hello
I would like to hear some points of view about your experience from princes first/early shows and tours. could you guys share your personal details and feelings seeing these early shows? seeing prince perform for your first time..and how it effected your view of prince and music at that time? do you think that prince definetly opened up a whole new alley for you from his first shows through the purple rain era? i think that he inspired
alot back then,did you feel something different in the air as far as what prince brought out in music,style,performance etc.

was just wanting some feed back from you guys.

i thought he was a coked out weirdo it girly tights at first...until i heard him play guitar

Well...I can say that I loved Prince before I learned to lust. Prince's music taught me about love and spirituality, and a hell of a lot about lust, before leaving home at seventeen. I have made my mistakes...based on curiosity, or looking for love in all of the wrong places...and even occasionally later on, during poor marriages...

I have fought the temptations of life with Prince in my heart, and I have won 97 of 100 battles. And I learned to avoid the other thousand places that temptation lives. Prince helped to raise a good girl, that had all she needed to not be. I Love him 4 that.

Freaky, lord ham mercy!

For me, I actually had two chances to see Prince before I finally saw him on the Controversy tour. As I've mentioned on here in the past, I was supossed to go see Prince with my older cousin when he opened for Rick James. This was during his second album. But the week before the show, I got very sick and I missed a whole week of school. The show was on that Friday night so there was NO way in hell my mother was going to let me go. So I gave my ticket to my cousin's girlfriend and they went. The second time I had a chance to go was when Prince played this small club called Flipper's. They hardly had any advertising for this show. It was really like a word of mouth thing by the older adult sect.This was on his Dirty Mind tour. By the time I had found out about the show at Flipper's, the tickets at the box office were all gone. They were only giving away tickets on the radio at that stage. I spent hours trying to win tickets over the phone which was crazy. That didn't happen. So when I finally got to see Prince, it was something because I had missed out twice so I was like "Finally!". And Prince by no means was a household name at this point. But he had a very cult-like following. The place was packed. Out here in So. Cali, the audience was split 50/50 black and white. So he had the crossover audience even at that stage at that show.

At that stage, I used to wear "rude boy" buttons and I had a "rude boy" t-shirt. I remember, I was only a kid, that I wore this white dress shirt with the collar flipped up like The Stray Cats and then I had the Rude Boy t-shirt over it. And I had like 8 rude boy buttons lined up in a row down the left side of the t-shirt. So many people who were there dressed very "new wavish". Or "punkish". Bruthas with dyed hair, dyed jeans, so forth. Checkered pants, etc. Beautiful girls everywhere. Even then, Prince had some of the finest girls at his shows. Zapp with Roger Troutman (God bless his soul) the Time and Prince was all on the bill. It was just a great show. I had excellent seats. Very very close to the stage. I was studying. Period. I grew up going to concerts at a very young age. i was used to the rock concert vibe. I took it all in. I observed, learned and studied. I watched Prince and Dez like a hawk. And Lisa! For different reasons. Prince's show was so proffesional but very raw and hard edged. Dez brought a lot of that to Prince's band. They just had a serious rock attitude. Prince played like his life depended on it that night. He was deadly serious. He was a cat that was not fucking around. He was on a mission. One of the best shows I've seen Prince play.

Black guitarist, your chronicle is indeed exciting and brought sighs to my chest.
I wish I was there but, ehi, I was two years old back then and was living in Italy!

I think you have great memories and feel a lot of nostalgia, ain't it right?
[Edited 7/10/08 2:46am]
[Edited 7/10/08 2:46am]

well cool to hear some of you peoples personal storys..they mean alot to mean,i've been thinking about when i was younger lately and about around the time prince was still a i would say a underground thing well untill in my neighborhood,1999 come out.. my friend eric who ive mentioned on a few threads here)..was one of the people who gave me my first copies of princes first few albums,and yeah, he too liked dez..he loved dez, and told me to make sure i pay attention to him. i came from a pretty diverse neighborhood growping up and i guess i was lucky to have gotten to get word on prince before purple rain..although i didnt get to see him play till that tour due to not having a way to get around at the time. i must say even not seeing the real early shows but just looking at the album covers and all i think he was right up there with a lot of more 'underground' artists at that time. i just feel kinda lucky,that i knew of him back then and got to grow up with all he inspired to myself and friends.

i'm not saying that because i knew of prince and all early on that that makes me any different from someone who found the liked him in say 1992..i just feel happy i got to know who he was early on..and love to hear what others thought about his early shows since i missed them too.
for some reason i was drawn to prince and accepted him as he was back then..i know some people thought he was a bit uhmm freaky which he was but i thought it was cool. but anyway..love to hear more of you people who made to early shows..
nostalgic..i guess. thanks.
[Edited 7/10/08 10:49am]

Sophianestesia said:

Yeah, it was great seeing Prince when to me, he was REALLY Prince. Prince changed his image quite a bit, even during Purple Rain. He wanted to become more accessible to more people. I think Warners suggested that as well. It was a big move they were making with the film. They wanted it as mainstream as they could, without Prince losing his core audience. But before that, especially during Controversy and before, Prince was a serious cult artist. He still had that during 1999 as well, but MTV always adored Prince so he got good exposure from the 1999 and LRC videos.

blackguitaristz said:

Totally agree with this. At that point (Dirt Mind-Controversy era) there was truly no one like him - and had been no one like him before. This was the period where he set the template for himself. It blew my mind how different and badass this guy was. I do think Warners softened his image up a lot after that to get him on MTV - and it worked.

[Edited 7/10/08 15:01pm]

I saw the Controversy tour. The thing about it that struck me was how 'rock' it was. Even more than was what was on the albums. This was probably, in part, the influence of Dez. Of all the times I ever saw Prince live that tour was Prince at his rockin'ist. When I saw the 1999 and Purple Rain tours I came away loving it but thinking that Prince didn't play as much rock guitar as he had when I saw him on the Controversy tour.

LinnLM1 said:

Definately...I noticed it during the 1999 tour. It's funny...When I saw him in L.A. during the 1999 tour, a day after my birthday, that show was PACKED with celebs. It was reported that Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen & Quincy Jones were there. But I myself saw Stevie Nicks, Latoya and Janet Jackson & Adam Ant. I remember Prince that night was very "show boat-ish". He was REALLY performing. Like he was totally aware of who all was in the audience. And The Time were not on the bill. Just him and V6. When I saw him again on the same tour in Long Beach, THIS time The Time were allowed to perform, Prince's set was much rawer. And he was much less "showy" this time. Here he was more focused on playing and just being very hard. Very street. The set was longer too. And he cursed a little bit. The show in L.A. was very "Hollywood" where this time, his attitude was different. The whole vibe was darker. Which I prefered a lot more.

i got the biggest shivers when i heard controversy - 4 the 1st time - in london - last year lol!..omg! it's delicious!
i reseached it when i got home, which led me 2 the org, but thts neither here nor there.. i can blame it 4 my purplebanana obession
couldn't believe it was an old tune.. didn't realise pre purple rain existed,,totally clueless
but not hard 2 see those years would have been the ones 2 experience.
the raunch & rebelion. the clothes & sluttiness
not 2 mention his buff young bod
i wanna b a time traveller
life is just a game, we're all just the same! do u wanna play?

LinnLM1 said:

No he didn't. He picked and chose his "moments" on axe on the 1999 tour but yeah, it was less than it was on Controversy. I think on the 1999 tour, he wanted to showcase his "overall" skills as a "performer". That was totally leading up to Purple Rain. Although he played a lot more rock guitar obviously during that tour, he also combined it with running, sliding, dancing, etc. So overall, prince during PR, was a little dynamo. He used the 1999 tour to lead off to where he was going, as a peformer, on the Purple Rain tour.

blackguitaristz said:

yeah..even tho' i didn't see the 1999 shows..the album etc.. and everyone knew Prince. well atleast where i grew up.