By Richard Duckett TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF - [email protected]
‘Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour’
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 28 and March 1
Where: DCU Center, 50 Foster St., Worcester
How much: $52 to $167. Tickets available at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at (800) 745-3000 and online at ticketmaster.com.
A guitar prodigy, Desiree Bassett of Ashford, Conn., had been accepted at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
But before she showed up for her first classes, an opportunity presented itself that Bassett couldn’t turn down. Greg Phillinganes, music director of Cirque du Soleil’s pending “Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour,” offered her a role in the show as lead guitarist.
The tour hit the ground running in Montreal in October 2011, and is still rolling along, returning to the DCU Center (the show was also here in May 2012) for two performances, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Bassett, 21, has been with the show from the start, toured the world with it, and plans on sticking around. “Until the tour ends,” she said during a recent telephone interview. “I’m not really sure when it ends.”
The estate of Michael Jackson (who died in 2009) and Cirque du Soleil (the French-Canadian “Circus of the Sun”) came together to create the “Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour.” The show has Jackson’s voice singing through the sound system; his songs (more than 30); a live band that includes Bassett along with musicians who performed with Jackson; a huge cast of dancers and performers, underscored by aerial performance, driving acrobatics and vivid choreographies; and multiple screens. Trademark Jackson and Cirque visuals and fantasy blend together, according to the show’s director of creation, Chantal Tremblay, in a previous interview. “It’s a show about him, with him. It’s a fusion of Cirque du Soleil plus a big rock touring concert.”
To put it another way, “It’s been a really fun experience. It’s mind-blowing for me,” said Bassett.
Since listening to Jackson’s music from childhood, Bassett had always been a fan. But she didn’t know how much of a fan she was going to become. “On the tour, I’ve been able to feel the music and get a better understanding of who he was as a person,” she said. “It’s made me 10 million more times a fan.”
Jackson started out young musically, and so did Bassett.
She said she started playing the guitar when she was 3 years old. “I just gravitated, not knowing how to play it, really.” She was encouraged by her parents, and soon was correcting her father, Daniel Bassett, when they were playing guitar together.
At 8, her father took her to perform in a talent show. “It was a little nerve-wracking, but I said ‘I can really do this.’ I forgot about people watching.”
A year later she started taking lessons in the University of Connecticut music program.
In 2005 she was selected as one of 16 finalists at the Olympics of Entertainment in New York City. She performed at the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, bringing up Jimi Hendrix’s original percussionist Geraldo Velez to end the night with “Purple Haze.” She has shared the stage with such artists as Sammy Hagar, Ted Nugent, The Marshall Tucker Band and members of the Allman Brothers.
READ MORE: http://www.telegram.com/article/20140227/NEWS/302279985/-1/NEWS07
Source: telegram / Richard Duckett / MJ-Upbeat.com
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