starting from the Vegas 'open rehearsal'

secret gig @ the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas

w/Morris Day & the Time(rumored)

Everybody keeps saying, "Well, why are you doing it? Who's going to sing? Who's going to be Prince? Who's going to be the centerpiece?" All right, let's break this down: No one. No one's going to be Prince. No one will ever be Prince, and none of us in the band are going to try and be him. You can't. It's just not going to happen. - Wendy Melvoin

January 9th 2017 Bobby Z

January 26th 2017 Wendy & Susannah Melvoin

March 8th 2017 Brown Mark

@ Paisley Park Chanhassen MN 4.21.2017

@ the Metro Chicago IL 4.23.2017

@ the Metro Chicago IL 4.24.2017

* on FOX 5 DC

@ the Fillmore Silver Spring MD/Washington DC 4.27.2017

@ B B King Blues Club & Grill NYC 4.28.2017

@ the Theater of Living Arts Philadelphia PA 4.29.2017

@ the TLA Philadelphia PA 4.30.2017

* on ABC News

* Rolling Stone Mag Rockefeller Cener NYC
* SiriusXM

@ Webster Hall NYC 5.3.2017

@ the Capital Theater Portchester NY 5.4.2017

Watching the 4.28.2017 B B King show and really exciting and rejoicing with everyone and I hit this high and his physical absence just rushed over me...
They are keeping the music alive. I can't wait to see them this summer.

CELEBRATION @ Paisley Park 4.20- .2017

1. Computer Blue

2. America

3. Mountains

4. Take Me With U

5. D M S R

6. Our Destiny

7. Roadhouse Garden

8. Raspberry Beret

9. Erotic City

10. Let's Work

11. 1999

12. Paisley Park

13. Controversy

14. Let's Go Crazy

15. Purple Rain

Prince’s most famous band, the Revolution, used their performance Friday at the second day of Paisley Park’s Celebration 2017 to kick off a North American tour that runs through July.

The group – Wendy Melvoin (guitar, vocals), Lisa Coleman (keyboards, vocals), Brown Mark (bass), Bobby Z (drums) and Matt Fink (keyboards) – decided to reunite soon after Prince’s death, one year ago Friday. They tested the waters with a trio of sold-out First Avenue shows in September before deciding to hit the road together for the first time in more than 30 years.

It may seem like the band that played on many of Prince’s biggest hits, and co-starred with him in “Purple Rain,” experienced a homecoming when they took the stage at Paisley Park. But actually, it was their first time, as Prince’s Chanhassen studio/residence didn’t open until after he broke up the band at the end of his 1986 tour.

Still, the song “Paisley Park” ended up offering the Revolution a beyond-the-grave connection to Prince. By sheer coincidence, the arrangement the group worked up during rehearsals turned out to be similar to the one Prince himself used during his final Paisley Park concert, a solo piano performance in January 2016. “I told you guys we had to do it,” Melvoin said from the stage.

While there was an emotional rawness to the First Avenue shows last fall, Friday the Revolution took a much more celebratory approach with a set list focused almost entirely on upbeat, party songs like “1999” and “Raspberry Beret” and avoided the likes of “Sometimes it Snows in April,” which had audience members in tears at First Avenue.

The crowd responded in kind, rose to their feet and spent the entire show singing and dancing along. A few songs in, Melvoin’s twin sister Susannah – who was in both the Family and the final lineup of the Revolution – joined in on backup vocals. Stokley Williams of the St. Paul R&B band Mint Condition also sat in for several numbers including “D.M.S.R.” (a song that didn’t make the cut for the Revolution’s First Avenue shows) and “Let’s Work.”

The Revolution even took a quick dip into Prince’s legendary vault of unreleased material and played “Our Destiny” and “Roadhouse Garden,” a pair of songs Prince and the Revolution debuted on stage at a June 1984 First Avenue concert.

The band also seemed to have figured out how to handle the Prince-sized hole in the vocals department. Multiple band members sang many of the songs together and the added power of the audience’s own voices gave the evening a congenial, familial vibe. The Revolution played with Prince, the fans filled the seats and they all sang as one in honor of the extraordinary talent that brought them together in the first place.

When it came time for the end of the set, a hush fell over the room at the first note of “Purple Rain.” It felt like every soul in Paisley Park suddenly remembered Prince had died in this very building one year ago. But that sadness turned into triumph by the end of the power ballad, with Melvoin’s searing guitar solo warming the hearts of all in attendance.

The second day of Celebration 2017 opened with the event’s host Damaris Lewis, a backup dancer for Prince, introducing four of the Purple One’s siblings: Alfred Jackson and Tyka, Norrine and Sharon Nelson. The audience held hands for a minute of silence followed by a minute of applause. Then, footage from the first half of Prince’s aforementioned solo piano concert aired on the big screen.

Audible gasps emerged from the crowd when the screen went dark, with many clearly wishing they could view the entire show. Lewis said the same thing she later repeated when fans clamored for one more song from the Revolution. Now that Prince is gone, she told everyone, “You are the encore.”

@ the

3730 N Clark St

Chicago IL 60613

4.24.2017

1. Computer Blue

2. America

3. Mountains

4. Automatic

5. Take Me With U

6. Uptown

7. D M S R

8. Our Destiny

9. Roadhouse Garden

10. Raspberry Beret

11. Erotic City

12. Let's Work

13. 1999

14. Paisley Park

15. Controversy

16. Sometimes It Snows In April

17. Let's Go Crazy

18. Delirious

19. Kiss

20. When Doves Cry

21. Purple Rain

on FOX 5 in Washington DC 4.26.2017

Looks like Lisa is using a modern Oberheim? (as her top keyboard?)

GaryMF said:

Looks like Lisa is using a modern Oberheim? (as her top keyboard?)

Yep

4.27.2017

@ the Fillmore Silver Spring Washington DC

8656 Colesville Rd

Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

OldFriends4Sale said:

GaryMF said:

Looks like Lisa is using a modern Oberheim? (as her top keyboard?)

Yep

wonder what she is using the computer for? .

/

it did sound like they were using some tracks for some of the Linn Beats for Doves Cry and a few other old songs. Wonder if Lisa is conntrolling them?

great thread. well done OldFriends!

"Only by playing for you, the fans, can we be Prince's Revolution. He gives Us 2 oneanother now, as we all start to heal and fill forever emptiness with sound. 2gether, we are The Revolution." -The Revolution

@ BB Kings 4.28.20127

237 West 42nd Street

New York, NY

Glad to see they are getting a chance to shine. Thanks for the pics

The Revolution's Wendy Melvoin Talks Grieving for Prince, Spring Tour

By David Browne March 6, 2017

So what was your solution?
All this is all fluid right now. But the plan today – and it's changeable – is we only perform songs that don't distance us as the band. So in other words, if we perform "Darling Nikki," none of us are going to sing it. We're going to have someone come out and do it. Wherever we go, there's going to be an artist who loved him deeply and they can come up and sing that song. But the other tracks that were specifically geared around a band – say, "Let's Go Crazy" or "Controversy," or songs that have more like group vocals – we're going to [sing them]. We're also going to do some of the songs that didn't call for a lot of his calisthenics or his screaming. There's no one who could do that. No one.

Do you feel like you've come to terms with his death and the circumstances?
No. No. I have a deep empathy and compassion for the pain he was in, yes. And do I understand how something tragic like that could happen? Yes. I lost my brother to something similar. [Jonathan Melvoin, then in Smashing Pumpkins, died of a heroin overdose in 1996.] And I have many friends that have had serious problems with physical pain and, oops, something happens, right? So that part I understand.

But when I reminisce or become nostalgic or sentimental, that brick wall of absolutism hits me smack in the face, and it's an incredibly painful feeling. When you think about the fact that someone is never going to be on your doorstep again, it's ridiculous.

@ the Theater of Living Arts Philadelphia PA 4.29.2017

Theater of the Living Arts

334 South Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19147

OldFriends4Sale said:

GaryMF said:

Looks like Lisa is using a modern Oberheim? (as her top keyboard?)

Yep

cute. This is modeled after Prince's trenchcoat?

CAN'T WAIT FOR THE PDX SHOW JULY 14...(crying already)

Gonna see The Rev next month with my son and his fiancee! Can't wait. Just wait until we convert her to Prince! But, seriously, it will be great to sing the songs with the Rev and other fans... Just what I have needed and haven't had.

SiriusXM

SF Prince Tribute Celebration Afterparty

Eddie M. Levi Seacer jr _ Jerome Benton BrownMark

BrownMark Eddie M _ Jerome Benton Juan Escovedo