Janet Jackson is calling it her “All For You” tour, but the pop diva may have trouble convincing thousands of Canadian fans that it’s all for them.
The day before she was due to open her world tour in Vancouver, British Columbia, Jackson and her managers decided to postpone Thursday night’s show until Monday, July 9, blaming the late arrival of stage equipment for the abrupt schedule change.
As a result, Jackson’s tour will kick off Saturday, July 7, in Portland, Ore., and a planned July 10 stop in Edmonton, Alberta, will be canceled altogether, organizers said.
“This production is so big, and there are so many pieces coming from different places,” said Shane Bourbonnais, vice president of SFX Music Canada. “Unfortunately, all the pieces didn’t arrive in time, and Janet Jackson wasn’t prepared to put on a show that wasn’t 100 percent. She’s a real perfectionist. She’s a world-class artist.”
He said problems associated with this week’s Canada Day and Independence Day holidays contributed to the shipping delays.
Nearly all 13,000 seats for the Vancouver show had been sold, as were several thousand tickets to the Edmonton date, Bourbonnais said, adding that full refunds are being offered. Ticket holders to the Vancouver show have until Monday to get their money back.
Jackson, making a sizzling comeback from a second divorce and a four-year recording hiatus, topped the charts with the spring release of her latest album, “All For You,” her fifth to debut at No. 1.
The title track from the steamy paean to sex and the single woman launched as a single in March and spent seven weeks at the top of the Billboard singles chart, marking the second-biggest hit of her career and the longest-running No. 1 so far this year.
Jackson, who has said the title of her album and tour is meant to be a tribute to her fans, is scheduled to perform nearly 60 dates in North America this summer before taking her “All For You” road trip through Europe in the fall and winter.
Meanwhile, elder sibling Michael Jackson’s upcoming reunion performance with his brothers, celebrating his 30 years as a solo artist, has been expanded to two shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden – Sept. 7 and 10. Organizers announced this week that Michael Jackson will debut the first single off his upcoming new album, tentatively titled “Invincible,” his first release of new material since 1991’s “Dangerous.”
The two shows, to be taped by CBS for later broadcast, will feature Jackson and his five brothers – Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine and Randy – singing a medley of their Motown and Epic Records hits and performing a Jackson 5 classic with the pop group ‘N Sync. The lineup of special guests also includes Whitney Houston, Britney Spears, Marc Anthony, Ray Charles, Mary J. Blige, Diana Ross and Gladys Knight.
The Madison Square Garden dates will mark Michael Jackson’s first live U.S. performance since a pair of shows in Hawaii in January 1997 that closed out his “HIStory” world tour. Jackson last toured with his brothers for their “Victory” outing in the mid-1980s.
