I never heard of P and Mark throwin' down in a bass battle but that's not to say it didn't ever happen. I do know of when P dropped kicked Mark on stage. Mark himself spoke of this where he said on the Controversy tour, the first tour Mark played with Prince, that he and Prince were both running on stage and ran into each other. Mark said to play it off, P kicked Mark and then pushed him into the drum riser.

The first time I had ever seen this pic was on here. I would say that this is from the PR tour because I can tell from the way P is dressed, his hair, etc. I saw another pic of P playing Sheila E.'s percussions dressed in the same exact outfit. The bass P is playing in this pic is Mark's. Mark used this bass on the PR tour. On the 3 shows that I went to on the PR tour, P never picked up Mark's bass or any other bass during those shows. P played guitar, piano and sung and did his usual acrobatics. Mark was the ONLY cat playing bass on the shows that I saw. My guess is that perhaps this was an encore where the band was jamming. On the third PR show that I saw, at the end of the song Purple Rain, the house lights came on and the band played America. This of course was before the release of ATWIAD so none of us had ever heard the song. They jammed on this for at least 10 minutes. P and the band were singing the song and after the second choruses, they just started jamming on top of it. P was soloing on his axe here and there, Matt took a solo and they just jammed on top of the groove untill P threw up his hand to bring it to an end. Then they walked off and that was the end of the concert. So perhaps this pic is from an encore to a different PR show.

Shango said:

I'm almost sure he performed it on the Hit N Run tour at a couple of shows. I can hear a live version in my head, but maybe I'm imaging that. HOpefully someone can clear that up. It's surely in the back of DMSR, under the Tour section.

ernestsewell said:

I never heard of P and Mark throwin' down in a bass battle but that's not to say it didn't ever happen. I do know of when P dropped kicked Mark on stage. Mark himself spoke of this where he said on the Controversy tour, the first tour Mark played with Prince, that he and Prince were both running on stage and ran into each other. Mark said to play it off, P kicked Mark and then pushed him into the drum riser.
[Edited 6/8/09 0:23am]

^ isnt that Brownmark's bass for the tour though? I thought he had a bass w/ that flowery design to match the set for the PR tour. Wasn't there some story about Prince and Brownmark dueling on bass, and Prince dropped kicked Mark in a show? I forget the whole story.

ernestsewell said:

Yup. I think it's either a Guild or Ibanez.

The whole vibe of those pictures was that of an aftershow

.... On the 3 shows that I went to on the PR tour, P never picked up Mark's bass or any other bass during those shows. P played guitar, piano and sung and did his usual acrobatics. Mark was the ONLY cat playing bass on the shows that I saw. My guess is that perhaps this was an encore where the band was jamming. On the third PR show that I saw, at the end of the song Purple Rain, the house lights came on and the band played America. This of course was before the release of ATWIAD so none of us had ever heard the song. They jammed on this for at least 10 minutes. P and the band were singing the song and after the second choruses, they just started jamming on top of it. P was soloing on his axe here and there, Matt took a solo and they just jammed on top of the groove untill P threw up his hand to bring it to an end. Then they walked off and that was the end of the concert. So perhaps this pic is from an encore to a different PR show.

KoolEaze said:

There was an aftershow of sorts in the early hours of May 28th '85 at the Marriot Inn in Worcester but I have no info on the set-list or wether P played bass, but maybe the pics are from there.