Cynicism is either a requirement or a side-effect of being a music critic, but Bill DeYoung says that in 1984, when the Jackson’s Victory Tour came to Jacksonsville, it hadn’t set in completely.

“I have this theory – and I don’t think it’s just me who thinks this – that the very best time to see a performing artist, the most magical time, is when they’re at the peak of their creative power,” says DeYoung, who was then the Arts and Entertainment editor of the Gainesville Sun. 

“There’s so much excitement in the air, so much anticipation that you hang on every word. At that moment, there’s no where else you’d rather be. I was a lot younger. I’m more cynical now, and I doubt that could ever happen now,” he says. “I love the Beatles, and I’ve seen Paul (McCartney) four or five times, and I don’t ever feel that way.”

Like DeYoung said before, what he was witnessing was Michael Jackson at his most famous, his most commercially and artistically magical – “That was his time. If we were to go see the ‘Bad’ or ‘Dangerous’ tours, it wouldn’t have been the same as when he came out in those stripped pants, and that glove. ‘Thriller’ was the soundtrack of everything going on at that time. Believe me, I’m the biggest cynical critic of what he became. But in those days, you couldn’t touch those guys.”

DeYoung, now the A&E editor of alternative arts weekly Connect Savannah in Savannah, Ga., has been following the subsequent tabloid spectacle. He says that the tributes that have followed along with the speculation are proof of a phenomenon that follows the deaths of controversial legends, like John Legend and, perhaps one day, Phil Spector.

 ”You can now forget the freak show (of his life) and now that he’s gone what’s left is this unbelievably cool art. He wasn’t a saint, but then again, John Lennon wasn’t a saint. The thing about Mike is that (their importance) goes beyond them living in your time,” he says, not sounding the least bit of the cynic. “This sounds pretentious, but they leave this stuff. That’s what really matters.”

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Pepsi may have been the official soft drink of the Jackson’s Victory Tour, but for the several weeks of intense rehearsal that proceeded the famous 1984 road trip, the performers’ fuel was provided by St. Petersburg caterer Midge Trubey.

“He was the consummate entertainer,” Trubey says of the late Michael Jackson, who she first met in 1978, when she began catering his Florida shows. “He cared about the details, and he was kind to the people that were around him. But kindness does not mean wishy-washy.”

Trubey put in a bid to cater the entire tour by the famously perfectionist Jackson and his brothers, but lost out to the guy that catered for the Grateful Dead. Instead, she and her husband and their Personal Touch Catering company set up camp in Birmingham, Ala, for the length of the summer rehearsals.

The famously private Jacksons were adamant that they be able to prepare for their tour in peace, and promised to fire anyone on the crew who spilled to the press – or anyone else – what they were involved in. This wasn’t easy.

“I would try to go to the grocery store to shop for 100, 200 guys and I would park at the back of the parking lot, and go walking through with grocery cart after grocery cart of food,” Trubey remembers. “I went to the other side of town, and got away with it for a few days. But people would see you walking to and from every day. The grocery clerk says ‘You can’t fool me! I know who you’re working for! The Bandits (the local football team.’ I said ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing here!’ Of course, I had to switch grocery stores.”

 Like most celebrities, the Jacksons had specifications for their menu, requesting healthy meals for everybody involved on the show, from the brothers to the dancers to the crew. Michael was even more strict, making his own juices with fresh vegetables in his dressing room – Trubey still has the juicer (“I just couldn’t get rid of it,” she says.”

When Michael wanted more than juice, he relied on a chef he’d flown in specifically from Los Angeles to cook just for him. But all he had, Trubey says, was the food.

“He’d come into the hall and say ‘I need to borrow cloth napkins. I need silverware,’” she says. “I said ‘Michael brought you from L.A. Didn’t you come prepared to do his food?’ He said ‘I just don’t have this stuff.’ I don’t have a problem with sharing, but I couldn’t go out and get more (utensils) with my work schedule. After the third day, I didn’t get my silverware back, and I went to Michael and said ‘I can’t keep doing this.’ I never saw (the chef) again.”

Trubey didn’t see Michael after the end of that tour in 1984, but she remembers him and his family fondly.

“I was fortunate enough to be able to talk to him one on one, to say ‘How’s your day?,’” she says. “Doing food for someone is as personal as you can get. I’m happy to see that people are talking about what a musical genius he was. He was goof to me, the whole family was. And I was looking forward to seeing what he would do in London. I think it would have been spectacular.”