Ireland's Michael Jackson Tribute

A Tribute for the King

Ireland's Tribute to Michael Jackson

Retrospective

This past Sunday The Button factory in Temple Bar held a tribute to Michael Jackson. The event entered my radar when a friend pointed out that it should be a good laugh, and recommended we go. I met that same friend this weekend, when she admitted that she didn't have the first idea of what to expect. After deleting her number from my mobile phone, we made our way to the venue.

When we arrived, I was surprised by the lack of crowd. The Button factory isn't a cavernous venue, but ended up being about half full; not necessarily a complaint because I don't like being squashed, although it certainly doesn't foreshadow a thrilling gig.

The first band on stage – called Santorini - belted out some Jackson 5ive numbers, before jumping to Beat It. While they were quite good, they had some sound issues; the drummer was stifling the effectiveness of every other instrument by having his mics set too loud. The most notable aspect of the band was one of the well endowed backup singers, who had a tambourine. What a great piece of marketing; give a busty girl an instrument which needs to be shaken and stick her up front - mesmerising. I settled in for a night of mediocrity.

And that is when Mick and Dusty entered my world. On the way in I had seen two guys in wearing red and black leather jackets (you know, THOSE jackets). Each was sporting a rhinestone covered glove, and had their faces – badly – painted with the Irish flag. I nudged my friend and pointed them out; surely two megafans who would attend the opening of a Michael Jackson-shaped envelope.

The next time I saw them was when I asked their help with directions to the toilet. By that point I thought they were staff, because they disappeared through a side door marked “no entry”. I got my round and no sooner had I sat down than those two random guys strolled out on stage to the strains of Thriller. I was instantly hooked. They were rarely in sync, and their dancing was amateurish at best, but this was surely what a Michael Jackson tribute is all about; ordinary people engaging in a bit of wish fulfillment by trying to emulate the moves of a great dancer and showman. By the time the song ended, I wanted to know when I would get my chance to moonwalk for the assembled half-crowd.

The show plumbed its greatest depth of the night when a Michael Jackson mime did a set. Although he did have a repertoire of MJ moves, he seemed determined to jumble them into the mime standards; rarely have I seen a Michael Jackson video in which he pulls an invisible rope or tries to escape from a transparent box. Utter crap.

Then it was time for the main attraction. Ben Jackson is a Michael Jackson impersonator who is apparently quite well known, in his industry anyway. He arrived with two back up dancers in what represented a lavish production by the standards of the event. Let me get through the good points first; he looks like Michael Jackson, and is able to copy his moves quite well. His set was energetic and he didn't really tamper with any of the original songs which played while he danced.

Now the bad; he went through his set of moves for each song quite quickly and then spent a lot of time repeating himself. I saw each move a dozen or so times and they swiftly became boring. Although he doesn't sing – apart from odd moments asking the audience to repeat his oohs and aahs - he wears a radio mic, with which he fiddles endlessly. Not ten seconds went by between adjustments during the entirety of his set. I understand why he might do this; Michael probably did it. Plus, he doesn't want people to see that his lips don't match the lyrics being sung; but surely the dedication required to learn the words to a small number of tunes is outweighed tenfold by the effort he has already expended in tirelessly learning choreography. The mic touching got so bad that at one point I wanted to launch a Jarvis Cocker-like attack on the stage, and scream at him “TAKE IT OFF IF YOU'RE HAVING SO MUCH TROUBLE WITH IT.”

While Ben did his best to shore up an unintentionally funny evening - and his act was the best produced - my top marks go to Mick and Dusty for being the only act to tap into the true spirit of tribute to the man who inspired a million inept moonwalks.