WASHINGTON - Since 2004, the Triangle band Who's Bad? has been the next-best thing to seeing Michael Jackson perform.
Now it's the best thing.

The six-member tribute band has long been considered tops in playing Jackson's music, but it was thrust into the spotlight this week with the untimely death Thursday of the King of Pop.

"My phone has been ringing off the hook," said founder Vamsi Tadepalli, 28, of Durham.

The band had booked a show Friday night at the popular 9:30 Club in Washington months ago, but demand grew so high that the band added a second one. Both sold out. Band members plan to add dates to a schedule that's booked solid.

Tadepalli and other bandmates have been interviewed by CNN, MSNBC and USA Today, among other national publications, over the past three days.

It's too soon to tell whether the spike in interest is the beginning of a new phase in the band's career. But even if it is temporary, Who's Bad is at the top of its game.

Mitch Kramer saw the band at the Soapbox in Wilmington a few years ago. Now living in Washington, he planned to see them at the 9:30 Club along with his fiancée and a friend, but he hadn't bothered to buy tickets until after Jackson's death.

Boosted by mentions on local blogs and word-of-mouth, tickets to the show quickly shot up on Craigslist beyond the $15 face value to as high as $100. Kramer got tickets to the second show only because he used to work the doors at the club.

"This band is going to blow up," he said.

Nearby, UNC-Chapel Hill graduate Sonia Daswani, now working for the American Red Cross, echoed his thought.

"I feel like now people might take them more seriously," she said.

Degree from UNC

Tadepalli earned a degree in jazz performance from UNC, where he wrote an arrangement of "Thriller" for the Tar Heel marching band. In his off hours, he put together a funk band, but he decided to focus on Jackson because the songs were musically complex and always got a good response from the audience.

Changes over years

Over the years, Who's Bad? has had 30 members and five frontmen, with as many as eight members at any one time. Jackson's part is sung now by Joseph Bell, an Atlanta resident who joined in November 2007.

Tadepalli and trumpet player Ray McCall, the only other original member left, occasionally put down their instruments to dance backup for Bell. Bell also brings women from the audience to dance with him on "The Way You Make Me Feel."

The band was popular early on, playing 88 shows its first year and about 150 last year, the band's busiest to date.

Jackson's death has already changed the nature of the show.

At the concert Friday, Bell strutted, twirled and moon-walked while hitting the usual high notes and changing from a black fedora and flowing white shirt to a Jackson 5-era Afro wig and bellbottoms, among other costumes.

The audience of more than 1,000 Generation X'ers mourned Jackson by celebrating his music, like a pop version of the energetic jazz funerals that parade through New Orleans.

A dozen single white gloves (and one light pink) could be spotted, along with more than the usual number of black felt fedoras. A few women took the opportunity to wear bright, spangly dresses, though most men came in jeans and T-shirts.

As the show began, Bell addressed the audience.

"We came here to celebrate the one and only -- there's no other -- King of Pop, Michael Joseph Jackson," he said. "Now what do you want to hear?"

"Everything!" a member of the crowd yelled back.

After a few songs, Bell again brought up Jackson's startling death.

"You know, tonight we make history, because the legend lives on forever," he said. "Long live the king!"

The crowd began to chant.

"Long live the king...

"Long live the king...

"Long live the king."