In September 2001, Michael Jackson played two nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate 30 years as a solo artist. They were the last full concerts he would ever perform.
The tickets were the most expensive in pop history to that point. The guest list was absurd. His brothers walked onto a stage with him for the first time in 17 years. And the second show finished just hours before the September 11 attacks — with Michael himself scheduled to be at the World Trade Center the next morning.
Start with the scale, because nothing like it had been attempted. The first show was on 7 September, and demand was so enormous that a second night was added for 10 September. Both sold out in five hours. The best seats cost $5,000 each — which included dinner with Michael Jackson and a signed poster. Over the two nights, the shows took in over $10 million.
LIVE AT MSG, 2001 – 30th Anniversary Celebration (Full Concert)
The line-up reads as somebody made it up. Whitney Houston, Usher, Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, Slash, Liza Minnelli, Marc Anthony, Gladys Knight, Missy Elliott, Dionne Warwick, Luther Vandross, Chris Tucker, Quincy Jones, NSYNC and Elizabeth Taylor. Samuel L. Jackson introduced the opening number. Liza Minnelli sang “You Are Not Alone” backed by a 300-member gospel choir. Britney Spears came out and sang a duet with Michael on “The Way You Make Me Feel.”
But the moment everybody had come for was the family. Michael performed with his brothers Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Randy and Jermaine — the first time he had shared a stage with them since the Victory Tour in 1984. They ran through the songs that made them: “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There.” For anyone who had grown up with the Jackson 5, it was the reunion they had spent two decades hoping for.
Michael Jackson & The Jacksons
Then it was over. The second concert wrapped up late on the night of 10 September 2001.
The following morning, two planes flew into the World Trade Center. And according to several accounts, Michael Jackson had a meeting scheduled there that day. He and his assistant Frank Cascio were reportedly due at the towers to return a watch worth around two million dollars that he had worn during the concert, along with a diamond necklace belonging to Elizabeth Taylor. They overslept and never made it.
The concerts were edited together and broadcast by CBS in November 2001 as a two-hour television special. Watching it now is a strange experience, because nobody in that building knew what any of it was about to become.
Michael Jackson never performed a full concert again. He rehearsed extensively for the This Is It shows in 2009 and died the day after the final rehearsal. Which means those two nights at Madison Square Garden — the reunion, the guest list, the $5,000 seats — were the last time the world properly saw him do the thing he was born to do.