Brown Mark talks about what it was like to open for the Rolling Stones.

I was glad he did not sugarcoat this story as so many people have tried to do in the past. Nothing cool about 90,000.00 idiots throwing food at the stage.

http://blog1.kuhl9.com/?page_id=65

The Rolling Stones Concert: my first gig with Prince

The Rolling Stones concert was my first gig with Prince. It was an unforgettable experience and very enlightening to say the least. I remember pulling up to the Coliseum in LA and walking through a small town of tents and trailers. It was a lot like a circus or fairgrounds with all the cables, tents, and generators and people everywhere working behind the scenes. Security brought us to our tent filled with flowers, mirrors, bright lights and a banquet of fruits, lunch meats and a variety of breads. You could hear the crowds roar although you couldn’t see them through the city of tents. As show time fast approached, security lined us up to direct us to the stage. It felt like a scene from the movie Gladiator as we walked towards the stage. I remember a huge set of white curtains towering across the back side of the stage and a very wide stair case taking us down to the stage. As we walked through the curtains from the back of the stage there was musical gear everywhere, technicians running back and forth; it was very chaotic. As we came around the towers of amps and speakers and entered the stage we still couldn’t see the audience because of the large curtains in front of us. We all looked at each other and Prince gave the ready signal. As the curtains opened, the drums started beating and all I can remember was the site of a massive herd of bodies all piled together like cattle; 94,000 if I can remember correctly. Everyone was hot and sweaty from the heat, screaming and dancing to the music, holding up beer cans and bottles. I couldn’t even hear the band, the crowd was so loud! On each side of the coliseum were these massive water hoses spraying every one down to keep them from dehydrating. As we finished the first song I noticed people not liking what they were hearing. This was a crowd of Stones fans, predominately bikers, and they wanted to hear Rock music. We changed up the set in an instance and started performing Bambi but the audience, not being familiar with this music, became very violent. The scene shifted quickly as the crowed began to up their middle finger, hollering out all sorts of profanities. Next thing I noticed was food starting to fly through the air like a dark thunder cloud. Imagine 94,000 people throwing food at each other; it was the craziest thing I had ever seen in my life. I got hit in the shoulder with a bag of fried chicken; then my guitar got knocked out of tune by a large grapefruit that hit the tuning keys and I knew then it was time to run! I dropped that guitar and started flying but the funny thing was, everyone else was already gone! They were smart enough to get the heck out of there not knowing what was going to happen at that point.

Lisa did a radio show back in the summer on Luxuriamusic.com. Wendy was there too of course. She took a 30 minute segment and played this thing where she had called Bobby, and Matt Fink, and recorded their calls, as they talked about the Rolling Stones gig. It was either Brownmark or Dez, that didn't get back to her in time. Wendy was there. I didn't thinks she was, but she told me directly she was there. I think Lisa called one of the old managers back then too. It was an amazing story, as each one told their take on it. Lisa cut all the interviews together into one huge cohesive near-30 minute story. Lisa added her own take on it as well. I think Wendy did too, as she was backstage watching the whole thing go down.

I had no clue until that show that the crowd noise in "Pop Life" is the audience from that very gig, so someone said.

http://www.luxuriamusic.c...asts/15038

There's the link to the podcast of the show. I believe it's part 2 of the June 13th show, listed as "Girl Bros. Radio - Lisa Coleman". There's one marked at 12 a.m. and one marked at 1 a.m. I think it's the 1 a.m. segment that has the Rolling Stones stories from the band's mouths. It's fucking fantastic to hear the story from THEM, instead of the same articles over and over.

ernestsewell said:

I think that specific show is what spurred Prince into issuing "cease & desist" orders to Wendy & Lisa (or whatever it is he does).

GirlBrother said:

I'm not totally sure about that. Logic would dictate that because it's a public event, he really has no say so on the "shut up" thing. It seems to me that it was more about a series of interviews, and Q&A's w/ fans (on YouTube), that they did a few months ago. As always, there are a lot of questions about Prince, and they flat out answered them. Some were about their work on the Planet Earth album, some were about other stuff. One thing that Wendy made mention of was that "I think at this point, he's just thrown his hands up about us. Like, he can't control it anymore." Wendy and Lisa have both said, "Hey buddy, this is my life too, not just yours. I can talk about my life freely." And they're right. The big Q&A was a 2 or 3 part video on YouTube where Renata asked questions that fans emailed in. W&L were in the treehouse, and simply answered the questions at hand, as they came to them. The Rolling Stones story was witnessed by 15,000 people, including the band. And the story was about chicken legs flying, bottle rockets (literally), etc. The facts as they were witness by thousands of folks.


Cease and desist orders are worthless anyway. Even Fink was threatening to hand them out at one point. I'm surprised he didn't go after Alex Hahn more because he said that Hahn used stuff that was allegedly off the record, in his book "The Rise and Fall of Prince".

Didn't Prince himself sample a bit of the audio where the guys threw stuff at him and the band on "Pop Life"?

Timmy84 said:

Read my first reply in the thread.

ernestsewell said:

Ah I see, thanx.

I didn't know the crowd from "Pop Life" was a sample from that show God, I was wonder WHY he inserted that in the song this VERY day as I know about his fascination with "hidden messages".

You learn something new everyday, indeed.

And I don't think the story was sugarcoated though, the Rolling Stones fans' hatred for those guys was pretty well documented,,,,I think it be can read in details in Per Neilson's book.

Harlepolis said:

Go up and find the link to the podcast download. Listen to the band talk about it. It'll be like you never heard it before.

I attend one of the shows (can't remember if it was the Friday or Sunday show). It was pretty brutal.

Prince walked off at one point and promoter Bill Graham came out and gave the audience a tongue-lashing.
He came back and did another song but the crowd still wasn't having it.


Being fully aware of the public's fickle nature, i've always wondered how many of those that booed him at the L.A. Coliseum were at the Forum a few years later as "his biggest fans".



Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

theAudience said:

I know, right? I bet about all of them became Prince fans by then lol

This is very similar to what happend to STYX during the "killroy was here" tour and they took it to arenas and Dennis DeYoung had them doing "dialogue" between songs like a theater show. Tommy Shaw of Styx said the crowd had been there for 10 hours it was 103degrees, Sammy Hagar opened, Ted Nugent played and Motorhead and then we come up with a "theater" show, people were smashing bottles and he thought he was going to die.

You do know that the Rolling Stones videotape everyone of their concerts
including their opening acts. Where is that concerts videotape?

elem55 said:

Keith probably did something to it.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Yeah, like skull fuck it, then used it to smoke a bowl.

I wonder if that's why Prince used that particular sample in "Pop Life". Sounds like something I'd do.

The Rolling Stones hated what guys?

ernestsewell said:

-----
I thought the cease and desist letters was over the use of some unrealeashed music that was on some blog.

laurarichardson said:

I don't believe Wendy & Lisa played any unreleased Prince music, or released any on a blog. (They played some of their unreleased stuff, but not Prince's).

I've always wondered if people brought this food that they threw (fried chicken in a bag etc) to the concert lol. Or was it purchased at the venue?

xlr8r said:

It was raw, if I remember correctly, which was even more odd.

lastdecember said:

what incredibly bad judgement. How could he dream anyone would want to listen to a theatrical production, especially after rocking out to Sweaty Teddy?

ernestsewell said:

that was really bad

My understanding was that, whilst some people had long speculated that the 'Pop Life' sample had been taken from a recording of the crowd reaction at one of these two performances, it had been established that the 'Pop Life' intermission was a library sample. I've listened back to Lisa's collage of interviews and Wendy's follow-up comments and didn't identify anyone confirming that the sample actually came from one of the two performances.

langebleu said:

My money's on the library sample theory.

Whats a 'library sample'?

Free or licensed recordings.

For example:

http://sound-effects-library.com/

langebleu said:

Come to think of it, it makes more sense

The crowd's recording from 'Pop life' sound way more tame to be from a "Rolling Stone" concert.

Go to: http://sound-effects-libr...search.asp

Type in: angry crowd

Select a sample