the date that Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam missed the concert that forced Prince to fire them?

March 24, 1983 during the 1999 tour.

Prince playing bass performed incognito with The Time's set, as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis missed the show being snowed in in Atlanta. Jerome Benton mimicked playing bass on stage instead of Lewis, while Lisa Colman replaced Jam on keyboards. For Vanity 6's set, where the Time would play behind a pink curtain, Prince also played bass, while Jill Jones did Jimmy Jam's keyboard parts.

^^^ Yep, it was at the Convention Center Arena (what a generic ass name).

The tour made a stop in NYC on the 21st. They had 3 days off until the gig in San Antonio on the 24th. Jam & Lewis flew to Atlanta to work with the SOS Band some more during that time off. That snowstorm that landed them in Atlanta for an extra night was considered kind of freakish. It wasn't necessarily in the forecast. They had been tipping out working with SOS Band for a bit, but this time their cover was blown. The tensions were already bad on that tour. Three tour managers were hired and fired (in two months time, the 2nd being at the NY date), the last being hired was Alan Leeds. A tech guy from the KISS tour had joined the 1999 tour. He was fired after 4 weeks, having gotten into an argument with Prince over Lisa, and had spoken to her out of place. The tour had a very bad reputation. They did refer to it as the tour from hell.

Jimmy & Terry were fined $3000 each. That was huge, considering they were making around $140 a week; another point of contention. Think about that - here's a band that can hold their own, and has two gold albums under their belt (and in a pre-Napster age, that was big, of course), and Prince was giving them $140 a week to play on this tour, which grossed millions and millions.

Soon after Prince sat down with Jimmy & Terry (and Morris & Jesse were there) and while the firing wasn't "YOU'RE FIRED!", it was more "You know how I feel about you doing outside production, so since that's what you want to do, it's probably better that we part ways." Prince was afraid of them giving away the sound of The Time. J&T never saw it that way, and they certainly had their own sound as producers. I have those SOS Band vinyls, as many of us do, and it's certainly their own take on Minneapolis sound, and beyond. Actually, when they worked with Human League on Crash, it harkened back to the sound they used for SOS Band. Yet other projects like Janet Jackson did and didn't sound like J&T's sound at the same time.

I wish there was video of that San Antonio gig out there. It'd be golden.