The Jacksons: Blame It On The Boogie

Ron Roxtar for Curtains Up

Following a brief video montage the four Jacksons walked on stage wearing sunglasses to the appropriately titled, Can You Feel It, and the answer was yes we could certainly feel it. In true Jackson tradition (of which the whole concert would be full of) the four brothers removed their sunglasses in unison and the dancing was pretty much on from start to finish of a much too short hour long set.

These days it is The Jackson 4 consisting of Jermaine, Tito, Marlon, and Oprah’s favourite, Jackie. All four brothers share lead vocals and crowd rousing shout outs like Marlon on “The Jacksons are in Montreal!”, or Tito “You guys want us to do some old hits?!”

Speaking of hits that’s what they sang and danced out with Blame It On the Boogie, and Enjoy Yourself. The real highlight for many was of course the Jackson 5 medley with I Want You Back / ABC / The Love You Save / Dancing Machine / Never Can Say Goodbye / I’ll Be There. It was great.

Watching The Jacksons perform is so much fun and leaves you in awe of the flawless, choreography, they are consistently doing throughout every single song. Even during the slower numbers these guys were dancing and moving around like they were back on the Ed Sullivan show. Even with Tito playing guitar or the times Jermaine played bas they were never out of step with one another. It really makes one respect and realize how long and hard they have been performing at such an almost perfect level.  Last night they proved why they are America’s first family of music and nothing like them has ever come along since.

If you are wondering if Michael was represented at all, yes he was. The third song of he night was Rock With You and later in the set they did Wanna Be Startin’ Something. Marlon also commented at the end that the spirit of Michael was with them on stage. Jermaine had his hand raised and his head bowed along with the other three. Each of the brothers especially Marlon and Jackie were dancing their best Michael inspired moves with leg kicks and hand moves.This dance party ended with an extended (retired) Randy Jackson composition Shake Your Body (Down To the Ground).

Fun Fact: The Jacksons Victory tour in 1984 was the first to have had all six brothers on tour together. However Jackie had his leg broken during rehearsals. For the first half of the tour he did not perform at all. His first performance back on stage was in Montreal for the group’s two night stand at the Olympic stadium. So Montreal was the first city to ever have all six brothers perform on tour together.   

I too all the pictures too so you could provide me with the photo credit that would be great.  Thanks.