The Jackson 5 First National Tour

The Jackson 5 First National Tour was the group's first tour of the United States. After having made 1969 appearances with Diana Ross & The Supremes at The Forum near Los Angeles, and Yvonne Fair in Gary, Indiana,^[1] the tour began in Philadelphia with their first official full-length Motown concert. One concert in San Francisco was shared with Jerry Butler and Rare Earth (Ike & Tina Turner had been scheduled to appear).^[2]

In an interview, Michael Jackson told Soul Magazine about the tour, "In San Francisco and Los Angeles, it looked like the walls were falling the way hundreds of them, the girls, came at the stage all together; but we have to practice getting away too, so we're ready to drop everything and run. Jermaine dropped his guitar and took off at the Forum concert. We can always get a new guitar for him, but he'd be kinda hard to replace. It's too bad really, 'cause we can't finish the show the way we rehearsed. We always have to run off stage, and we can't thank the audience and stuff, you know the way we'd really like too, we just have to run away."^[2]

Background

The tour was announced in April 1970 by Berry Gordy Jr. and Joe Jackson. During the group's May 10, 1970 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Ed Sullivan announced the group would begin a summer tour of one-nighters at New York City's Madison Square Garden on July 7. However, outside of the two June concerts in California, they would not appear there or at any venue until October.

They toured with only four band instruments, Ronnie Rancifer on the organ/keyboard, Johnny Jackson on drums, Tito on lead guitar, and Jermaine on bass.

Set list

1. "Stand!"
2. "I Want You Back"
3. "ABC"
4. "Feelin' Alright" (cover of the Three Dog Night version)
5. "Who's Lovin' You"
6. "I'll Be There"
7. "Mama's Pearl"
8. "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah"
9. "Yesterday"
10. "Can You Remember?"
11. "There Was a Time"
12. "It's Your Thing"
13. "I Found That Girl"
14. "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"
15. "Walk On" (Instrumental rendition of Isaac Hayes' "Walk On By")
16. "The Love You Save"

Notes

• These songs are found in the 1970 tour booklet as The Jackson 5's repertoire ("Songs that's expected to be performed in their performance") for the tour. The set list included songs from the albums Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, ABC (album) and Third Album. They sang some songs that were not recorded in the studio, such as Hum a Song (From Your Heart),^[3] or ones that the group recorded but did not release, like "Feelin' Alright".
• Although these are the usual songs performed in their set, they often performed different songs. For example, at the concert in Jacksonville, they performed "Darling Dear" and "I Want to Take You Higher". The first five songs were always the same, as listed above, and they always ended with "Walk On" and "The Love You Save", except in their first three concerts in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Tour dates

Cancellations

• 11/26/70: Buffalo, New York; Cancelled (Due to death threats being made against Michael Jackson) Detective Vincent Andolina from Precinct 6, met with 3 youths from the area, along with some from Jackson 5 security about the threats. The result of that meeting was to cancel the concert.

References