Oh, yeah--I forgot that Sheila E. opened for him! In fact, the sound went dead for her during one of the concerts I attended, so she only did half her show!

Wow, I keep getting *flashbacks*--I remember after attending the second concert, my girlfriend and I managed to get to the Renaissance Center where they were staying and actually took the elevator up to their floor (we found it by pushing every button--which meant we had to go up about 60 floors!). Of course there were bodyguards stationed at all the elevators on the floor so we weren't allowed off the thing!

vainandy said:

lol..ay dont feel bad. We had seats BEHIND the stage, was late and missed most of Sheila's show.. If I was smart I would have walked to center area to see in front but it was my first concert and didn't want to leave my seat. Drama ensued before and after the concert as well.

KFUNK said:

My brother as at this concert (He was 18 and I was only 7, so of course I was at home ). I still have the ticket stub from the 26th show.

So did he use the mirror effect at all of the concerts or only the "LIVE" concert?

Don't remind me, I had a ticket to the Orange Bowl concert, but my dummie ass thought the Orange Bowl would be easy to get to by city bus, so I find out the fucking thing is about thiry miles from downtown Miami, so I was poor at the time, still am, and couldn't make the show. Had to eat that ticket. Should of kept it, oh welll. lol. The concert I missed. Didn't see the fuck again until 1997. lol. Bad luck with me and Prince.

vainandy said:

Now you´ve made me feel old, nostalgic and sentimental...

unkemptpueblo said:

Did he really say that during Purple Rain ?

I was there.....March 1985 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. I was 11 years old and my 1st REAL CONCERT! My brother in law took me and I got my doves shirt stolen! Nice, who steals from an 11 year old kid??

Anyways, I will never forget that night and the fact I wanted to kick my brother in law's ass for insisting on beating the crowds and leaving during the PR finale.

november 1984. philadelpha spectrum. all 8 years of me.

I remember there being a big controversy at the time because a lot of religious people were pissed because Prince was performing on Easter Sunday in Florida. Do you remember that? Was that in Miami?



Same here. I didn't get to see him until 1997 either.

I was at one of the Greensboro shows(I believe there were 2, maybe 3). It's true about there not being any big screens. I had decent seats, but it was still kind of hard to see sometimes. I love the studio version of "Doves" but I haven't heard but a couple of live versions I really liked. It was about the same at the Greensboro performance I saw, good but not great. Anyway, the song that really stood out to me was "Purple Rain". He did an incredible version on that night(he usually did on that entire tour). I've been a fan for a long time and one thing a lot of people forget is how popular he really was around that time. The album was number 1 for 6 monthes straight. There is absolutely no one with half that popularity today. And to his credit,I think his shows got better over time. Especially the Lovesexy Tour. I think that was his best tour IMO(and I've seen all the U.S. tours since PR).

vainandy said:[quote]






Sorry to hear you missed the concert, Andy - I hope you forgave your mother.

wlcm2thdwn said:

I was there with ya, bro. Not sure which night you went, but I was the guy who painted the big banner of him with the round sunglasses. Maybe you saw it...?

To everyone that was there...Did the brotha use mirrors like in the video or was that just for the "LIVE" concert?

The first concert I saw was a half sold-out "Lovesexy" concert at the MET in MPLS. I was in 5th grade and we (family) were down from Duluth visiting friends down here (MPLS-I live here now) and my pops said to my mom's friend "I'll pay if you take him." So there I was at my first Pince concert and my mom's friend snuck her camera in under her skirt (guy at the door saw it in her hand and told us to put it in our car) . The next day a guy at the photo lab also hooked me up with some copies of some pro's who was having his concert pic's developed. I still have those photo's and the t-shirts I got. The nex concert was the "Jam of the year," third was "Rainbow Children"(?) the Friday concert after the celebration and of course I was 4th row at the "Musicology" concert...THE BEST!!!! Speaking of pic's...when I was like 7 a guy down the street from my house who worked for the news station was at the Purple Rain concert in MPLS and he gave me to professional pic's from te concert...P was dancing in front of the keyboard with the see through pants...you know..."is he fine? Well tell me momma does your man have an a$$ like mine?"
[Edited 10/3/06 5:31am]

When Prince was on the Purple Rain Tour, he stopped in Detroit and did 7 freaking shows.

I couldn't a motherfucker to buy m a ticket to save my life. Everybody kept saying I was too young to go! My brother went with his friends. My cousin went with her friends...but here's the killer...they wouldn't even talk about the concert around me. I'd hear them talking about it and I get closer so I could listen, whenever they realized I was listening they'd close their doors or make me go outside. I WAS TOO PISSED at them for years.


I've forgiven them now. Not because I've matured and I know that it's just not good to hold grudges, fuck that, I wasn't getting over that, easily at all!

I'm not angry anymore because I've recently seen the show that was taped in Detroit. So to answer the question...I was in front of my computer screen. Long live the power of the internet!!!!!

KoolEaze said:

nah, not during PR, but I do remember hearing that phrase at one point during the the show.

when you're 15, you tend to remeber all the curse words.
[Edited 10/3/06 6:00am]

i never got to see it live in the flesh but have just watched it on a dvd i got hold of, live from syracuse 1985, with the lights off and a couple of candles i soon lost myself in the world of prince!! he looks sooooo good, especially when he does (very short) version of 'do me baby'mmmmm

the only concert we saw was Musicology in 04..but it won't be the last...hopefully
[Edited 10/3/06 10:15am]

Never seen him, not then and not now. Well I wasn't born when the Purple Rain tour was, so "now" would be the more probable time.

onenitealone said:

There are no words.

It was magic. Pure magic.

Imagine the best feeling you've ever had, the happiest you've ever been.

Now double it.


Anything else I can say is just babble.

Birmingham, Alabama November 1984, I am in our living room listening to the radio and the DJ goes live to a club where he announces Prince tickets are on sale. It caught me by TOTAL SURPRISE. I yelled for my mother that Prince concert tickets were on sale ( everyone knew I loved Prince). My mother, bless her heart, said she only had money for our bills but she would use it to buy tickets for me.

My mother, a uncle, and a friend jumped up and raced downtown to a the box office of a night club and my uncle purchased 2 ticktets for $37.00 total.

A few weeks later was Christmas and it was the first Christmas I didn't get anything (though I was 12, I still wanted something). So most of Christmas day, I had those two Prince tickets in hand to make myself feel better by knowing I was going to not only my first concert but a PRINCE concert.

January 15 (?) came and when the lights fell, Lisa hit that organ, and Prince said, "Hello Birmingham, my name is Prince and I've come to Play with you", I felt a level of happiness, I have only felt once since then. Prince rose out of the floor to the stage, the spotlight hit him and it was a surreal moment. Then halfway through the show, he came over to the side where we were and stood on a Speaker, directly in front of me. It was the happiest I had ever been.

Needless to say the show was the best I have ever seen ( I missed Lovesexy) and still is at the top of my list of best concerts ever.

As far as When Doves Cry, I don't really remember any mirrors but I do remember the stage being dimly lit and Prince coming down that tall white spiral staircase that was in the video. I was on the side of the stage so I saw the tub and the staircase behind the stage and couldn't believe they went to the trouble of traveling with them.

Anyway, the concert was great. I wont go into details about the girl in front of me crying, Susannah dressed as Prince on stage in between sets, the number of old people I saw at the show, and how shocked I was as a 12 year old boy to see women walking around the halls of the arena in full see-through lingerie .

VelvetJ said:[quote]Birmingham, Alabama November 1984, I am in our living room listening to the radio and the DJ goes live to a club where he announces Prince tickets are on sale. It caught me by TOTAL SURPRISE. I yelled for my mother that Prince concert tickets were on sale ( everyone knew I loved Prince). My mother, bless her heart, said she only had money for our bills but she would use it to buy tickets for me.

Velvet..your mom must be an
, what a beautiful thing to do..I am glad she "made that happen" 4 U.

There's nothing to forgive. She can't control the weather and a mother is not going to let a teenager knowingly skip school.

Come to think of it....I bet she was happy to see that snow. I know she was not thrilled about making that trip but she knew if she didn't take me, she would never hear the end of my bitching. The snow got her out of it.

Alasseon said:

Wow! I can imagine! Or I can't imagine, unfortunately...

But it sounds like an incredible experience. Imagine being Prince in the midst of that maelstrom? I've read reports that said it was like Beatlemania.

Thanks for sharing.
[Edited 10/4/06 4:43am]

vainandy said:

PR tour was my 2nd concert ever... 1s was Howard Jones/Eurithmics.

I was my freshmmen year at college, and after my last final, i went to see the PR show wih my best friend. We actually went mainly to see Sheila because we would listen to her 1st album on cassette over and over again in her dorm room.

We bough a package deal that included bus form Cornell University to Buffalo to see the Buffalo show. It was the perfect reward after finals of my first semeter of college.

We had nosebleed seats but it was a really meaningful experience. My best friend passed away in an accident in 1991, but that expereince was somehting we shared and expeienced together.

I also saw the PR tour again later that school year in Long Island. I came back to NJ from school just to see it, but the guy i went with made us late and we missed half of Sheila's show!!!

I don't remember any mirros doing WDC, but he does an extended vesion with different synht/horn parts in it. Sheila uses that arrangement but with real horns.

I had nosebleed seats BEHIND the stage at the now defunct DC Capitol Center. One girl let me use her binoculars. All we saw was the set rigging, but Prince would come around to the back of the stage intermittently to play for us unfortunates. Consequently, I could not see what was on the front of the stage and how it looked when he did WDC. That was my very first Prince concert and even though I didn't see much of him, the sound was phenomenal. My ears were ringing for 2 days!

That was the first real concert that I saw. I saw him at the Long Beach Sport's Arena in Cali. I had been begging my mom to take me and she just kept telling me no. So it was around the time that her friend was getting married in Long Beach. So she totally had me going. She said we had to go to the rehersal dinner that night since she was in the wedding. My mom had gotten me through dinner and into the parking lot of the arena and still didn't know a thing. We were walking up the the door of the arena and she told me that she forgot something in the car and a man walked by me and her boyfriend at the time and asked us if we had any extra tickets.At that point I started screaming and crying and my mom got mad thinking that her boyfriend told me. So after that we got up to the door and all the purple lights outside of the arena, there were to big limo in front and a huge crowd around them. The door opened on the first one and Sheila E. steps out. The second one door opens and Morris Day comes out. We had horrible seats but that concert truly is the one that means the most to me. I have seen a dozen after that of his but that was the one that I remember the most.

Sadly...no. I never did get to see this, and it wasn't for the lack of wanting to either. I was a young teen without the money or an older person willing to take me.....

Alasseon said:

yep.

i went. first night in Cleveland. i think there were three shows.

i still have my t-shirt somewhere.