Possessed: the Rise & Fall of Prince
p 30 chapt 2 One Man Band

The tour resumed and eventually hooked up with the popular funkster Rick James, with Prince serving as the opening act. Featuring an established veteran and an up-and-coming artist, these shows were a bonanza for fans and were billed by promoters as "The Battle of Funk," which helped generate rivalry between the two bands. Often, Prince's concise, energetic sets were more appealing than James' ponderous two-hour performances. "We were young and hungry, and we started kicking his butt." remembered Rivkin.

http://www.thedawnexperie....php?t=196



Saturday, March 29, 2008 — by Wow Jones
In an earlier post, I wrote about an interesting anecdote from the Rick James autobiography regarding Rick James’ and Prince’s rivalry.
In a post on a Prince website message board, a member wrote about his/her experiences watching Prince open up for Rick James. What he/she revealed is just as insightful as Rick James’ account.
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PDogz (wildgoldenhoney from Prince.org) account at a Rick James concert, check it out:
1979: Attended a Rick James concert in Charlotte, NC. Prince was the opening act - Blew EVERYONE away! Rick James could not compare when he followed Prince’s act. In fact, about 20 minutes into Rick’s set, people in the audience started walking out. It wasn’t that Rick James performed poorly, it was just that after seeing Prince - there was no where else to go! Prince wore everybody out! I feel like I was a part of history that night. May Rick James be resting peacefully.
His entire set was about 45 minutes or so of complete mayhem and frenzy!
When you first entered the Coliseum, there was no curtain and everything was setup at the front edge of the stage: mic-stands, keyboards, and very few other props. The drum set was in the middle of the stage placed up on a little riser with an oval-shaped sign over it (which was first covered in canvas) that had “PRINCE” spelled out in lights, as in the logo on his 1979 “Prince” album. Everybody was just standing around, jamming to the pre-concert music that they play over the system, smoking joints, grooving, and basically waiting for Rick James.
No one really knew who Prince was yet. In fact, I thought we were about to see a band called “Prince For You” (the title of his first album). I didn’t know yet that Prince was an individual and not just the name of a band. I thought certainly that no one would be actually named “Prince”.

Then… BAMM! The lights went out, and you could make out 3 shadowy figures move onto the stage, and then stood with their backs to the audience. The rest of the band took their place, and all you could hear over the sound system was someone speaking in a low, sort of foreboding tone:

“Charlotte, are you ready for me?” — Prince

The drum roll hit, the stage lights came up, and Andre, Prince, and Dez turned and all charged about 4 or 5 steps toward the audience – and everybody freaked the Hell out! These guys looked scary as shit! The one in the middle (who I soon learned was Prince) had this spiky hairdo, full make-up, a pink leather motorcycle jacket, panties, black stockings, and pumps! The audience reaction was pure fright! Then Prince reached around to his back, pulled his guitar around to the front, then the whole band started jamming “Sexy Dancer”, and the crowd quickly got over their fright and started rocking to the music and jamming along - all hands were in the air. By the end of that first song, everybody was like: “Oh shit! This guy AIN’T playing!” The party was ON full blast!
Their play list consisted of songs from his first two albums, but the song they did that most sticks out in my mind is when they played “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?”, because Prince was ad-libbing a lot. Like:
Why you wanna treat me so bad? Is it the clothes I wear?
Why you wanna treat me so mean? Is it the style of my hair?

But what completely blew people away was when they played their encore: “I Wanna Be Your Lover”.

Prince went mad, threw off that cool ass pink leather jacket, peeled off his stockings, threw them at the audience, and was running around the stage jamming to the beat with nothing but his guitar, bikini underwear, and high-heeled boots (with little stars on the side). And then once he was done jacking-off the microphone (as if he were giving it head - Prince was a real whore on stage back then), tossed his guitar to the side, reached his hand down into his panties to cover his dick, and pulled his panties all the way down to his knees, gyrating toward the audience with only his hand covering his dick! WTF!!! The audience was going crazy! At the end of his set, Prince said “Damn Charlotte, we’re gonna have to come back here again soon!”

And that was it! I was a stoned-cold Prince fan! I started telling people about Prince the next day!
At that point, everybody was standing around like they had completely forgot about Rick James. But the roadies came out and moved all of Prince’s stuff off stage, the sign over the drums came apart into two pieces and they removed that. But what really tripped me out was once all of Prince’s equipment was off stage, they removed the backdrop that was behind Prince’s set, and you could see that the stage was actually HUGE and that Prince had only been setup right up at the front. There was a giant curtain hanging behind all of that. After several more moments of getting everything set up, the lights dimmed again, the music started, the curtain opened up, and there you could see that this stage was about a mile wide and a mile deep! This was Rick James’s stage!
Rick came out, and The King of Punk Funk reminded you of what you came here for! His show was awesome, but I’ll save it for another thread. But it was interesting to note that many people in the audience started moving out, because at least initially, Rick was no comparison to what we had all just seen out there! Don’t get me wrong, Rick tore the roof off that sucker, but it was hard to stop thinking about what we had just seen Prince do out there.
Rick’s show was about 2 hours long, and the Stoned City Band succeeded in funking us to death! The show was actually exhausting! I remember thinking “How in the Hell can they do this every night, and from town to town?” Ahh, the memories!





RICK JAMES TOUR (1980)
(Prince as supporting act)

BAND: Bobby Z. (Drums) Dez Dickerson (Guitar) André Cymone (Bass) Gayle Chapman, Dr. Fink (Keyboards)
21, 22 Feb - Fort Worth (USA) - Tarrant Convencion Center
23 Feb - Shreveport (USA) - Hershman Coliseum
24 Feb - Houston (USA) - Sam Houston Building
28, 29 Feb - Chicago (USA) - Uptown Theatre
1, 2 Mar - Pittsburgh (USA) - Stanley Theatre
5 Mar - Greenville (USA) - Coliseum
6 Mar - Atlanta (USA) - The Omni
7 Mar - Jacksonville (USA) - Veterans Memorial Coliseum
8 Mar - Lakeland (USA) - Civic Center
9 Mar - Fort Lauderdale (USA) - Sunrise Theatre
14 Mar - Hampton (USA) - Rhodes Coliseum
15 Mar - Raleigh (USA) - Dorton Arena
16 Mar - Columbia (USA) - Carolina Coliseum
20 Mar - Rochester (USA) - War Memorial
21 Mar - Cleveland (USA) - Public Hall
22 Mar - Louisville (USA) - Freedom Hall
23 Mar - Detroit (USA) - Cobo Arena
27 Mar - Atlanta (USA) - Memorial Auditorium
28 Mar - New Orleans (USA) - Municipal Auditorium
29 Mar - Jacksonville (USA) - Veterans Memorial Coliseum
30 Mar - Lake Charles (USA) - Le Centre Civique
4 Apr - Saginaw (USA) - Civic Center
5 Apr - Indianapolis (USA) - Market Square Arena
7 Apr - Milwaukee (USA) - Mecca
10 Apr - Savannah (USA) - Civic Center
11 Apr - Greensboro (USA) - Coliseum
12 Apr - Baltimore (USA) - Civic Center
13 Apr - Springfield (USA) - Civic Arena
18 Apr - Memphis (USA) - Mid-South Coliseum
19 Apr - Huntsville (USA) - Von Braun Civic Center
20 Apr - Dayton (USA) - University Of Dayton Arena
24 Apr - Richmond (USA) - Coliseum
25 Apr - Charlotte (USA) - Coliseum
27 Apr - Nashville (USA) - Municipal Auditorium



The Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Super Freak

Quote taken from Rick James's autbiography...

Bitter Rivals:

In the 80's, Rick James asked Prince to open up the "Fire Up Tour." James states in his book, "The Confessions Of Rick James, Memoirs Of A Super Freak," that he had yet to meet Prince. The only thing he had heard about him was that he was shy. James had hoped this was false because if he was shy, he had no business being out on the road with him.

James said he walked through the backstage entrance, Prince was sitting on his group's drums playing some bullSHYT beat. James sat down and began playing some serious stuff. He said Prince looked over at him and got his little AZZ up and walked away.

James adds, "Prince was just starting out and the first time I saw Prince and his band open for me, I felt sorry for him. Here's this little dude wearing high heels, standing there in a trench coat. Then at the end of the set, he'd take off his trench coat and he'd be wearing little girl's bloomers. The guys in the audience booed him to death."
The following weeks of the tour weren't very different from the opening date. Whenever I was on stage I'd see Prince on the side of the stage just staring and watching everything I did, like a kid in school.

One day I walked into the auditorium, getting ready to go on and I heard the crowd chanting loudly. I went to check it out. Here's Prince doing my chants. Not only was he stalking the stage like me, he was doing my trademark funk sign, flipping the microphone and everything. The boy had stolen my whole show. I was *!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&*ed and so was my band. This went on night after night, every show I'd see more of my routine. It got to the point I couldn't do the stuff I had always done because Prince was doing it before I came on. It started to look like I was copying him.

Everyone knew what was happening, his management, my management. The atmosphere backstage was not improved by the fact that Prince's band members were not on good terms with my band and my guys wanted to kick their *!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&*es. Prince's musicians would stick their noses in the air and not even acknowledge the Stone City Band, even if they were all standing together, waiting for the elevator. Prince's group was a bunch of egotistical AZZholes who never even played on a record. The kid did it all, they were just hired players.

One day, things blew up and management called a meeting. I told Prince's manager, that if Prince did any more of my show he was off the tour. Finally, we all met in Prince's room, Prince, me and our bands. Prince's band was afraid, very afraid. Prince sat on the bed and hardly said a word. He acted like a little BYTCH while his band and mine patched up our differences.

Soon after this episode. There was a birthday party for me. Prince came, he was sitting at a table with some people not drinking. I walked up to him, grabbed him by the back of the hair and poured cognac down his throat. He spit it out like a little BYTCH and I laughed and walked away. I loved fukking with him like that.

I always felt our competition was healthy, although I was jealous when he started getting big, more than jealous, I was *!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&*ed, because here was this little short ego'd out fukker who I had a feeling didn't like people of his own race and wanted to be white and taller. While on the road, I never saw Prince hang out with black men or black women. In fact, his demeanor was like that of a short uppity white boy.

A few years later when James was performing at the Universal Amphitheater. The second night of the show, Rod Stewart and his wife Alana came to the show. James decided to have them sit in front row seats that belonged to Prince.

From the stage, I could see Prince's attempt to throw Rod and Alana out of the seats. Alana told Prince to kiss her *!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&*. Then, during a performance with the Mary Jane Girls, James saw Prince being carried around the venue in his bodyguard's arms just to get attention.

After the show, when Prince saw Rick and Rod backstage, he jumped over the stairs and fled. Allegedly, Rod told Rick, "I hate that little prikk." Rick was *!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&*ed and called Prince all kinds of little *!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&**!@$%&*es. Rick said, "Had Prince not jumped over the stairs and ran, I swear I would have kicked his AZZ."

James heard later that Prince went to see Michael Jackson's concert and tried to disrupt it. When Michael allegedly found out that Prince was in the house, he came out badder than ever and Prince left the show before it was over. lol.....

Rick adds, "I always thought of Prince as a great player and a very innovative person but as far as himself as a person, he could use a good ghetto AZZ kicking."

Yep...I remember this tour big time. Didn't get to see him on this one, had to wait untill the Controversy tour. But I remember hearing about it, reading about it in Right On magazines.

Yeah this is a hot show, like Bobby said 'they were hungry...'

I have the recording, it's raw

OldFriends4Sale said:

i love the sensational.....Rawr!

OldFriends4Sale said:

He was high too much of the time and certainly bitter when it came to P, i thought for a minute i was high reading that crap. probably why Rick is gone, rest his soul.

He had his time, and he was ahead of it in a lot of ways, but P and MJ for that matter had ten years on him. that's life in modern music, so were more attractive to the record buying public. always has been the way.
[Edited 6/1/09 12:45pm]

gotta love his old fabulous logo

OldFriends4Sale said:[quote] reached his hand down into his panties to cover his dick, and pulled his panties all the way down to his knees, gyrating toward the audience with only his hand covering his dick! WTF!!! The audience was going crazy! At the end of his set,quote]


you hve to be making this shit up....U gotta be messing around...

I never herd any thing like this before...and that is some shit tht would
be talked about 4-ever

nyse said:[quote]

OldFriends4Sale said:

That's not my post

And I know a few people that have been to that show and confirmed
Prince was RAW then
I remember seeing Head performed (first off the band moves were sweety and hot)
then during Prince guitar solo as he used the guiter like his D_ _ _ and I felt like I was watching a live sex act the way he jerked the guitar off

In Dez's book, Dez stated openly that at first, there were no problems between P and Rick. Or between P's band and Rick's band. But that over time, shit did start to get bad. Of course Dez said nothing of P stealing from Rick's show. I had always heard about P going to Rick's shows, trying to upstage him on stage by having Chick carry P on his shoulders through the crowd. When I first heard that, I thought that was the freakiest sounding shit. I wasn't sure if I believed it untill I heard on the radio that P was carried up on stage at the James Brown concert out here in 83. The dj's on 1580 KDAY were talking about it the next day on the radio because 2 of the dj's went to the show. They were saying how cool it was that Michael got on stage and sung and danced. Then when P was coming to get on stage, Chick carried him up there. I was like "What the fuck is THAT shit? WHY on earth would P, who's a grown ass man, let another grown ass man carry him up on stage?!" I didn't know what to make of it. Then it years later when I finally got to see the footage of the James Brown show. Sure enough, there it was on tape. I was like "Gawt damn!" So I have no reason to doubt what Rick was saying about that. I could tell that P had taken a few things from Rick in his stage show. P just kept escalating as a performer and pretty soon he had sailed on by Rick.

nyse said:[quote]

OldFriends4Sale said:

Nope! It happend!

nyse said:

No, it was mine. And I see it's been making the rounds all across the Internet. I was there, and I confirm every word of it (...even left quite a bit out, lol) People today have no idea of what a complete whore Prince was on stage back in the day, and there's very little footage that documents it (...and of course Prince ain't saying shit about it, lol). You would have had to have caught him performing live pre-Controversy days to have seen it (because by the time Controversy dropped, he had already toned-down his act considerably). But that's how he rolled back then. You at least get a hint of it in the way he appeared in the early videos like "Uptown" and "Dirty Mind". However the "behavior" that accompanied that look was another thing entirely, lol

PDogz said:

Well, looks like Im gonna have to build me a time machine!!
That would be a gig to see!!!

mostbeautifulboy said:

Make room for me, lol. Cause I wouldn't mind going back for an encore, lol. Check my sig for the full post.

PDogz said:[quote]

nyse said:

lol PDogz, you chopped that correspondence up big time
It looks like I'm saying "I never herd anything like this before..." when it was someone else who said that

blackguitaristz said:

Yeah that James Brown Mike vs Prince clip was on youtube for a while too

I thought it was total rock star that Chick carried Prince to the stage
It was funny how you see Mike instigate the battle telling James that Prince was in the audience and to call him up

OldFriends4Sale said:

Looks like I tried to correct some formatting errors made by "nyse" and wound up making it even more confusing, lol. MY BAD! I do try hard to get these things right, wouldn't want to be going around misquoting people.

PDogz said:

Nah, I KNEW what u were saying was true because I knew people personally that had seen P live on that tour where he opened for Rick. I knew people who got to see him at The Roxy out here in L.A which was the first show of that tour before he even got the slot to open for Rick. P was BUCK ass wild then. No shame, no fear. I have a few shows from the Dirty Mind tour on vhs and P was less wild on that than on the Prince tour. And yeah, P had toned down a lot on the Controversy tour, which I actually saw in person.

[quote]

nyse said:

Are you new to Prince?
[Edited 6/2/09 15:15pm]

Rinluv said:[quote]


not t all...but i just thought he was little more tame performer in 79...
and I never would of thought he would fully exspose himself

Ha! This proves that Prince DID have a rivalry with MJ, while in his interview with Criss Rock, he said that he didn't. I believe that Prince use to have an rivalry with MJ.

This was a very good read though.

Thanks for posting!

I heard that Rick James tried to introduce his mother to Prince but Prince wouldn't say hello back, and that's what started the bad blood. Is this true?

Purple123 said:

Ive heard the same thing, but I don't know how true it is.

blackguitaristz said:

-----
Big Chick explained later that he carried P around to get through a crowd quickly. Sound nutty but that was is explanation. He claimed it was his idea.

Anyway the P-Dog post backeds up what older people told me who went to these shows that P was kicking Rick's ass. In addtion, I have a tape from the Houston 81 show that just kills. Everytime I listen to it I think how Rick was pretty much done when P came along.

Purple123 said:

-----
That was one story but I remember Andre Cymone saying he had to check Rick because he was pulling guns out on people.

nyse said:

The Rick James tour was in 1980.

oh see

nyse said:

Yeah, 1980 is when Prince was really raunchy.

laurarichardson said:

I also have the show from Houston 81 and yeah, by that stage, P was a LOT more polished as a performer than he was on the Dirty Mind tour. At least from the shows that I have from the DM tour. The feedback that I got from the people that I know that went to the tour with P and Rick, they said that the bruthas in the crowd could not get with P and the way he was dressed and the way he acted. And that either some of the bruthas actually walked out while P was on stage and came back when Rick came on or they jeered and heckled P.

nyse said:

not at all, the 1st 2 album might have come across as tame by Dirty Mind standards but Prince's live shows were raunchy

He & Gayle Chapman would french kiss on the stage during the performance of Head(this was the tour prior to the release of Dirty Mind)

And not only did Prince perform in a G string but Dez performed in briefs and a trench too,

naw they had it going on

Have U ever seen a live performance of Head during the Dirty Mind tour?
it was straight up guitar masturbation. I really mean it was like a man jerking off... He wasn't rude boy for nothing

nyse said:

Just to be clear, and to prevent any false rumors from getting started, although at certain points of his performance he was indeed completely naked after snatching his panties down, he wasn't "fully exposed", as he kept his hand over his penis while gyrating toward the audience. Though it's worth noting that immediately prior to this, dancing around in his sweaty panties wasn't leaving a whole lot to the imagination in the first place, lol. Particularly during the numerous times he kept sliding down that stripper pole that he used to work repeatedly during his performance.