GARY, Ind. - "We're not going to never never land," says Denise Jordan Walker as her bus full of Michael Jackson fans are eagerly waiting to depart from Chicago.
She's wearing a Michael Jackson t-shirt and turns on a DVD of the Jackson 5.
"I'm going back to Indiana, back to where I started from," Michael Jackson belts out.
This bus is going to Gary, Indiana, to help tourists get a taste of the modest beginnings of the boy who grew up to be the King of Pop.
People who sign up for The King of Pop Hometown Tour get to see historically significant Jackson locations in Gary, the small steel town where Jackson lived until he was 11, before he became a star with the Jackson 5.
"You make me feel like....Woo!!!" Tourists scream out in unison, to the first line of "Don't stop 'til you get enough," which kicks off our tour. The giggles and smiles that broke out right after kept coming throughout the four hour trip.
Jordan Walker and Tecora Rogers run the tours and are fans themselves. They had already done all the research for a Jackson tour but ended up doing a tour on jazz clubs instead. Once Jackson died, they told themselves now is the time.
Jackson fans ranging in age from children to seniors - some even from Toronto - have been packing buses to the Jackson home in the former steel town since the duo started providing the service three weeks ago.
"This is a tour of motivation and inspiration... It shows what the Jacksons went through on a day-to-day-basis and his perseverance," Jordan Walker says on the bus.
"Michael Jackson fans from all over the world are very anxious for this tour," explained Rogers.
They're billing the tour as a reflection of what life was truly like for the Jacksons back in the 1950s and 1960s.
"Gary is the town that stood still" says Jordan Walker, assuring fans that this is an authentic trip to the town that Jackson knew.
The one hour drive along Lake Michigan from Chicago to Gary is not scenic. It starts off in a residential area and then abandoned steel mills stretch for kilometres. With a few stops at the steel mill where Joe Jackson worked, the hospital where the Jackson kids were born, Katherine Jackson's church, and the club where the Jackson 5 played their first gig and got paid $7.
But the tour guides made sure we had fun on the way with music videos, DVD interviews of people who knew the Jacksons in Indiana and trivia.
During the trip, visitors make a stop at the famous 2300 Jackson St. home and can see the mini shrine of toys, flowers, and poems that have accumulated since Michael Jackson's death in June.
Although the home is closed to the public, the guides struck a deal with the owners of 2303, which shares the same floor plan.
This allows tour-goers to take part in the most enlightening experience, the "mirror tour." Tour guides bring in 11 visitors at a time into the teensy two-bedroom, one bathroom bungalow--which is about the size of a two-car garage --to show people the cramped conditions the 11-person Jackson family lived in.
Visitors are encouraged to imagine what it would be like on a typical school day, with nine kids ranging from teens to toddlers, fighting for the bathroom. Tour-goers couldn't believe the Jacksons somehow even managed to rehearse in such overcrowded conditions.
"You can understand now why he (Michael) liked things so big, coming from that little house," observes Terri Johnson, from Richton Park, Illinois who was on the tour.
On each tour, guests can meet different people who once had connections to the Jackson family. In some tours, visitors meet the woman who gave the Jackson 5 their name. On others, the first man to give them a record deal. On this tour, David - Katherine Jackson's nephew and caretaker of the home - drove up and spoke.
He says he's cleaned up about 115 kg of stuffed animals since Michael Jackson's death. Sometimes there's even money on the ground, which he donates to the local burn unit and children's hospital wards. He is organizing a big birthday bash at the Jackson home on August 29. It will include performers and a block party. All proceeds will go towards building a Michael Jackson museum in Gary, which the mayor has said he hopes would boost the local economy which hasn't recovered after many steel factories closed down decades ago.
And business is booming for vendors selling Jackson souvenirs like t-shirts, magnets and posters across the street from the Jackson home. They won't reveal how much money they make but they say they get about 1,000 customers a day.
On their way home, fans had positive reviews of the tour and said they found a new found appreciation for the Jackson family.
"When I went in the house, I thought 'My gosh, I would never do this,'" said Zahir Myles, 12, who was visiting from Minnesota and wearing his version of a "Bad" jacket. He is an only child so he said he couldn't imagine living in such cramped quarters.
"Just seeing where they started, actually seeing it for yourself really does make you know that (getting famous) took a lot of discipline," said Mallorie Garner from Olympia Fields, Illinois.
"When you see this house it's like 'Wait a minute. Michael wasn't born in a gated community,'" says Jordan Walker. "This is reality. When you see all this it makes you look at Michael and makes him seem like a normal person."
"He's positive, he was a dreamer, he was exciting, he was creative, a humanitarian but he was a real person," she says, explaining that the town helped form Jackson into the superstar he later became.
"This is a tour of dreams coming true," she says. "It's the hometown where it all began, it's not L.A., it's Gary, Indiana."
Notes: Tours run on Saturdays and Sundays, and other days for special groups.
Cost is $55USD for adults, and $45USD for children age 6-12. Kids under 5-years-old are free. Seniors cost $30 USD. Group rates are available.
Each tour bus seats 36 people so spaces are limited - book early. Hydro wires in Gary are too low for traditional large coach buses to pass through.
Tour includes pick up from parts of Chicago or hotel pick up, snack, and commemorative tour DVD.
For more information, visit www.thekingofpoptours.com or call JWR Tours at 1-866-717-8687.
