Marlon and Jackie Jackson are coming to Cardiff tomorrow. They’re two of Michael Jackson’s older brothers and original members of the Jackson 5, and on Sunday night, Nov 8, they play Utilita Arena Cardiff. It’s the second night of their four-date UK tour.
The last time the brothers were getting ready for a Cardiff show, back in 2017, Marlon got on the phone with Luke Owain Boult of the city’s Buzz Magazine. He told a story about a door that wouldn’t open.
Before we get to that door, it’s worth hearing how these two sound when they start swapping memories, and this interview has Marlon and Jackie sharing stories about their little brother Michael.
Marlon and Jackie Jackson share stories about Michael
The story goes back to when the boys were still in school.
“We used to go to school and go to practice right from school,” Marlon said.
They’d booked a rehearsal hall for three o’clock. But when they got there, they couldn’t get inside. Someone was still in there, running over their time.
So they waited. And waited.
“It was four o’clock and we were still hearing noise in there, and when the door opened, guess who walked out? I’ll give you a guess, one of the greatest guitar players ever.”
Marlon made the reporter play along. Boult guessed Chuck Berry. Marlon shot that down with a quick “Nope!”
It was Jimi Hendrix.
“Jimmy Hendrix walked out. He’d taken an hour of our time, and we only rehearsed for three hours because we had to get back to our halls to go to sleep.”
An hour is a lot to lose when you’re a kid who has to be back in bed at a set time. But it’s hard to stay mad when the person holding you up is the man Marlon called one of the greatest guitar players ever. Jackie remembered the moment warmly. “He was happy to see us,” he said.
Marlon didn’t say where the hall was. What he did remember is the timing, and it’s why the afternoon never left him: Marlon remembers it being only weeks before Hendrix passed away, on Sept 18, 1970, at just 27.
Marlon told that story in 2017, the same year the Jacksons sat down with TV Laval for this interview, so you can see what the brothers were like that year.
The Jacksons sit down for a TV interview in 2017
Jackie shared a memory of his own in that Buzz chat. The first time he heard the brothers on the radio, he pulled the car over. “When I first heard it on the radio I pulled over to the side of the road and just listened to the whole song. It was very surreal, I’d just put it together with my brothers, and it sounded great.”
He also had kind words for this side of the Atlantic. “Great Britain has always been one of our biggest markets,” he said, and he still remembers landing in London for the first time: “we were told that there were fans at the airport waiting for us at 5 in the morning. We love our British fans quite a bit.”
Tomorrow’s show in Cardiff has doors at 6:30 p.m. UK time, with Heatwave as special guests. Michael’s parts are sung by Mitchell Zhangazha, who played Michael in “MJ The Musical,” alongside Haydon Eshun, the longtime lead of the “Thriller Live” show in London’s West End.
After Cardiff, the tour heads to Civic Hall in Wolverhampton on Wednesday, Nov 11, and wraps up at the Eventim Apollo in London on Friday, Nov 13.