Here, Have A Michael Jackson Final Rehearsal Video

The saddest thing about Michael Jackson's death wasn't the messy custody vacuum it left for his kids.

No. And it wasn't the way that it's still pretty much impossible to find a radio station that doesn't only play Michael Jackson records, although that is very sad. The saddest thing about Michael Jackson's death is that nobody will see what he was planning for his big comeback shows.

But that ends now - we've got video footage of Michael Jackson's last rehearsal right here, and if you like watching middle-aged men walking around a stage very slowly, you're in for a treat.

Now that the main focus of Michael Jackson's death is the gargantuan tangle that he left his personal affairs in, it's a relief to finally be able to shift away an concentrate on something he was actually good at. No, not being sued or dressing up as a lady or being accused of wanton cruelty to giraffes, we're talking something that Michael Jackson was really good at - performing.

This summer, close to a million people were set to watch Michael Jackson's glorious comeback at London's O2. Or, if you want to be realistic about it, probably about 200,000 people were set to watch Michael Jackson's glorious comeback at London's O2, with all the others getting refunds when Michael inevitably started cancelling entire swathes of shows for no clear reason. But none of that matters now - he's dead, so nobody's going to see anything now.

Except they might. Earlier this week we reported that Concert promoters AEG had taped one of Michael Jackson's last rehearsals in HD, and was planning to sell it to fans in a heartbreaking Bullseye-style ‘here's what you could have won' moment that wasn't at all about cynically cashing in.

But having read some of the accounts of Michael Jackson's last few days, that didn't sound entirely appealing - who'd pay to see a bald, anorexic drug addict with half a face wheeze and shuffle along to watered-down karaoke version of his best-loved songs?

Happily, though, AEG has released a 90-second video of Michael Jackson's final rehearsal proving that Michael Jackson still had a bit of life left in his tank. Here it is…



Yes, there are a lot of fairly depressing things about the video - such as the fact that Michael Jackson's most elaborate dance move in the sequence involved sort of marching up and down the stage with his friends, the fact that he's miming throughout, the fact that Michael Jackson and his choreographers still appear to think that it's 1986 and the fact that, despite his enviable back catalogue, Michael Jackson was still planning to do They Don't Care About Us - but at least the final footage of him alive shows him doing something he excelled at, rather than being another gruesome reminder of how rubbish everything else about his life was.

But don't worry, we'll get back to that next week. Diana Ross, for crying out loud. What was he thinking?

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