KATJUSA CISAR | Posted: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 8:30 am

Back in the summer of 2003, when recent music school grad and saxophonist Vamsi Tadepalli was compiling a set list for the "funky band" he wanted to put together, he started to notice something. There were a lot of Michael Jackson songs on the list.

"And I was like, 'Wait a second, why don't we do all Michael Jackson?' No one else is doing it," he said. "Somebody should be doing it, and I want to be the person who pays tribute to his music."

Thus sprang the idea for Who's Bad, Tadepalli's Jackson tribute band. Thirty musicians and five Michaels have passed in and out of the band in the six years since then. Now, there's a core of five in the band, with two singer/dancers trading off the Michael role.

A Jackson tribute band wasn't the most popular idea in 2003. Child molestation charges and increasingly eccentric behavior had soured the general public on the King of Pop. The band's posters got defaced, and although they attracted crowds for years with what Tadepalli describes as "the ultimate party production," they were a bit of an eccentricity themselves.

Of course, that all changed with Jackson's untimely death in June. Ever since, Who's Bad has been pounding the pavement back and forth across the country with a tour stop every night. By the time they roll into the Majestic Theatre next Tuesday, Tadepalli said he hopes the show will have congealed into two sets: from the '60s and '70s Jackson 5 era up through Jackson's 1984 Victory Tour; then late-period Jackson, from the Dangerous Tour into the '90s.

Who's Bad works with two Michaels now, he said: Joseph Bell "likes singing the older stuff and sounds great on the ballads," while Taalib York has the dance moves and "the raspiness of the Michael of the late '80s and '90s."

The shows have been a cathartic experience for people mourning the loss of Jackson, said Tadepalli. But he's quick to add the intent of Who's Bad is not to mourn or hold moments of silence, but purely to celebrate Jackson's music.

Tadepalli, 28, grew up listening to Jackson, but it wasn't until he studied music at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill that he started to hear the layers of sophistication in the songs.

"A lot of producers today, they just kind of keep it really simple," he said. "With Michael, you had everything: the funky bass line, the tight drums, the jazz harmonies and the keyboards, the rhythm guitar lines on top, his background vocals, which were always layered with three or four different harmonies, and then his lead vocal on top."

Tadepalli credits producer Quincy Jones' jazz background and critical ear for shaping Jackson's sound on "Off the Wall," "Thriller" and "Bad."

"He was able to do some amazing things for the time. Back then, they didn't even have, you know, digital recording - no Auto-Tune, no Pro Tools, none of those plug-ins that can pretty much make anybody sound like a radio star today. He was able to produce an album that to me just sounds like butter.

"That's what really attracted me to the idea: hey, if we can make it sound like this in a live setting, I think people are going to lose their minds."

IF YOU GO

What: Who's Bad: the Ultimate Michael Jackson Tribute Band

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Where: Majestic Theatre, 115 King St.

Cost: $10