Remember The Times

Home video players were still not that widespread when Thriller was released, and the idea of showing a video at a birthday party was almost revolutionary. My best friend Claire Awcock's big sister had rented Thriller for us to watch at her party and we sat, mesmerised, and a little scared by the graveyard scenes, not really understanding what we were seeing, but loving the music all the same.

With hindsight we were a couple of years too young to really get Michael in all his magnificence but I remember that afternoon so, so clearly. I must have seen thousands of movies since then but no film from the first twenty years of my life has stuck in my mind the way Thriller did. The costumes, the make-up, the idea of a proper story set to music: it's hard to get across just how revolutionary this all was in 1983-4.

Image from 1OAK's e-flyer this evening celebrating Michael