I'd forgotten how good the "Live" video is. I watched it again and everytime I watch it, I see and hear something new. Tonight it was Baby I'm A Star which took my breath away. It's the whole 1980s crystallized into ten minutes of jazzy pop funk. It's got everything. He pirouettes and preens like a prom queen and all the girls scream like they've never seen a half-naked man before.

The gang's all there too... As well as the Revolution, there's Jerome, Greg and Wally; Apollonia, Brenda and Susan; Eric and Sheila. There's a minor stage-invasion by what looks like audience members but act like a rented mob. All the white women have demi-wave perms except for one woman who loooks like David Duchovny in drag. The mob flail their arms around as if to catch the droplets of sweat flying from Prince's spinning body. It looks like the stage is going to collapse.

While Apollonia looks wired and struggles to keep the beat with her tambourine,
Brenda shakes her stuff and manages to chew gum with attitude at the same time. Brenda is shaking her thunder-thighs like her life depends upon it. Wendy is doing the bendy-waist, jittery-knees dance, like she really needs to pee.

Then it breaks down to a Linn Snare loop, Bobby's kick-drum and Sheila's timbales. It's the patented Prince "Train Beat" - you all know what I mean. The mob form a conga whilst Prince, Greg and Wally lead the way, high-fiving and jive-walking. GA-DUNK, BUMP, RAT-A-TAT, BUMP... GA-DUNK, BUMP, RAT-A-TAT, BUMP...

The conga line all do the wavey arm motion which looks like they're wafting away a particularly smelly fart and off they go. A little chubby kid wearing a flat cap and looking for all the world like one of the Little Rascals flicks his stubby fingers like he's working an invisible glove puppet.

It's basically Sodom and Gomorrah with a smoke machine and a laser light-show.

Then the melody kicks back in. Prince prowls the stage with the playful menace of Dawn Davenport's cabaret act. He runs up a ladder, grabs his spunky guitar and delivers the final money shot.

It's fucking fantastic. I'm going to watch it all again.

I adore that too, it's probably the highlight of the show, especially that 'Timbale, kick drum - uh!' breakdown which is just freaking fantastic.

Anyone know any info about that little chubby kid featured in this? I remember hearing somewhere before the days of the 'net that he was a member of the security crews entourage or something?

Highlights for me have to be the opening 3 songs, Take Me With You (cuz you can actually SEE shit) Irresistable Bitch, Possessed, the rockabilly piano-stool antics of Let's Pretend We're Married, and of course...Baby, I'm A Star.

Quite wonderful.

BananaCologne said:

THE BASS DURING THE TIMBALE ,KICK DRUM PART IS SOME BADASS SHIT !!!!

BananaCologne said:

I've got it on laserdisc and it's still like watching a fifth-generation bootleg but the sound's a little clearer than the VHS.

I love how the vocoder on Fink's voice doesn't work straight away during 1999 and he's wailing "Noin-teen, nointy-noine", apparently unaware that it sounds like shit.

There are times when it looks like Prince is coked out of his head. He just goes mental during Possessed. At times the band is fantastically out of tune and completely out of time - but it's wonderful. You get the sense that they're just all kids, playing in the dressing-up box.

I even like the inexplicable Yanky Doodle Dandy bit.

I love Prince's Sybil Fawlty hair-do too.

and the little fat kid

My favorite part is the ass-kickin' "When Doves Cry" (half-screen sux tho) but Ill hold that off for anudder thread.
The "Star" segment is just a free-style, free-for-all good time. Alot of fun.
Purple Rain follows it up nicely, bringing the stage back from the 'chaos'.

prettymansson said:

i was gonna say that too!

"timbale head....kick drum,unh!" ..LOVE IT!


classic performance.the whole show rocked.

I love this preformance! It looked like one big party!