that became the Legend?

Would love any thoughts or anecdotes.

Would love some details on this from people who were actually there. The mood, the look etc

I wasn't there unfortunately, I attended the main Lovesexy show in Rotterdam that night while being on holiday elsewhere in the country and had not heard about the gig until the next day when I read about it in the newspapers. I was sick of missing it: Prince playing close and upfront in my favorite hometown club!

Some people I know have actually attended the show and they all said it was great, completely packed and (iirc) very loud. And I have heard rumours from people who claim that an acquaintance of me (a local beauty who was friends with one of my later flat mates) had slept with him during his The Hague stay. Dunno if it is really true and it is not really relevant to this thread anyway, but his 1988 appearance in The Hague certainly was high profile, much talked about and fondly remembered by the people that have actually attended the show.

I was there.

To be honest (and this will seem odd to some). It was an OK aftershow. I've seen better, I've seen worst. I think it was the quality of the recording that made it famous, rather than the gig itself.

It was handy for me, as I was staying in the Hague for the Rotterdam shows (I was travelling from the UK and The Hague was my ferry port), so when the rumour of an aftershow came out at the front of the Rotterdam gig that night, I jumped in a taxi to get there quick.

To be honest, I don't have any standout memories (except I loved People Without, which was performed in the dark from memory). The Blue Angel always got a major outing at these aftershows.

I prefered the gig at Camden before, or Busby's the year before that (my only Revolution aftershow).

Since then, I've seen many more far better shows.

It was fun, and I've always felt lucky when I've bagged aftershows on foriegn soil.

[Edited 3/19/15 17:02pm]

If I was The Hague born drummer Cornelis Johannes 'Cesar' Zuiderwijk (Golden Earring) I'd say yes. I read he was at the place and even lucky enough to catch a towel!

I'm not Cesar.

In 1988 I was 16 years old and in those days you just went on holiday with your parents. That August I was in a Spanish coast town called Calella and one day we bought the AD newspaper (Algemeen Dagblad, I think it's a Rotterdam paper) just for news and so on.

There it was, an article shouting in bolt - I have to look it up in the basement - HOT NIGHT WITH PRINCE, or something like that. Later I copied the article with the type writer machine (hello who remembers those?!) exactly to the format of a CD box. I was so happy when a year or two later I was able to obtain a copy of the Bola Disco 2 CD (as described n the concert section "25th Anniversary of Paard van Troje August 18, 1988," as well). That was such a performance, man that jam guitar solo!

I read every letter of the article and at the end of the summer we - Dutchmen and Dutch women - had the pleasure of Prince visiting Dortmund for an extra show, the one broadcasted on TV!

Again I was 'just' 16 and in those days I did not have enough courage (to ask my partents that I wanted) to go to any concert. The 1990 Nude Tour premiere in Rotterdam was the first show I attended. So, by the time that the show was on TV I was ready at the VHS to record and cherrished that so long.

[Edited 3/23/15 9:30am]

[Edited 3/23/15 9:32am]

SquirrelMeat said:

I was there.

To be honest (and this will seem odd to some). It was an OK aftershow. I've seen better, I've seen worst. I think it was the quality of the recording that made it famous, rather than the gig itself.

It was handy for me, as I was staying in the Hague for the Rotterdam shows (I was travelling from the UK and The Hague was my ferry port), so when the rumour of an aftershow came out at the front of the Rotterdam gig that night, I jumped in a taxi to get there quick.

To be honest, I don't have any standout memories (except I loved People Without, which was performed in the dark from memory). The Blue Angel always got a major outing at these aftershows.

I prefered the gig at Camden before, or Busby's the year before that (my only Revolution aftershow).

Since then, I've seen many more far better shows.

It was fun, and I've always felt lucky when I've bagged aftershows on foriegn soil.

[Edited 3/19/15 17:02pm]

What was (is) your stand-out aftershow? and y?

SquirrelMeat said:

I was there.

To be honest (and this will seem odd to some). It was an OK aftershow. I've seen better, I've seen worst. I think it was the quality of the recording that made it famous, rather than the gig itself.

It was handy for me, as I was staying in the Hague for the Rotterdam shows (I was travelling from the UK and The Hague was my ferry port), so when the rumour of an aftershow came out at the front of the Rotterdam gig that night, I jumped in a taxi to get there quick.

To be honest, I don't have any standout memories (except I loved People Without, which was performed in the dark from memory). The Blue Angel always got a major outing at these aftershows.

I prefered the gig at Camden before, or Busby's the year before that (my only Revolution aftershow).

Since then, I've seen many more far better shows.

It was fun, and I've always felt lucky when I've bagged aftershows on foriegn soil.

[Edited 3/19/15 17:02pm]

Interesting post. I fully agree with you that it was the quality of the recording rather than the actual show that made this show so legendary. It´s not that I dislike it but apart from People Without and his cover of Just My Imagination there aren´t that many memorable songs on the bootleg, and I think there have been much more interesting aftershows in the years that followed. Many fans are sceptical of Prince´s post 2000 work but I love the Bataclan Paris and the Rotterdam aftershows of the ONA tour, or the shows he did at the Emporium during the 1995 tour.

What´s your favorite aftershow?

rafael said:

The last 25 years i have heard so much People Who say They attended That gig That Madison square garden could b easily filled.

MSG seats around 20,000 for concerts. I suppose you can at least name 1,000 of the over 20,000 people who have told you that they were at the aftershow? I bet you can't name 5.

I will clearly say that I was not there. I've listened to the bootleg enough times to feel like I was though. Only the ONA Aftershows in 2002 that I attended were really worth anything. Most of the others were simply only cover songs with a lot of female singers taking the lead, and Doug E Fresh or worse rapping non-stop. So Prince's aftershow rep is overblown.

Still, it's fun to go to one. Even the legendary ones from the 80's really are not quite that special..you did get some rare songs, but a lot of covers, but the Trojan show is pretty much worth the legend. Yeah the sound quality is fantastic, but the setlist was great, and the majority of it was top notch.