A year after Michael Jackson's death, fans on Friday remembered the King of Pop in prayers, song and tears, DPA reported.
Many started gathering from Thursday night in Gary, Indiana, the town where Jackson and his nine siblings were born and grew up until the family moved to Los Angeles following the success of the Jackson Five in 1971.
There was a memorial service planned for Friday evening, as well as a candlelight vigil and a performance of We Are The World, the 1985 charity single that he co-wrote with Lionel Richie.
Family and friends spent weeks on landscaping work outside the Jackson home in Gary and his mother, Katherine Jackson, 80, was expected to unveil a monument in his honour, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
Fans also lined up early Friday outside the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, outside Los Angeles, where Jackson is buried. Access, however, was limited and they had to hand over flowers and cards to personnel at the cemetery, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"This is it?" one fan, Kathe Sowisdral, asked a guard. "This is terrible." Sowisdral told the Times that she has visited the cemetery six times from her home in Atlanta. "I was hoping we would get to go in and see Michael."
Tallora Digirolami, traveled to Los Angeles from Adelaide, Australia, carrying an Australian flag signed by Jackson fans from her hometown. "I couldn't be here last year, so I had to be here this year," Digirolami told the Times.
Jackson died on June 25, 2009, aged 50, from an accidental overdose of the hospital anesthetic propofol, which he was using as a sleep aid just weeks before he was due to start his comeback tour in London.