April 7.1985
Orange Bowl Miami
Sound check
1.Controversy/Mutiny
2.Blues In G
3.Something In The Water
4.Bodyheat/Strange Relationship

5. High Fashion
6.17 Days Jam/Instrumental

7. Groove in A

8. Groove in F sharp

SHEILA E
1. Shortberry Strawcake

2. the Belle of St Mark

3. Oliver's House

4. Next Time Wipe the Lipstick Off Your Collar

5. Erotic City

6. the Glamorous Life

Prince & the Revolution

1. Let's Go Crazy

2. Delirious

3. 1999

4. Little Red Corvette

5. Take Me With U

6. Do Me Baby

7. Irresistible Bitch

8. Possessed

9. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore

10. Temptation

11. Let's Pretend We're Married

12. International Lover

13. God(the Dance Electric)

14. Computer Blue

15. When Doves Cry

16. I Would Die 4 U

17. Baby I'm A Star

18. Purple Rain

Prince's Last Purple Rain Tour Stop

By Allison Baer | April 7, 2015 | Lifestyle

On April 7, 1985, Prince turned the Orange Bowl purple for the final stop on his Purple Rain tour.

On Easter Sunday 1985, Prince and the Revolution brought their Minneapolis sound to the Orange Bowl for the final stop on their 95-city Purple Rain tour. It was Easter Sunday, a fact that dismayed Miami city commissioners, who thought the eccentric singer—and his naughty lyrics—unfit for the Christian holiday. After all, it was Prince’s libidinous songs that were the impetus for the creation of advisory labels on albums deemed explicit.

Despite the city commissioners’ disapproval, the show went on. Prince greeted the crowd with, “Happy Easter, Florida,” according to Jean Marbella in a Sun Sentinel recap the next day. “My name is Prince, and I’ve come to play.”

And play he did—to 55,000 fans who flooded the stadium in purple-colored garb (as instructed on their $19 tickets). Lavender leotards, purple Mohawks, and purple paired with leather and lace were the perfect complements to the performer’s Magic City-appropriate metallic blazer with purple accents. Adding a bit of gravity to the event, Prince announced that he would be taking time off from performing live, and the concert was expected to be his last for some time. (Unable to stay away, he returned to the stage the following year.)

But in 1985, Prince was a superstar, joining the ranks of worldwide pop stars like Michael Jackson and Madonna. Purple Rain, which was the soundtrack to his film of the same title, would end up selling more than 13 million copies in the US and held the number-one spot on the Billboard 200 chart for 24 weeks straight. With hit singles like “When Doves Cry,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Purple Rain,” “I Would Die 4 U,” and “Take Me With U,” it’s arguably one of the best, if not most successful, albums of the ’80s.

https://oceandrive.com/the-final-stop-on-princes-purple-rain-tour

http://flashbackmiami.com...p-8172]/3/

Prince’s Purple Rain concert at the Orange Bowl, 1985

Fans Crown Prince King Of OB Rock

By LAURA MISCH Herald Staff Writer
April 8, 1985

Dig if you will the picture — of Prince and Miami engaged in a kiss. A long, slow, wet kiss, Prince’s favorite kind, fueled by the purple passions of 55,000 rock fans gone crazy.

“Happy Easter, South Florida. My name is Prince, and I’ve come to play with you, ” said the diminutive rock star, launching into Let’s Go Crazy as he rode a rising platform onto the stage. Wearing a white ruffled shirt, long sequined coat, sequined trousers and his trademark pompadour, His Royal Badness licked his lips, wiggled his hips and sent shudders of ecstasy through the screaming crowd.

Not since 1969, when Jim Morrison of The Doors was arrested at a Miami concert for lewd behavior, has a rock ‘n’ roll star come so close to depicting onstage what Ann Landers calls The Act.

Morrison is dead. Long live the Prince.

“It’s his style, it’s his clothes, it’s the way he moves, it’s the way he shakes his head, it’s the way he does everything, ” screamed Trina Reid, 14, from her upper-deck seat. Prince was a tiny glittering dot from where she stood, but that didn’t matter: “It’s just the excitement of being in the same place where Prince is.”

The Purple One slid down poles. He touched his tongue with his fingers and then rubbed them all over his chest. He lay on his back on an amplifier and sang tender words.

The most sizzling act in rock brought his band, The Revolution, to Miami at the end of a 90-city national tour. It may be his last concert for a long time. Prince Rogers Nelson, the oddly named 26-year-old from Minneapolis who loves to cloak himself in purple, has said he is retiring from the concert trail at the height of his fame, “to look for the ladder.” Even his manager isn’t sure what he means.

But his message onstage is quite clear. This is a man whose first hit record was called Soft and Wet, a man who once simulated the love act on a brass bed at a concert.

His antics have caused some heat of another kind among local civic and religious leaders. The Miami City Commission approved the Prince concert before realizing the date fell on Easter. Commissioners then denounced the singer as immoral. The Archdiocese of Miami branded Prince as sacrilegious. The city pleaded with the rock star to change the concert date, but Prince refused.

High above the hot and bothered crowd, Commissioner J.L. Plummer sat in the press box and watched Prince do Darling Nikki, an explicit song about sex.

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The concert’s Easter timing didn’t seem to bother the fans. Sonja Ingraham was in church all day long, she said. Then she and friend Judy Pinckney put on their best purple clothes and took their children to see the concert.

“There was no way we could get out of this, ” Ingraham said.

Prince’s erotic stage show brought many parents to the “Purple Bowl” as chaperones. Theressa Maiorona supervised her 13-year-old daughter, Laurie, and her 14-year-old friend Angela Crowe, both Palmetto Junior High students. Maiorona said she wouldn’t let the girls come alone because Prince is too provocative.

But Laurie was unfazed: “We don’t mind the chaperones. We’re just glad to be here any way we can. I love Prince.”

Tickets to the concert said “Please Wear Purple.” Many in the crowd were dressed as outrageously as the man they paid to see.

Amy Baxter, 19, and her sister, Libby, 21, of Pompano Beach, wore what all of Prince’s women wear: lacy bodices and black fishnet stockings. They took a limo to the concert.

Amy described her costume as “Prince-soir.”

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“There’s nothing that would have kept me away from this concert, ” said Sylvia Douso. “I can’t even pinpoint one specific thing that I like about Prince. I like everything.”

Herald Staff Writers Michael Cottman and James Nelson contributed to this report.

4/7/1985: Tim Chapman/Miami Herald Staff -- Prince in concert for 55,000 fans in the Orange Bowl, Miami.

Thank you!

See the Ghosts of the Orange Bowl for an image of the preparations. I haven't gone completely through that Facebook page to see if there's more.

http://randompixels.blogs...ril-7.html

The Miami Herald's Howard Cohen takes a look back Prince's connection to South Florida in a piece for today's Miami Herald.

Writing about Prince's Orange Bowl concert on April 7, 1985, Cohen uses a quote from Herald story that ran the following day:

“Not since 1969, when Jim Morrison of The Doors was arrested at a Miami concert for lewd behavior, has a rock ‘n’ roll star come so close to depicting onstage what Ann Landers calls The Act,” wrote a Miami Herald reporter.

Cohen forgot to mention that the anonymous "Miami Herald reporter" was one Laura Misch, who was Playboy's Miss February in 1975. (I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but I thought I'd mention it since Cohen didn't.)

But for someone who vaguely remembers Prince even being in Miami, one of the more interesting sidebars on the musician - in my opinion - appeared in the Herald that weekend. It was written by Joel Achenbach and ran on the day of Prince's concert.

Prince is not the kind of guy who keeps a listed phone number. You can't just call him up. "Yo, Prince, up for a ballgame and a couple of sixes tonight?" It would never work.

Rather he is the Artist. He is what they call "out there." Precise whereabouts Saturday: unknown.

"He's got about five hotels booked in town. He could stay at any one of the five. He likes his privacy," reports Chuck DeBow, director of marketing for Prince's Purple Rain tour, which makes its final stop tonight in Miami's Orange Bowl in front of a crowd that could reach 60,000.

Orange Bowl stadium manager Walter Golby gave that estimate Saturday afternoon as roadies climbed the high scaffolding of the set. Golby said only 51,000 tickets had been sold at that time, leaving 19,000 still unpurchased at $17.50 a pop.

Rain is possible, but not probable. Rather than bring rain gear, concert-goers should just wear something purple, as the tickets suggest. Forecaster Andrew Stern of the National Weather Service said there is a 20 percent chance of showers or thunderstorms today and tonight, but added, "the chance of getting wet at the Prince concert is unlikely."

Prince might not even show up until the last minute. Promoters are keeping things secret. Even the roadies aren't talking. Ask a question of someone on the Prince tour, and he will look into the distance, lost in time, above the language of mortals.

"You wanna do a story, do a story about how the crew hasn't slept in two days," growled one roadie in the lobby of the Omni International Hotel.

Moaned another similarly anonymous and bleary-eyed man, "He (Prince) has two days to play around, while we set up the stage."

Another chunk of the entourage is camping at the Grand Bay Hotel, but there was no sign Saturday of Prince himself.

"He'll get here when he's ready," DeBow said. "As an artist, we just let him have his way."

[...]

His way is not sitting well with church leaders in town, who had a problem reconciling the holy rituals of Easter Sunday with the performance later that day of a man who writhes around on stage and simulates the love act. The Miami City Commission approved the concert March 8 before realizing that it fell on Easter. Commissioners have since denounced Prince's autoerotic gestures as immoral, but the city officials still gave away 400 concert tickets to underprivileged children.

Students at Dade Christian School have been banned from attending the concert, just as they were banned from seeing the Jacksons in November.

"Bad is bad, regardless of when it is," said school administrator James Virtue, citing school policy. "We believe that rock music is not appropriate for Christian young people. It's totally contrary to the word of God."

A lot of fans, however, are willing to risk the wrath of church and parents in order to see the singer of When Doves Cry, 1999, Little Red Corvette and Purple Rain.

mynameisnotsusan said:

The soundcheck recording is one of my favourite things I've heard in a long while

Yes, and so bittersweet. I did a search on the org for that thread, and it was started(the leaks leaked) maybe 2 week before Prince died.

He didn't do Darling Nikki?

smokeverbs said:

"the chance of getting wet at the Prince concert is unlikely." I know quite a few ladies who would beg to differ....

His hair is quite a bit less wavy here-- clearly looking at his watch and about to make the jump to 'Raspberry Beret' cloudsuit mode.

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[Edited 1/14/17 23:54pm]