Growing up in show business is hard to do, especially if your last name is Jackson. For most of their childhood and teenage years, the song-and-dance prodigies Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine, Michael and Randy Jackson had been manipulated in the studio, groomed for the stage and chaperoned on the road. By 1981, despite more than ten years' worth of hits, worldwide acclaim for their precocious vocal and hoofing abilities and the two successful albums that they produced for the Epic label, the Jacksons were still widely perceived as Daddy Joe's little boys—products of Berry Gordy's Motown charm school. So when pop's hottest musical family embarked on a thirty-six-city tour of America that summer, they went with a mission: to show that the Jacksons, now ranging in age from nineteen to thirty, had grown up and taken control of their own destinies.

"There had been a point where people were saying the brothers were finished—we had left Motown, and we were finished," admits Marlon Jackson. "But when we heard that, it acted more like a motivation, to show them. We had a lot to prove. And after those people saw the show, it was a different story."

The Jacksons—minus Jermaine, who had remained loyal to Motown—stated their case with style and conviction. After showing the video for "Can You Feel It"—a grandiose fantasy in which they portrayed themselves as Olympian figures giving life to the world through their music—the Jacksons hit the boards, led by youngest brother Randy dressed in a shiny suit of medieval armor. With spectacular lighting, sensational pyrotechnics and flashy ensemble footwork, the Jacksons danced and dazzled their way through a tight hour and twenty minutes' worth of snappy boogie numbers and cool ballads, many of which they had written and produced themselves. In fact, the whole presentation was a family affair: Michael designed the space-age stage; Michael, Marlon and Jackie handled the choreography; Jackie, Tito and Randy directed the crack band. It was a "primo black arena rock" show, according to Michael Jackson's biographer and Billboard's black-music editor, Nelson George.