If you’re interested in talent, fascinated by greatness, love Pop music and even if you don’t, run, don’t walk, play hooky from school, skip work and go see Michael Jackson’s movie, “This Is It”.  I did last night and I’m going to go back and see it again tomorrow night.

I’m going to take a night off from my presentation of the Ira Awards because I’m just so filled up with the incredible experience of seeing that movie. I must have broken out in tears and sobs of joy and wonder about 15 times during the movie – no exaggeration. For me, it was a completely overwhelming experience.

You can say what you want about his personal life, but Michael Jackson is the great talent of our time. He wrote tremendous Pop songs, he sang so purely, so sweet, so funky and so incredibly rhythmic that it makes me laugh out loud at the wonder of it, and the man is right up there with Gene and Fred, and Mikhail and Rudolf for that matter, as a dancer. This man’s talent doesn’t ooze out of him, it pours. He is, for me, the consummate performer of our time.

Last night’s movie proves it, and it was just the rehearsal! That’s right! Michael never made it to the performances and so, through the wonderful world of film, we’re allowed to attend his rehearsals and see the man create, watch the mind at work, see how he attends to every tiny little detail and get a glimpse at just how greatness is attained.

Much of the time he is marking (a relaxed 75% energy performance that often performers do in rehearsal when they want to save their voice), but even in the marking we see the greatness, the stunning energy of the man readying his 50 performance tour at the age of 50.

I absolutely loved the way he used silence in both his music and his dance. This is one of his “tricks”, but it produces incredible positive tension, drama and fascination. He is an absolute master at stagecraft and is, of course, surrounded by the best in the business – the tech crew, his director, Kenny Ortega, his totally cookin’ band led by musical director and keyboard wizard and funk-meister, Michael Bearden, and a hoard of some of the best dancers I have ever seen.

This movie, this entire experience was a gathering of some of the greatest talent in the world led by the King, himself. The respect that they show Michael in the film and the love and appreciation that they have for his amazing talents bring even another thrilling insight to the film.  They just love the man.

I’ve always said that the experience of putting on a show is really, at its core, the experience of putting on a show of love. First the cast has to love the work, the content itself, then, as they develop it in rehearsal, they have to fall in love with each other and the director and the costume designer, the set designer, and stage manager.

Then when they finally get to performance they have to fall in love with their audience and if they’ve done everything right, the audience loves them back. They laugh, they cry, they see life on new dimensions. In the end, the audience stands and applauds, sending that love back up on the stage and completing the circle. The cast bows and sends it back out and the circle of love goes round and round.

When the audience leaves, they say to one another and to the rest of the world, “I loved that show!”

Well, I loved that show. And I just love Michael Jackson and thank God for his gargantuan way-showing talent. Yes, you’re right, I’m running out of adjectives, but in the end, there’s no way to describe this experience. You have to see it, to believe it.

The human race lost one of its best in Michael. Thank God for this film. It has captured a musical genius at work.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.