This Is It

October 28, 2009 at 9:30pm my wonderful boyfriend, Carmund, and I started viewing one of the most amazing documentaries of Michael Jackson ever...well, in my opinion. The movie, Michael Jackson's This is It, was absolutely amazing! How often do you get to see behind the scenes footage of the greatest entertainer to EVER live when he's rehearsing for the biggest concert ever?! We know of his controversial personal life but I'm not going to go there. That's a horse of a different color and I want to reflect on the positive things. Let's get a little insight into the amazing massiveness of Michael Jackson.

We all know him as the cute little lead singer in the boy band Jackson 5. In 1971 he began his oh so successful solo career. In 1982 he came out with Thriller which to this day is the best selling album of all time!! We can't forget all his other very successful albums Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995). He was groundbreaking with his music videos, or as I like to call them music movies, on MTV. Michael Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He has multiple Guiness World Records including "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time" - 13 Grammy Awards, 22 American Music Awards, 17 number one singles, and many more! Amazing, right?!!

Now back to facts about his concert. Michael Jackson's last concert was HIStory World Tour in 1997. This is It was suppose to be very significant for him. The plan was to have a series of 50 concerts held at the O2 Arena in London (capacity of 23,000) beginning in July 2009 and ending in March 2010. Here are a "few" fun facts about the announcement of this concert and how much Jackson was truly loved:

-Jackson's official website allowed fans to register early for a "pre-sale" draw.

-Some fans had difficulty applying, as the website could not deal with the large number of registrations—reportedly up to 16,000 applications a second. (That's insane!!!)

-In the space of 24 hours, nearly a million people from around the world registered for pre-sale tickets, enough to fill the venue 50 times over.

-Tickets that had not even been printed were selling on auction website eBay.

-Sales of Jackson's albums increased following the press conference. Overnight, sales of Off the Wall rose 200%, Bad rose 110%, Dangerous rose 165% and Thriller 25 rose 155%. (Crazy!!)

-The two day pre-sale began on March 11, and 40 extra dates were added to meet high demand—five of these dates were reserved in their entirety for the public sale.

-More than 1.5  million fans caused two sites offering pre-sale tickets to crash within minutes of going online.

-In the space of two hours, 190,000 tickets were sold.

-Two million people tried to buy pre-sale tickets in the space of 18 hours.

-It was announced that Jackson would break the record for number of shows performed by an artist at a single venue, which had been set by Prince, who hosted a 21-date residency at the same arena.

Okay, okay, okay I could go on and on about the awesomeness but see he was still a very prominent icon in spite of the negative things that swirled around his personal life and death. If you haven't noticed I am a BIG fan! The movie showed the rehearsals for his final concert. I won't spoil it, because you should really see it but this man was a genius of his craft. He knew exactly what he wanted and what would work for him and his fans. He was going to perform all of his very popular songs. He had some of the best dancers on stage with him as well as singers and musicians. The stage setups were elaborate and reflected everything Michael Jackson was and wanted to be.

Unfortunately, Michael Jackson left us entirely too soon. On June 25, 2009 Jackson collapsed at his rented mansion in Los Angeles. It was only a couple of weeks before he was to go on tour.

I truly recommend you go and see the movie rather you were a die hard fan or someone who just simply admired him for his work. Regardless, there's no denying his significance in popular culture. It is definitely shown in the movie how great of an artist Michael Jackson was. Go see the movie and then let me know what you thought of it.

PS. Much thanks to Carmund for getting me tickets before I even asked about it. I enjoyed every minute with you and love you very much!