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Michael Jackson live on stage

Coming home from filming Euphoria Audio play at the Barfly in Camden last night, I thought I’d stop in to meet a friend for a drink at the Proud Galleries where we were in April announcing Lucie Evans as the first 100k winner of 1Click2Fame.

After settling on a bench in the courtyard, a 20 something stumbled over, donning complete Camden attire, from the Glastonbury hat to the Pete Doherty skinny jeans, and announced to the crowd that Michael Jackson had died.
Security led the man out promptly and the courtyard laughed off the ridiculous comment, triggering conversations over who had done the silliest thing on their Thursday evenings out on Camden high street. Some even began to discuss Michael Jackson, a young couple nearby boasted about their success in obtaining tickets to his performance at the o2, others spoke fondly of his contributions to music, to popular culture, to dance, Motown 25, MTV, the moonwalk, sell out tours – but for most, bad renditions of Jackson 5 songs were all they could come up with at 10 in the evening. During the second chorus of Blame it on the Boogie, a performance so impressive, passing buskers decided to join the ensemble, text messages starting coming through, confirming that the drunk man dressed like a member of the Libertines, was right – the world had just lost Michael Jackson.

I left Camden, the mood had become uncomfortable and it was getting late. I needed to drop the equipment back to the 1Click2Fame offices on Oxford Street before getting a train home. My taxi driver apologised to me as he switched on the radio, “I want to hear about Michael Jackson,” he couldn’t find anything – the radio was awash with his songs, every station dedicating the evening to his string of incredible hits, songs that enabled a contemporary r&b cross-over. The driver tapped along to the bass line of Billie Jean, adding his own vocal accompaniment, stopped at traffic lights I looked out at three other cars who had tuned to the same station, tapping and singing along to the same song, the lyrics more engraved in their minds than their own National Anthem.

I stopped briefly at the office to drop off the kit and whilst waiting for a slice of toast to pop up I did what any 20 year old does with 5 minutes to spare and logged onto Facebook. Status updates populated my news feed ‘RIP MJ’ ‘We’ll miss you Michael’ to the more jovial ‘I blame it on the boogie.’

Carnaby Street mourned the loss of a legend with an impromptu gig

With toast in hand I logged off, locked up and headed out to Oxford Circus. The sound of a distant piano enticed me away from the station towards Carnaby Street where I found the popular ‘Street Piano’ surrounded by 20 or so people, stopped on their way home to join in a version of Man in the Mirror outside the stage door to the Palladium with the cast of Sister Act.

Any energy I had left in me had been Moonwalked out, and slightly overwhelmed I got on a train home, relaxing to a Michael Jackson playlist I had quite spookily only created a few weeks ago, knowing that the upbeat, catchy rhythms would keep me awake for the journey back.

I overslept my stop during ‘Bad’ and called my brother Dan to beg for a lift. “Have you heard the news?” he answered the phone. Waiting outside the station, a parked could be heard playing ‘Beat It’ whilst a group of teenagers thought it was hilarious to circle the roundabout opposite the station shouting ‘shamone’ out the window at anyone they passed. (it was)

The whole evening had been completely saturated by Michael Jackson, and quite regrettably, considering the context, had been one of the most enjoyable and eventful evenings I have had in a long time. Pulling in at a petrol station I laughed with my brother over old jokes we had remembered about Jacko and sketches he had been used in. A woman sat by the petrol pump, half out of the car, the faint sound of ‘I just can’t stop loving you’ could be heard from her stereo. Looking up she wiped a tear and forced a smile, “this was our first dance,” she said as her embarrassed husband returned. He helped her back into the car where she pulled out a tissue from the glovebox. Her husband slowly turned back to us, “sorry, don’t know what she’s upset about” he smiled, “it was my card she used to buy the bloody o2 tickets.”