Scores of fans paid dearly for a rare much-anticipated Michael Jackson comeback show at the World Music Awards in London last week, but were treated instead to Jackson singing poorly to a few lines of “We are the World.” R&B artist Chris Browne did a pretty decent version of Thriller after Jackson is said to have suffered crippling stage fright. Judging from Jackson’s lousy singing voice, it’s likely he was incapable of performing even if he had worked up the nerve.

Dissapointed ticket holders are demanding their money back after paying nearly $200 for tickets. (I listed the ticket price as $400 in an earlier article, and must have been mistaken.) Organizers deny that there was a problem with Jackson’s aborted performance, and say that no one has contacted them for a refund. They claim that time constraints are to blame for Jackson’s half-assed performance:

Furious Michael Jackson fans are seeking refunds on their tickets for the World Music Awards after the star failed to perform his hit ‘Thriller’ at the event.

Entry to the show at London’s Earls Court on Wednesday (November 15) cost as much as £100, and fans are now saying they were misled by promises that the star would play one of his most famous songs. It would have been his first UK live performance in nine years.

In the end, he joined a choir onstage to sing just a couple of lines of the 1985 USA For Africa charity hit ‘We Are The World’, which he co-wrote.

Fan Katherine Kidd told the BBC: “I’m furious. I feel like I’ve been ripped off.”

“People were expecting something significant but he didn’t perform at all,” said Abdo Binmadhi, “When the lights went on I saw people’s faces and they were like: ‘Is that it?’

“I should have just stayed at home and watched it on TV… We should definitely get a refund.”

However, the organisers of the World Music Awards said that they had “not been contacted by any of the fans or had one complaint” regarding the event.

They added that Jackson’s performance had been cut short because the ceremony over-ran, breaking a noise curfew at the venue.

Jackson wasn’t the only one who bombed at the WMAs. We also reported that Lindsay Lohan was booed on stage and cut short her hosting duty about half way through after suffering a fall down some stairs backstage.

Commentor Johnnie Walker was at the WMAs and explained that Lindsay was playing to the cameras and ignoring the audience, and that she deserved the boos she received after fumbling a joke and then trying it over again without an apology or explanation to the crowd:

OK I was there, she didn’t care about the public being there she was just after the cameras, Her first line was something about WMA being based on actual records sales and then some stupid joke about people over 34 nobody understood, thing is, she messed up her lines and the joke (which was supposed to be spontaneous) so she stopped and without addressing the public (like ups sorry I messed up, etc) or anything, started again and made the exact “spontaneous” joke at which point the public booed, it was pretty loud, she wasn’t booed afterwards (at least not as loudly as said time).

It seems like WMA ticket holders have a few reasons to ask for their money back, although the other performances from artists like Beyonce and Nelly Furtado must have been entertaining.