Michael Jackson Rehearsal Footage Shows Star Energetically Dancing

A video of Michael Jackson rehearsing for his London This Is It! concerts at Los Angeles' Staples Center on June 23rd, just two days before the singer's death, has been released to CNN. The footage shows Jackson and his backup dancers performing choreography to HIStory single "They Don't Care About Us." The video comes just days after AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips refuted claims that Jackson was frail and listless during his last rehearsals at the Staples Center. AEG Live, the company staging the 50 This Is It! concerts at London's O2 Arena, provided CNN with the video.

"We have, and we may at some point release, some footage of him in rehearsal that would totally refute that," Phillips said of claims Jackson was weak. The video seems to prove Phillips' point, as Jackson dances fluidly and in pace with his backups. It's unclear if Jackson was singing live. The video, as well as the photographs from the June 23rd rehearsal, provides fans with a preview of what the planned This Is It! spectacle.

As Rock Daily reported yesterday, Phillips was hopefully that fans would see the This Is It! concert in some capacity eventually, either as a tribute concert or the rumored DVD of the rehearsals. "The world needs to see this production, and it's done, we have it in a vault… it would have been one of the most amazing arena shows ever," Phillips said.

Also today, Us Weekly reports that Jackson's London gigs were going to include a duet with eldest son Prince Michael. "He wanted his kids to see him perform at least once to get the vibe of the Michael Jackson mania," Jackson's publicist Stuart Backerman reveals. And while fans knew Jackson had one album in the works (he was collaborating with Akon and Will.i.am, among others), Billboard reports Michael actually had two records on the horizon — the pop LP and a classical, instrumental record.

Related Stories:
• O2 Promoters Say Footage Shows Strong Jackson, "Amazing" Show
• Michael Jackson's "This Is It!" Show May Become All-Star Tribute
• Michael Jackson Photos From "This Is It!" Rehearsals Emerge

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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