It's just about impossible to get more famous than Michael Jackson was in 1984, with "Thriller” burning up the charts and his signature moonwalk dance move and one-glove fashion statement dominating MTV and Pepsi commercials.
So when it was announced that Michael and his brothers were coming to Jacksonville, it was kind of a big deal and it seems as if everyone who lived in Jacksonville in '84 had tickets, which were sold by mail in blocks of four and carried a $28 face value.
“My biggest memory of that concert was watching Michael moonwalk; that was a new thing at the time, and he did it so smoothly and quickly it was a thrill to watch," said Lynn Maria Thompson. "Before you had a chance to catch your breath when he did it, it was over, and you were eagerly waiting to see him do it again. Even from our distant seats, that part of the concert was amazing.”
More than 135,000 people attended over the three nights — July 21, 22 and 23, 1984 — when the Jacksons' Victory Tour played at the old Gator Bowl stadium. The Victory Tour was a massive production, using 365,000 tons of equipment that required 30 trucks and took up nearly a third of the football field.
The tour came to Jacksonville largely thanks to the effort of Jake Godbold, who was mayor at the time. He had gone to an NFL owners' meeting, a decade before the Jaguars existed, in an effort to bring a Super Bowl to Jacksonville. That didn't work, but Godbold did snag a commitment for three nights of the Victory Tour from one of the owners of the New England Patriots, who was also promoting the tour. The city shelled out about $450,000 to bring the shows to the Gator Bowl, which was razed a decade later.
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Cynthia Conner said she didn't have a lot of experience with concerts — Up With People is the only one she'd seen prior to the Jacksons — when her boss at the Drug Emporium offered her a pair of tickets.
"I get downtown preparing to make the 'Stairway to Heaven' climb to the nosebleeds," she explained. "I hand the ticket taker my ticket. He looks at me strangely and says follow that man right over there. I walk on in silence, wondering if I did something wrong. …. The usher pulls out a flashlight and points to Row 4 seat 12."
Michael's moonwalk, of course, is the thing that most sticks in Conner's mind from the show, and she just missed out on a great souvenir. "He removes his black fedora and tosses it into the audience.," she said. "It goes over my head and a very long man's arm grabs it."
Michael's dancing and the overall stage production are what struck Mindy Barker, who had just graduated from college and hobbled to the concert on crutches thanks to a twisted ankle. "He was absolutely a phenomenal performer. His dance moves were incredible," she said. "And the whole stage production; I don’t think I saw anything even remotely close until Cher went on one of her farewell tours. I don’t know if anybody sat down through the entire show."
Robin Braddock sat up top in the cheap seats but still remembers the show. “His dancing was unbelievable," Braddock said. "The stage presentation was incredible. We sat up high but I’ll never forget it. I kept my white glove for a long time!”
Vicki Phillips of Albany, Ga., got free tickets and took her pre-teen son and his cousin. "The concert was unbelievable and on the drive home I had two very happy and exhausted boys," she recalled. "They were asleep before my car left the parking lot. My husband had to carry them to bed when we got home.”
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The opening act for the shows was, of all things, a comic juggler, Chris Bliss. The Jacksons opened their portion of the show with an elaborate Sword in the Stone scene before launching into the first song of the evening, Michael's “Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'.”
The Victory Tour setlist was heavy on Michael's solo songs — he was the biggest star in the world, after all — but did not include "Thriller," the title song from his hit album at the time. Jermaine Jackson got the spotlight mid-show for a medley of some of his hits and the brothers (minus Jackie, who reportedly injured his leg in rehearsals and missed many of the shows) ran through a few Jackson 5 numbers in a salute to their old Motown days before closing with "Beat It," "Billy Jean" and the Jackson 5's "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)." They played the same songs all three nights in Jacksonville, as they would at every one of the 55 shows on the tour.
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