Newspaper”). Fans learned Jackie likedTom Jones and regarded Jermaine (not Michael, conspicuously) as the group’s best singer; Tito was a fan of Chicago CubErnie Banks; Jermaine taught himself to play the bass “mostly by fooling around with it”; and mischievous Marlon bothered Michael on a regular basis because, according to Michael,“sometimes he doesn’t know when to stop.” Michael, in oneinterview, spoke revealingly of gathering around the family TV set whenever a“good group” is performing. “See, it’s not copying. That’s not the point,” he said. “You’ve just gotto keep up with the different steps and sounds that everyone is coming up with. It’s all part of keeping your own act together. We know a lot of groups watch us. And we’re very happy they do.”
At the end of every Jackson5 show, teen girls by the dozens rushed the stage, to the point where the brothers had to regularly drop their instruments and run as fast as they could to waiting cars before even finishing their sets. At theBoston Garden, they had to sneak into a Pinto and hide under blankets to avoid fan detection.
It was even worse in Europe.“When we got to the venue, the kids were climbing up on the fence. The fence was very, very high . . . and they were about to break the fence down!” said Jeannie Long, a member of the Sisters Love, a Jackson 5 opening act. “Then after we got to where we were going to be staying, we went to have something to eat. And the kids—the wall of the restaurant was all glass. And it scared me so badly, because it seemed like they were going to break the wall down.”Jermaine lost tufts of hair, Michael lost a shoe, and the Jacksons at one point had to give an impromptu rooftop concert to calm a pursuing crowd. Once, Michael made the mistake of wearing a scarf. “They were pulling on both ends of the scarf—choking him,” Jermaine said, clearly scared. “He put his hand under the scarf so it wouldn’t tighten up on his neck.” It was like the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night , but with frightened children instead of bemused adults. Onlyin Japan, where the fans preferred tossing dozens of roses onto the stage rather than chasing and hair grabbing, did the boys get any peace on the road.
The Jacksons’ security man, a former Los Angeles cop named Bill Bray, turned the Commodores, another opening act, into Jacksonmania guinea pigs. He set the older band in open limos along the street near the venues. When the Jackson 5 rushed offstage, the screaming girls encountered the Commodores instead of the Jacksons. This bought crucial time for the actual Jacksons to pile into their own limos and drive away.“We got a few nicks and cuts and scratches,” recalls Walter “Clyde” Orange, the Commodores’ drummer. “But we loved it.”
The shows were rigid. All five Jacksons stood in a line—Tito with his guitar, on the left, followed by Marlon, Jackie, and Michael doing their high-step-and-hand-roll moves in the center, then Jermaine with his bass. With their bobbing haircuts, striking good looks, and psychedelic costumes, they had a collective charisma, which Michael amplified when he separated from the pack and strutted around the front of the stage, doing his slides, twirls, and lead vocals. They played all their Motown hits—“I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “Mama’s Pearl.” They overreached with Isaac Hayes’s “Walk On By,” which they turned into a psychedelic-rock workout featuring Tito, then segued into Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t Know Why I Love You.” Michael’s rehearsed patter, with his brothers playing straight men, was usually built around the shtick of “Isn’t it funny that I’m the lead singer and I’m really young?” “I met a girl in the sandbox,” Michael would say before “Who’s Lovin’ You.” “We toasted our love during milk break. We fell out during finger-painting.”
At the hotels, there were pillow fights and
At the end of every Jackson5 show, teen girls by the dozens rushed the stage, to the point where the brothers had to regularly drop their instruments and run as fast as they could to waiting cars before even finishing their sets. At theBoston Garden, they had to sneak into a Pinto and hide under blankets to avoid fan detection.
It was even worse in Europe.“When we got to the venue, the kids were climbing up on the fence. The fence was very, very high . . . and they were about to break the fence down!” said Jeannie Long, a member of the Sisters Love, a Jackson 5 opening act. “Then after we got to where we were going to be staying, we went to have something to eat. And the kids—the wall of the restaurant was all glass. And it scared me so badly, because it seemed like they were going to break the wall down.”Jermaine lost tufts of hair, Michael lost a shoe, and the Jacksons at one point had to give an impromptu rooftop concert to calm a pursuing crowd. Once, Michael made the mistake of wearing a scarf. “They were pulling on both ends of the scarf—choking him,” Jermaine said, clearly scared. “He put his hand under the scarf so it wouldn’t tighten up on his neck.” It was like the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night , but with frightened children instead of bemused adults. Onlyin Japan, where the fans preferred tossing dozens of roses onto the stage rather than chasing and hair grabbing, did the boys get any peace on the road.
The Jacksons’ security man, a former Los Angeles cop named Bill Bray, turned the Commodores, another opening act, into Jacksonmania guinea pigs. He set the older band in open limos along the street near the venues. When the Jackson 5 rushed offstage, the screaming girls encountered the Commodores instead of the Jacksons. This bought crucial time for the actual Jacksons to pile into their own limos and drive away.“We got a few nicks and cuts and scratches,” recalls Walter “Clyde” Orange, the Commodores’ drummer. “But we loved it.”
The shows were rigid. All five Jacksons stood in a line—Tito with his guitar, on the left, followed by Marlon, Jackie, and Michael doing their high-step-and-hand-roll moves in the center, then Jermaine with his bass. With their bobbing haircuts, striking good looks, and psychedelic costumes, they had a collective charisma, which Michael amplified when he separated from the pack and strutted around the front of the stage, doing his slides, twirls, and lead vocals. They played all their Motown hits—“I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “Mama’s Pearl.” They overreached with Isaac Hayes’s “Walk On By,” which they turned into a psychedelic-rock workout featuring Tito, then segued into Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t Know Why I Love You.” Michael’s rehearsed patter, with his brothers playing straight men, was usually built around the shtick of “Isn’t it funny that I’m the lead singer and I’m really young?” “I met a girl in the sandbox,” Michael would say before “Who’s Lovin’ You.” “We toasted our love during milk break. We fell out during finger-painting.”
At the hotels, there were pillow fights and
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