Prince yields to Miss Piggy, parties in his studio parking lot
Jon Bream, Star Tribune
September 16, 1988 PRIN0916


The eight spinning searchlights probably weren't essential. But Prince never skimps when it comes to a party - or a concert production.

After the opening show in his Lovesexy Tour at Met Center Wednesday night, Prince and 600 people adjourned to his Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen for food, fun and another concert that was a bit more intimate than the $2 million arena production.

Actually, the party was not inside Paisley Park but rather in a couple of huge tents set up in the parking lot. The soundstage, the logical site for the party, had long ago been rented for rehearsals for the Muppets stage show, and Miss Piggy and friends weren't about to pack up and move for the night because of Prince.

His people made the best of it, sprinkling synthetic flower petals on the asphalt and decorating the tents with "Lovesexy" posters. Frankly, by Prince standards, the party decorations were understated. Anyway, the important thing was the music.

At 2:20 a.m., the rock star and his band took the stage. "Now we're going to wake up the farmers across the street," Prince said with an impish smile. (An hour or so later they did receive complaints from as far away as Hennepin County and Paisley Park was subsequently issued a citation for disturbing the peace.)

Prince then led his troupe on a free-wheeling jam with the accent on blues and jazz. Funk master George Clinton and veteran R&B vocalist Mavis Staple, both of whom have albums coming out on Prince's Paisley Park Records, made cameo appearances. Guitarist Wendy Melvoin and keyboardist Lisa Coleman, members of the now-defunct Prince and the Revolution, sat in for a bit. But it turned out to be the Boni Boyer Show.

She's a keyboardist and backup singer in Prince's current band. At the Paisley concert, she showed why she belongs front and center. She brought the house down with a version of James Brown's "Cold Sweat" and with an improvised blues medley, during which she did some gravelly scat singing creating the effect of a muted trumpet. Somebody give Boyer a recording contract!

Even though it was rather low-key, the Paisley performance had more challenging and intriguing musicality than the arena concert, especially for splendid saxophonist Eric Leeds and fine trumpeter Matt Blisten. On the big theater-in-the-round stage, the arrangements and the movements are tightly choreographed a la a frenetic Broadway musical such as the Roller Derby-styled "Starlight Express." There isn't room for crisp changes and other forms of musical spontaneity that were part of the Purple Rain Tour and have been the hallmark of Prince's nightclub performances. The music at Paisley seemed so organic that, given the way they were interpreted, such familiar pieces as the Temptations' "Just My Imagination" and a rockabilly-styled "Housequake" were not immediately recognizable.

Near the end of the post-concert concert, Mattie Baker, Prince's mother, said, "This is his best concert ever. That's because it's free - improvisational. He was always able to take an idea and use his imagination and just go with it."

Prince, who tickled the ivories and played some striking jazz guitar, also showed a bit of humor, an element that had been missing in his arena extravaganza. At 3:45 a.m. when he finished, he said, "Thanks for coming out. You're welcome any time." He then introduced each member of his band and added, "I'm Prince Poindexter the Third." Earlier, he had inserted a few musical jokes - playing a couple of bars from Madonna's "Material Girl" in the middle of a jam.

Prince mingled with the partygoers before his impromptu performance. He had arrived in the same 1967 white Thunderbird that he'd driven around the stage at Met Center. The Paisley Park parking lot also featured a healthy contingent of limousines, those eight searchlights, a few photographers and TV camera operators, and a dozen or two gawking fans.

Many of the partygoers were Warner Bros. Records employees, music industry executives or radio disc jockeys from around the country. The celebrities included jazz giant Miles Davis (he called Prince "the best"), rocker Taylor Dayne and women's pro wrestling champion Madusa Miceli. Former Prince employees Jimmy (Jam) Harris, Terry Lewis, Bobby Z, Brownmark, Jellybean Johnson and Jerome Benton were among the local music celebs. Paisley Park Records artists Taja Sevelle, Jill Jones and the Three O'Clock jetted in for the party. Other recognizable faces were Minneapolis soul singer Alexander O'Neal, MTV reporter Kurt Loder and WCCO-TV anchor Don Shelby.

It was the first visit to Paisley Park for Grammy-winning producers Harris and Lewis, who work at their own Flyte Tyme Studios in Minneapolis. Bobby Z, drummer for Prince and the Revolution, said "I got a lump in my throat" when Prince and his new band performed the songs from "Purple Rain" at Met Center. Brownmark, who had played bass alongside Bobby Z, said it was "incredible" to finally see Prince perform all those songs they had played together for years. Benton, who starred opposite Prince in "Under the Cherry Moon," recently signed a movie contract with Triad Films.

A Hollywood camera crew filmed Prince 's party for a documentary motion picture. Meanwhile, the singer and his band had to return to Met Center at 11 a.m. Thursday - just seven hours after the party ended - to shoot some footage for the music video of the forthcoming single "I Wish U Heaven."
[Edited 1/1/05 13:05pm]

Wow, Incredible...wish I lived in Minneapolis and was a bit older to have experienced all the fun!

Never heard of this before.

I doubt he arrived in the exact same white Thunderbird, since the one on stage was a slightly scaled down stage prop which could be dismantled for touring and was hardly road worthy!

Funny to hear that Wendy and Lisa were still welcome at this point, quite a while after the Revolution were disbanded.

I didn't know Boni Boyer did all that scat singing and trombone mimicking - which Rosie Gaines would also later do. Talk about replacing like for like!

I was at that Met Center show but missed out on the Paisly party.

RIP Boni Boyer. RIP Met Center.

DorothyParkerWasCool said:

I was among the 'gawking fans' in the parking lot that night watching through the fence, and I can tell you there were a LOT more than merely a dozen or two besides myself and the 6 other people I was with.

It was quite a spectacle. I can still remember the big yellow and white striped tents set up, and how you weren't allowed in through the gates unless you showed the security guard a "Purple Heart Pass".

A few other celebrities I know of who were there that night were Stevie Nicks, PeeWee Herman, and Eddie Murphy.

DorothyParkerWasCool said:

Yet more footage locked away in the vault never to be seen...wonder if the crew were actually the BBC Doco crew?

And what footage of 'I Wish U Heaven' filmed at the Met made it into the final video??

Great story anyhow...

derek said:

I believe that the video for Glam Slam came out of this session footage.