At the beginning of Michael Jackson: A Tribute, the Radio 1 DJ Trevor Nelson asked Paul Gambaccini, “Is this what Michael would have wanted?”

“I believe Michael Jackson would have wanted to go out with a show,” Gambaccini averred. “He was, after all, one of the greatest showmen in history.”

Of course, whether or not Michael Jackson “would have wanted” something made it a valid idea or not was another matter entirely. This was, after all, a man who blew a multimillion-dollar fortune on giraffes, fairground rides and gold-plated chess sets and slept in a bed with 12-year-old children “because I like it”.

In the event, however, any viewer of this “combination of memorial service and spectacle”, as Gambaccini paraphrased it, would have been left with the impression that Michael Jackson would have loved Michael Jackson: A Tribute.

It was, in the manner of his life, a peerlessly odd evening: sometimes deeply moving but so surreally huge and random that even ardent Michael Jackson fans felt almost drunk on its weirdness.

Beset with technical difficulties, the show started nearly 15 minutes late and so essentially kicked off with a 15-minute silence — surely the longest broadcast in history. This was then followed by the arrival of Jackson himself, in his $25,000 casket, strewn with red roses, as a massed choir sang We Will See the King. It was carried by Jackson’s brothers, all wearing a single, white, rhinestone glove.

Smokey Robinson was the first onstage, reading messages from Nelson Mandela and Diana Ross, cast as some manner of macabre funeral Best Man, reading out telegrams. Mandela told the Jackson family to “be strong” as audience members cried out “We love you, Michael” to the coffin.

Mariah Carey was on next, in a daringly low-cut dress, with a version of I’ll Be There that was understandably nervous, given that she was only 15ft away from Jackson’s corpse. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, made the first tribute that really brought any sense of perspective to the memorial, recalling that when Jackson first Moonwalked at the Motown 25th anniversary party, “he went into orbit — and never came back down”.

It was a reminder of how Jackson’s elevation to the King of Pop was, at root, built on a huge talent. The Rev Al Sharpton, however, took this legacy one step farther, in an impassioned and occasionally logic-troubled speech that claimed Jackson was responsible for Live Aid, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama’s election to the White House “and love”. To a standing ovation, he concluded: “Paris, Michael, Blanket — I want you to know there was nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with.”

Michael Jackson: A Memorial proved, again and again, that talking about Michael Jackson often leads to hyperbole and fact-fudging and wrongness. As with Jackson himself, it was only really when you dealt with the music that you were on solid ground, as was brought home by Stevie Wonder.

“Michael, I told you over and over again I loved you, so I am at peace,” Wonder said, clearly distraught, before launching into a version of They Won’t Go When I Go of stone-cold, amazing majesty that made your heart go still. But not as still as the very last minute, when the Jackson family came on stage, with his three children sobbing uncontrollably. Finally, Jackson’s 11-year-old daughter said: “From the moment he was born, my daddy was the best in the world.”

“That was her first ever public appearance,” Gambaccini noted dryly, as the children left the stage, following their father’s coffin, watched by 17,500 and the world.

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