appreciate the “classics,” but the running order is so predictable, the J5 Medley doesn’t need to be there yet again, and there’s a lack of anything exciting or interesting, especially since it was meant to be his final concert series. Even having “You Rock My World” on there would’ve been nice enough since he only ever performed it twice (though, in fairness, the choreography is lifted directly from the live “Dangerous” performance).
 
AlwaysThere;4322473 said:
Looking at it again, the This Is It set list is such a disappointment. I appreciate the “classics,” but the running order is so predictable, the J5 Medley doesn’t need to be there yet again, and there’s a lack of anything exciting or interesting, especially since it was meant to be his final concert series. Even having “You Rock My World” on there would’ve been nice enough since he only ever performed it twice (though, in fairness, the choreography is lifted directly from the live “Dangerous” performance).
Click to expand...

I suppose that stems from Michael never planning to tour for Invincible which is why he mentions in an interview that he didn't plan any new dance moves or choreography for it. I think "This Is It" would've been an amazing opportunity to switch things up a bit and do more Invincible songs or underrated songs from previous eras ("Smile" live would've been iconic). Maybe drop a new song performed live once or twice near the end of the tour (rumor has been going around since forever that "This Is It" was considered). Obviously that would've complicated rehearsals but he'd only have to do these a few times -- after all, the plan was to never tour after this. Then again, he did promise in the TII announcement that he would be "performing the songs [his] fans want to hear", and I guess that means going back to old reliable and using the same setlists as before. It would've been awesome if right as it started, instead of with WBSS we got "Unbreakable" or "Jam".
 
i think he would have changed the setlist as the shows went on and probably added new songs when everything is tighter and he can see the reaction from the fans
 
AlwaysThere;4322473 said:
Looking at it again, the This Is It set list is such a disappointment. I appreciate the “classics,” but the running order is so predictable, the J5 Medley doesn’t need to be there yet again, and there’s a lack of anything exciting or interesting, especially since it was meant to be his final concert series. Even having “You Rock My World” on there would’ve been nice enough since he only ever performed it twice (though, in fairness, the choreography is lifted directly from the live “Dangerous” performance).
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I personally didn’t care when I found out. I was just happy I would’ve seen him.

But, when Threatened came on in the cinema I was going nuts. So unexpected.
 
I don't think all the song were going to be the full versions. In the movie you can hear him saying that there is no second verse in Black or White.
 
AlwaysThere;4322473 said:
Looking at it again, the This Is It set list is such a disappointment. I appreciate the “classics,” but the running order is so predictable, the J5 Medley doesn’t need to be there yet again, and there’s a lack of anything exciting or interesting, especially since it was meant to be his final concert series. Even having “You Rock My World” on there would’ve been nice enough since he only ever performed it twice (though, in fairness, the choreography is lifted directly from the live “Dangerous” performance).
Click to expand...

It’s a typical Michael Jackson set list. Just the same big hits, with no rare or non single thrown in there as a surprise. The only surprise was the inclusion of Dirty Diana, otherwise the rest of the set list was a mixture of Dangerous and History tour set lists.
 
Galactus123 said:
I don't think all the song were going to be the full versions. In the movie you can hear him saying that there is no second verse in Black or White.
Click to expand...

Yeah Michael Prince said many of these were abridged versions or part of a medley.
 
dam2040 said:
Yeah Michael Prince said many of these were abridged versions or part of a medley.
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Black Or White and Dirty Diana have the same costumes (Black pants with white shirt) so it makes sense to put those two songs together as a medley.
 
Galactus123 said:
I don't think they planned to use the white shirt. That jacket on the right was going to be used in Black or White:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photo...is-is-it-concerts-are-seen-picture-id92343302
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We're not sure if those costumes would have made it to the actual shows. Those are costumes designed by Zeldy, and IIRC it was said that Michael didn't really like his designs. And I think Michael Bush was also designing costumes for Michael during that time.

And tbh I'm not a fan of Zaldy's designs either. The outfits Michael wore at rehearsals looked better imo
 
analogue;4322527 said:
We're not sure if those costumes would have made it to the actual shows. Those are costumes designed by Zeldy, and IIRC it was said that Michael didn't really like his designs. And I think Michael Bush was also designing costumes for Michael during that time.

And tbh I'm not a fan of Zaldy's designs either. The outfits Michael wore at rehearsals looked better imo
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True... Michael told to Bush he want him to secretly work on all the costumes for the show. He didn´t wanted to wear Zaldy´s costumes, cause they were too heavy and not very functional.
 
I liked a few of them but some of them looked overly complicated and cumbersome. Especially for someone as light as MJ. They were a departure from what he had wore before for sure. I thought the suit with the lights on it would have looked pretty cool on stage but wasn't so crazy about the actual design.
 
I appreciate that Zaldy was going unique and balls-to-the-wall insane, and some of his designs were great (the Motown Medley suit was beautiful and the LED lights incorporated into the “Billie Jean” outfit were awesome), but some were definitely excessive. IIRC, one of them was 15-20 pounds, and no way was Michael gonna be able to handle that.
 
^Yeah, my thought when I saw them was that they looked way too cumbersome, especially for dancing in. Isn't a surprise that MJ had alternate designs made up so he could choose.
 
analogue said:
We're not sure if those costumes would have made it to the actual shows. Those are costumes designed by Zeldy, and IIRC it was said that Michael didn't really like his designs. And I think Michael Bush was also designing costumes for Michael during that time.

And tbh I'm not a fan of Zaldy's designs either. The outfits Michael wore at rehearsals looked better imo
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This. That outfit he wore during the green screen rehearsals for "They Don't Care About Us" was insane -- black military style jacket and what looked like skinny jeans. The way he walked in with sunglasses was so badass

SmoothGangsta said:
^Yeah, my thought when I saw them was that they looked way too cumbersome, especially for dancing in. Isn't a surprise that MJ had alternate designs made up so he could choose.
Click to expand...

I mean it's possible that some of them might have been outfits that he would progressively take off as the show went on (like the Light Man costume from the HIStory World Tour). But even then I think they probably would've been a bit much.
 
None of it was ready either. Bush however, had both the TWYMMF & BoW shirts ready for Michael to rehearse in, if not more.
 
Michael planed to perform not full songs only medleys or like 2 or 3 min not the full songs. I think he choosed this way of work for putting more songs into the final setlist. And I agree Zaldy's designs outfits are not really "Michaelish" on stage but Bush always did great work !
 
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