Michael Jackson on 40

Michael Jackson, the worlds most famous pop star turns 40 years-old today (August, 31) and enters a new era in his life, middle age.

Since the early age of four, Jackson has only known one thing, singing. When he was four he was already part of the now infamous Jackson Five.

We all know that Michael is one of those people who have never really grown up. He has never been known for being the boy next door.

Back in 1979 his solo career took off with his release of the album Off The Wall. During the next three years he still traveled with the now renamed Jackson's.

In 1982 he released the album that sent him into mega-stardom, Thriller. That album is still selling and has sold more than 40 million copies.

Now Jackson is involved in building theme parks and global entertainment centers. His personal life has been another story. Dogged by constant reports and allegations of him being mad, sexually and emotionally retarded, a recluse and someone who prefers young children to his own age group.

He has been married twice, once to Lisa Marie Presley. Speculation around that marriage suggested everything from a publicity ploy to downplay the sexual allegations against him by some young boys. Another was that Lisa Marie wanted money for the Church of Scientology. All of the above being denied by both camps.

After Jackson and Presley divorced it was announced that Jackson was going to be a father. The mother was his long-time friend and nurse Debbie Rowe. Jackson now has two children, both mothered by Rowe. It is said that Rowe was paid a vast sum of money to be a surrogate mother and that she was actually artificially inseminated. Those rumors have also been emphatically denied. Jackson raises the two children, in Europe, with the help of nannies and nurses. Jackson and Rowe are very rarely seen together.

Today he turns 40. He is still as elusive as he has ever been. Some even say that he has even become more elusive and reclusive. Will becoming a middle-aged man, or child, change Jackson. Or like Howard Hughes will he become a recluse and run his new business empire from some European version of Neverland? Only time will tell.

Sparks, but no Candle

Princess Diana may have been on everyone's minds, but it was Elton John's concert at the Molson Amphitheatre last night.

The sold-out show coincided with the one-year anniversary of Diana's death in a Paris car accident.

John kept any reflections he may have had about his late friend private, and instead treated the 16,000 in attendance to an upbeat collection of hits spanning his 28-year solo career.

He stuck to his vow, allegedly made to Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry, that he would not play Candle In The Wind in concert.

The 51-year-old John eulogized Diana at her funeral with a rewritten version of his 1973 Marilyn Monroe tribute. The recorded single of the song went on to sell over 35 million copies and raised $35 million for the Princess Of Wales Fund to benefit charities.

The obvious option of turning last night's show into a colorful anniversary tribute must have seemed distasteful, or just plain grim for John.

Instead, he did right by his music and put the mourning behind him. Even a late-set version of his 1984 hit, Sad Songs (Say So Much), was pepped into a foot-tapping rave-up.

Looking relatively subdued -- by his own flamboyant standards -- in a sequined, spangled plaid suit, he led his seven-man band through a smooth, even-paced two-and-a-half hour run-through of his appropriately-named The Big Picture tour. Fans got a big picture, but John never scrimped on the details.

The singer came off like a perfectionist bent on meeting a stage-energy quota. The strain in his voice was audible by the end of opening tune Circle Of Life. That only lent warmth to the songs as he plowed on tirelessly to a marathon, encore version of Bennie And The Jets.

Ballads Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Daniel and Rocket Man, and steady rockers Crocodile Rock and Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting were treated to equal precision.

John showed raw power over more obscure tunes like Levon and Tiny Dancer. He did get a chance to play one tribute, honoring late T. Rex leader Marc Bolan with I'm Gonna Be A Teenage Idol.

But John also rattled off the names of a dozen or so Toronto friends and supporters before launching into Your Song -- proof, perhaps, that he'd rather concentrate on the living.