Lenny Kravitz was just five years old when he went to his very first concert — one that would change the course of his life forever.
Kravitz was in first grade, and his father Sy Kravitz, an NBC news producer in New York, picked him up from school and took him to Madison Square Garden, not telling him who they were going to see, reports the CBC.
The band was the Jackson Five.
“My mind was blown away when they came out on the stage. Nothing was the same after that,” says Kravitz in an interview with q host Tom Power.
He said that even half a century later, hearing a clip of the Jackson 5 classic “I Want You Back” still excites.
“It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s amazing hearing this through the little speaker on the phone. It still explodes,” says Kravitz, adding the group combined the best Motown writers, the best producers, the best musicians, and the best arrangers.
But it wasn’t just the musicianship that appealed to Kravitz.
“I identified with the sound and also with the visuals, because they looked like me. I could see myself in them. We had the same hair, we had basically the same skin tones,” remembers Kravitz.
“Their stage performance was impeccable, their choreography, their moves, the whole thing. It was the same level as seeing the Beatles. Different thing, but that same vibe.”
