Tour announcement, preparations and set designs
Following the huge success of the Bad World Tour, Jackson's first solo world tour where he earned $125 million, the star claimed that he would not tour again, and would instead concentrate on making films and records. On February 14, 1992 in a Pepsi press conference, it was announced that Jackson would be touring again. The announcement coincided with a new deal between Jackson and Pepsi, with a reported $20 million deal to sponsor the tour:
The only reason I am going on tour is to raise funds for the newly-formed Heal the World Foundation, an international children's charity, that I am spearheading to assist children and the ecology. My goal is to gross $100 million by Christmas 1993. I urge every corporation and individual who cares about this planet and the future of the children to help raise money for the charity. The Heal the World Foundation will contribute funds to paediatric AIDS in honour of my friend, Ryan White. I am looking forward to this tour because it will allow me to devote time to visiting children all around the world, as well as spread the message of global love, in the hope that others will be moved to do their share to help heal the world.
The stage used for the tour required more time to set up than before. This was seen in the tour schedule where a considerable number of concerts were one-stop performances. Equipment, which in total weighed over 100 tons, required two Boeing 747 jet aircrafts and multiple lorries to transport to each venue.
Before the tour began, Jackson and his band (which had changed little since the Bad Tour) rehearsed, where the footage has been leaked onto the internet[citation needed]. However, the exact date and location of the performances is not clear. The rehearsals among other performances included performances of "Remember the Time," "Rock With You,","The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Bad". For the tour's design, Jackson was influenced by the uniform worn in the military. For "Jam", the first performance on the tour's set list, Jackson wore two variations of a faux-military uniform. Costumes worn for the performances of "Workin' Day and Night", "Bad", as well as his later HIStory World Tour, were examples of this. During the first and second leg, the uniform included grey-green jacket with one bolted strap which both sparkled with multicolour. For the third leg, Jackson wore a black uniform with three gold bolted straps, one going from his collar to his waist in one direction and the other two in another. He also used this costume at the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show in 1993.
The tour also incorporated several stage illusions. Each concert on the tour ended by a stuntman, Kinnie Gibson, who secretly switched with Jackson as he kneels down a trap hole in the stage, dressed in a full astronaut costume (therefore appearing as Jackson), flying out of the arena using a rocket belt. Each concert also began with a illusion-like stunt dubbed "the Toaster" in which following the ringing of bells and the roar of a panther, Jackson catapults on to the stage through a trap door in the front, sending off pyrotechnics and electrifying the crowd. A similar version of "the Toaster" stunt was used in the beginning of Michael's Super Bowl XXVII Halftime Show performance in 1993. In the first leg, the transition from Thriller to Billie Jean was another stage trick. When Jackson walks into a small space between two set "buildings," he secretly switches with a werewolf-masked backup dancer while he changes for Billie Jean. The backup dancer posing as Jackson is placed into a coffin which disappears when dancers posing as skeletons and zombies drape a cloth over the coffin and pull it out. Jackson appears fully dressed for Billie Jean in the upper stage level as it lowers down. This stage illusion was removed in the second leg of the Dangerous Tour.
[edit]1992: First and Second leg (Europe and Asia)
The original set list for the first leg featured songs "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Bad", but these were taken out after the eighth concert in Oslo, Norway. However, these two songs were returned for the first four performances in Tokyo, Japan.
During the Europe leg in 1992, MTV was allowed to film backstage and broadcast six fifteen minute episodes on the tour. The show was called Dangerous Diaries and presented by Sonya Saul.
Jackson sold the film rights to his concert in Bucharest on October 1, 1992 to HBO for $21 million. The deal was the highest ever paid for a live concert. The concert was broadcast live on radio and shown on television across 61 countries, and received the highest TV ratings in the history of the HBO network, it later received the highest ratings in cable history, in which Jackson was honoured with a CableACE Award. In 2004, the concert was released on DVD as part of Jackson's Ultimate Collection box set and in 2005, was released as a separate DVD known as Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour. The footage used on the released version is actually a mixture of footage from Bucharest - The BBC broadcast, HBO live telecast (pay per view) and the HBO TV version, however for the DVD shots of many fans and alternate camera angles (some from other concerts such as Wembley and Madrid) were included to give the show a feeling of hype.
On December 31, 1992 during the New Year's Eve concert in Tokyo, Japan, Slash made a special guest appearance for the performance of "Black or White". Slash also made a special appearance for "Black or White" at the concert in Oviedo, Spain that September.
[edit]1993: Third leg (Europe,Asia,South America and North America)
The day the third leg began on August 24, 1993 in Bangkok, the accusations of child sexual abuse against Jackson was made public. Three days beforehand, a search warrant was issued, allowing police to search Jackson's Neverland Ranch, Santa Ynez Valley, California.
On August 29, Jackson performed in front of 47,000 on his 35th birthday in Singapore.
During his visit to Moscow in September, Jackson came up with the song "Stranger in Moscow" which would be released on his 1995 album HIStory. It was during a time when Jackson felt very alone, far away from his family and friends, yet every night throughout his tours fans would stay by his hotel and support him.
Before the tour was canceled, Jackson was scheduled to perform in Dubai but the country barred Jackson from appearing there after unsigned pamphlets were circulated in Dubai urging a boycott of the concerts.
The tour was to last longer, but it was the huge pressure from the child abuse accusations (which was generating huge media and press attention), as well as various health problems and injuries that made Jackson end the tour in Mexico. This left out possible planned concerts in Australia and the United States, where Jackson would not tour until his later HIStory Tour in 1996 and 1997. It is speculated that Jackson began taking Valium, Xanax and Ativan (known as lorazepam in the UK) to deal with the stress of the accusations made against him. By the fall of 1993, Jackson became addicted to pain killers, and went into drug rehabilitation for a few months.
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