Such was the vast appeal of his music transcending all barriers, be it age, cast, color or religion that’s what made his music loved the world over. Although a lot has been said about him as an individual there’s one fact that no one can deny, he was an entertainer and a phenomenal one at that. 13 Grammy awards, 22 American Music Awards, 17 number one singles and estimated sales of over 750 million records worldwide. He was truly a prodigy and probably the best musician we’ll see in our lifetime.

In his final days he was preparing for one the biggest shows of his career. The tour appropriately titled “This Is It” was to be his first since the “History” tour of 1997 and the grand finale to his career. So this was special, talking about it he said “It’s an adventure, a great adventure. We wanna take them places they’ve never been before, we wanna show them talent like they’ve never seen before”. And when Michael says talent he means talent. His unique style of dancing from his “Moonwalks” to his Robotic moves inspired a plethora of performers throughout the years, his music videos over the years from the “Thriller” to “Scream” have redefined industry standards. So when he says he’s going to put on a show everyone knows he’s going to put on a show.

The concerts were scheduled to start on July 8, 2009 and end by March 6, 2010. £13 million was to be spent on producing the concerts which were to be at the O2 arena in London. The costumes Michael was set to wear during the shows were encrusted with 300,000 Swarovski crystals. In May 09 thousands of dancers flew in from all over the world to audition for Michael and he handpicked 12 of them. There also would have been Aerial Dancing and also 3D video. This concert was called the biggest musical event of the year.

The tickets came on pre-sale on March 11 and the two sites offering tickets crashed within minutes of going online, in the space of two hours 190,000 tickets were sold. 2 Million People tried buying tickets online within a space of 18 hours. The response was so overwhelming the organizers has to increase the numbers of shows from 10 to 50. His critics were speechless. Once again Michael proved that in spite of all the controversy and criticism he was still in fact the King of Pop.

Although we weren’t fortunate enough to see the actual spectacle Michael had in store for us the organizers of the concert together with Columbia Pictures have used the 100 hours of footage shot during the rehearsals and preparations leading up to the event to give us a composite look at what it would’ve been. Titled “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” the film takes you through all 22 hits on all 22 sets and gives us a glimpse of the man behind the curtain determined to give the world something special. It shows the dedication and all the effort he put into his art and most of all it’s the last of Michael and this indeed is IT… To win free tickets for the movie This is It, now screening at Liberty Cinema e mail us at etvtcs@gmail.com