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Purple Rain Tour 1985

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Prince’s Epic ‘Purple Rain’ Tour: An Oral History

By David Browne

David Browne

On July 27th, 1984, Prince and the Revolution were confronted with their first hint of how their lives were about to change when they attended the Hollywood premiere of Prince ‘s first movie, Purple Rain . “That night at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was insane,” recalls keyboardist Lisa Coleman. “We thought were just making what would be kind of a cult film. I’d stood in line at that theater to see Alien the first day it came out. And now there I was, arriving in a limo. Limousine, red carpet – none of us had ever done anything like that before. We felt more like rebels, and suddenly we’re all fancy, like movie stars.”

That night would only be the start of one of the most momentous years in Prince’s life. The film was an immediate cultural touchstone, grossing $7.7 million in its opening weekend (a commanding figure at the time) and eventually grossing 10 times that amount. Four months later, at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Prince and the Revolution launched the Purple Rain tour. The 98-show trek, which continued through April 1985, was groundbreaking in many ways: It introduced Prince’s most elaborate sets and a new guitarist (Wendy Melvoin), and the crowd hysteria and occasional cameos from the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Madonna confirmed Prince’s place as pop’s most commanding star of the moment.

In the confines of those tightly structured shows, Prince reveled in special effects and over-the-top staging – doing splits or somersaults, playing his famous ejaculating guitar (using Ivory Liquid, of course) or pretending to talk to the Lord during the “Purple Rain” B side “God.” Yet the tour impacted on him in ways he and the Revolution never expected. In time for the upcoming deluxe reissue of the Purple Rain album – with accompanying bonus audio and video material – and the tour’s inclusion on  Rolling Stone ‘s 50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years list, RS spoke with the Revolution and the band’s unofficial member, lighting director LeRoy Bennett, about those momentous five months and their aftermath.

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I. Preparations

Wendy Melvoin (guitarist): I remember being conscious that the Purple Rain tour was the biggest thing he had ever done [during planning stages]. I kept seeing sketches of plans and Prince would buzz in and out of the rooms. We were all being fitted for clothes that were being made. I was standing on one of those pill boxes, and there are about five people doing the measurements on me. It was like Queen Victoria being dressed for a gathering. At one point, one of them tried to do an inseam on my pant leg, and I felt really oddly like, “Fuck this – I’m not entitled to this. Why is this happening?”

Prince walked in and asked me to come outside so he could talk to me. Apparently he had been watching what was going on and he took me outside and goes, “You have to allow this to happen. You have to allow them to do what it is that they do. That’s why they’re here. And don’t feel bad about it.” At that very moment, I realized, “OK. There’s something else happening here, and I just have to let this happen.” I didn’t want to get in the way of how he was trying to represent himself. And that was a big, big a-ha! moment for me. I sat back and saw this thing unfold.

LeRoy Bennett (lighting director): The theatrics started to become more and more evident. Controversy had a little bit and the 1999 tour had a bit more theatrics in it. But the Purple Rain tour was a major step in technology for us. Once you’ve seen a laser beam for five minutes, you’re done with it. So what we were doing was pushing the lasers and different things through fiber optics. We had dry-ice fog, but we used liquid nitrogen a lot. For “When Doves Cry,” we’d have jets that shot horizontally across the stage. It almost looked like ghosts that flew across, met in the middle of the stage and dissipated. Other [lights] came up from the back like these huge fountains. We wanted the show to be more of an immersive experience. We wanted to portray the emotions of the songs and create interesting environments.

Melvoin : As far as signing a non-disclosure, like “You’re not allowed to do drugs,” I had heard his crew had to do something like that, but we as a band didn’t have to. But he didn’t like it when you drank in public and someone took a picture of it. He would get really buzzed if you had a picture taken with a beer because it’s like, “I don’t want children to think they can be badass only with a beer in their hand!” I understood it. I got it. There was a little bit of a weirdness, but I understood it was a business he was trying to run, and I respected it.

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Matt Fink (keyboardist): Very few bands – pop bands, which I suppose you could say we were at that time – were doing coordinated dance moves while they were on their instruments. Keyboard players like myself, you didn’t really see them doing choreographed moves with the bands. But Prince wanted the whole band moving.

Mark Brown (a.k.a. BrownMark, bassist): I grew up in a time period where I would go see Cameo and the whole band was always moving. I was always asked to help with the choreography [for Prince], and so, when we would build the shows, I was kind of responsible for all of the movement. I had to figure out a way, with this different type of music, to create movement that was simple and where you could still play your instrument effectively. It was a challenge because not everybody was used to dancing and playing.

Lisa Coleman (keyboardist): We would just have to bend our bodies or shake our heads. Sometimes it got kind of rough too because I was wearing high heels and playing keyboards. It ruined my back for the rest of my life.

Fink : We were at Rudolphs Bar-B-Que [in Minneapolis] one late night and I remember Prince saying to me, “Do you think it would be cool if Bobby was standing up playing drums?” And I said, “How does a drummer stand up?” He wanted so badly for Bobby to stand up and play drums. But it worked because we had the drum machine running and Bobby was playing percussion and cymbals against the drum machine.

Bobby Z. (a.k.a. Robert Rivkin, drummer): No drummers had been required to do choreography. That was just the Prince world. We’d practice in front of a mirror. Looking at yourself was hard. He made us all look graceful, like in a ballet, because you don’t want to be a dork.

Melvoin : We had two weeks of productions rehearsals, I think in St. Paul, right before the tour started. I remember the first day we went in for full-on production, and that was astonishing to see it. That’s when I realized it, “Holy shit, this is massive. We’re in a stadium right now in production rehearsals.” I know it doesn’t sound like much right now, but back then it was like, “Oh, my God.”

Bennett : We spent more time in rehearsal than we had ever done before. It was almost like we did a tour of Minneapolis because we kept changing venues once a week, or once a week and half.

Bobby Z. : It was all about how he entered the stage. At various shows it was, “OK, now you have the gymnasium and the catwalk.” The biggest thing they had were the elevators under the stage for “Let’s Go Crazy.” There was a mannequin for when he would appear and disappear. There were all these cool magic tricks to get Prince on and off stage.

Brown : For the “When Doves Cry” scene, you had this stage prop of the claw-foot tub up on a hydraulic lift behind Bobby that was way up high. The first time they tried using the tub, which was very lightweight and made out of fiberglass, Prince got into it and they had not nailed it down into the platform. That thing went right over backwards once he got in it. He took quite a tumble. He just lay there while they checked him out, and fortunately he just had some good bruising. Things got called that day while they figured out what needed to be changed on that one. That was a scary moment.

Bennett : My heart stopped. He didn’t really fall that far, like four feet. But it shook him up a little bit. He walked off the stage, got in his car – which he always parked next to the stage in the arena – and took off. That was the end of rehearsals for the day. The carpenters changed the lyrics to “this is the sound when tubs fly.”

Melvoin : If Prince was doing any kind of bad behavior – if he was mean or just straight-up wrong about something he said he was straight-up right about – he always said something bad would happen to him. The way I remember that moment is that he had gotten into a fight with his manager. Prince was in a super-cranky mood and he was practicing his move with the bathtub and the bathtub fell. He was so freaked by it that he was super nice and kind [ laughs ]. Very humble.

Fink : The loudest white noise possible.

Bennett : There were times where I couldn’t hear myself talking to the spotlight operators and they were having a hard time hearing me. It was crazy.

Bobby Z : Then Prince would rile them back up. He’d shake his ass or do a costume change or something, and people would go nuts again.

Coleman : The fun part was watching him, because a lot of things didn’t happen unless he gave us visual cues. It was like a game watching him run around the stage, and he would do a slight move of his hand, which would cue a riff or something. You’d have to watch pretty darn closely. Every once in a while, to cue the end of a song, he’d throw a hankie into the air, and when the hankie hit the ground, that’s when we would stop. So you had to be able to see the ground, and if you’re backed up on a riser behind keyboards and cymbals, sometimes it was hard to see, like, “Oh no! The hankie disappeared!”

Bennett : He would do hand signals for certain musical turnarounds, so you would have to watch for all that. He liked to mess around. Every once in a while, he would just do the signal in front of his chest, so the band could see it and I couldn’t. He would just do it to be funny.

Coleman : He’d say “Body Heat.” Bobby would hit the snare drum once and then we’d have to go to “Body Heat.” Then he’d stop that by saying, “‘Rumble’ in E.” So we had all these different things, little modular funky things that we could put together that he could call out like we were his jukebox or drum machine that he could play. It was like a live computer.

“It was literally the Olympics. We were like synchronized swimmers.” –Wendy Melvoin

Bobby Z : The crowd could feel it was tight and spontaneous, but it also had some train wrecks. Ninety-nine percent of the time it was a miracle.

Melvoin : I had boots on, tons of jewelry, and my instrument and I had to sing and do choreography. It was literally the Olympics. We were like synchronized swimmers. If someone screwed up that thing, there’s not even a bronze medal. You’re just off the team. This was high stakes.

Bobby Z.: At our Syracuse show, he called out “sway from side to side,” and the entire Revolution moved like a piston in an engine back and forth.

Coleman : We were wearing all these big … what do you call it? These regal New Romantics clothes? It was hot. I’d go up onstage wearing a cape on top of a dress, and I would just take off stuff during the show. Shed as much as I could. It was hot onstage with all those ruffles.

Melvoin : One of the things that Prince would tell us before going on tour, especially at the beginning of Purple Rain , was, “If you feel yourself rushing and playing too fast, cut your body’s heart rhythm in half and move your body in half-time, and you will play behind the beat.” We were religious about it.

Coleman : Prince wanted always be as good as the film. He didn’t want anyone ever to go, “Oh, that’s the band from the movie? Eww , they’re not as good.” That was one of his worst fears.

Brown : We used to get fined if we made mistakes, and I got to a point where I would stop playing bass notes in certain types of segues and start this rumbling on the bass. Prince loved that crap. And it saved me from a lot of fines.

Coleman : If you missed a cue or played an extra horn punch or something, that was $500. He would withhold your money. It never happened to me. I’m lucky. Actually, I’m good at faking it. He never knew when I made a mistake.

Melvoin : He threatened to take your paycheck away, and a couple times he tried, but we all laughed at him and said, “No, that’s not going to happen.” It was this warning, this threat, and he was really happy to go ahead and make the threat because it would make you get your shit together if you had made a mistake.

“If you missed a cue or played an extra horn punch or something, that was $500. He would withhold your money.” –Lisa Coleman

III. The Intensity

Coleman : When we were at the Superdome in New Orleans, it was, what, 90,000 people? We knew it was big because it sounded big, and then Prince said, “LeRoy, turn on the house lights!” And we turn on the house lights and it was scary. Prince was like, “ Noooo! Turn them off, turn them off!” It was too much. It was an ocean of people.

Melvoin : I loved when we turned the lights on during “Take Me with You” and we could actually see the audience. We would turn on the stadium lights full blast – fluorescent, horrible lighting – and we could see everybody in the audience and we all became one and sang “Take Me With You.” You see every seat filled. You look to your left and you see everybody. You look to your right. It was incredible, and they all sang it. It was really beautiful.

Bennett : It must have been scary to them because they had no idea there were that many people. I’m sure the first time they saw that, they shit themselves [ laughs ].

Brown : We were literally the hardest-working band in show business. I would feel sorry when he would invite people to play with us onstage, because they didn’t understand that type of dedication. When people would sit in with us, they didn’t even know what to do. I don’t care how seasoned a musician they were.

Bobby Z: Everybody came in the band’s room, like Springsteen and Madonna [during a multi-show run at the Forum in Los Angeles in February 1985]. We had an open-door policy and got to meet a lot of fun people. Onstage, they always thought it was exciting. But onstage with Prince it was always a game.

Coleman : It became a take-no-prisoners situation, like, “Yeah, let’s just go out there and conquer the world.” And all the people that were supposed to be the competition were just like saying, “Wow!” to Prince. And again, he wanted to soak that up. He wanted to experience it firsthand, so that was a good way to do it.

Melvoin : Unfortunately he would kind of screw with people, especially big famous artists who would come up. If he sensed they were a little bit lost, he’d try and expose that: grab a guitar and do a blistering solo in their face. There was a certain amount of, like, straight-up competitive humiliation. But he thrived on that, like, “I know I’m great.”

Coleman : With Bruce, I remember Prince being a bit of an imp and trying to throw him off. He was giving us his secret hand signals while Bruce was trying to play a guitar solo. There was a little cat and mouse going on. I never knew if Bruce knew Prince was doing that because there was a bit of giggling, but we knew and were like, “No, don’t do that, it’s so mean!”

Fink : Prince was reveling in it. It was his goal to tower over everybody in a lot of ways. He loved it. With Madonna, they were flirting and playing.

Coleman : I have to admit I’m such a dork. I didn’t know who Madonna was. This girl came onto the stage and I was like, “Who’s that?” I thought he just pulled some girl up on the stage. I didn’t know what was going on until I was in the bathroom after the show.

Melvoin : Madonna came backstage and was in our dressing room, mine and Lisa’s, and wanted to use the bathroom. It was this true girl moment. We were each in our stalls peeing at the same time and she goes, “You guys are such badasses!” That was my first introduction to Madonna.

Coleman : We always had jams [during the encores]. “Baby I’m a Star” was notorious. “Purple Rain” could be 30 minutes long. We could stretch things out.

Bennett : We used to do a running bet with the crew on how long “Purple Rain” was going to be. Every night. I’m not a betting man, so I never got involved, but in the production office, there was a board where people would place their bets on the time. It was usually extended between 20 to 25 minutes. You could win a couple hundred bucks.

Coleman : During that time, Prince was very positive and didn’t want to miss what it meant to the world. He would read every magazine, whatever press. He wanted to see it all, good or bad. And then he wanted to affect it in a positive way, and he started doing more philanthropic things. We started playing at schools or doing food drives.

“We used to do a running bet with the crew on how long ‘Purple Rain’ was going to be.” –LeRoy Bennett

Melvoin : On that tour we’d be onstage for hours and then of course we’d end up doing another show afterwards or we’d do a show during the day somewhere else. It was full on every night until the last show. I remember we went to Gallaudet, the school for the deaf [in Washington, D.C.] and did the entire show in their auditorium, and it was incredible. There were huge monitors on the floor in the audience so the kids could feel the bottom end. I remember at least 25 signers in the audience who were watching us and signing all the words to every song. The kids loved it. And then they broke it down and we went to the stadium and played another show that night.

Fink : By the end of it, we were changing some arrangements. Prince still put us through mental gymnastics every day. He’d make a new transition between certain songs and you had to remember it. It was like a game to him. But Prince cut the tour short. Around the World in a Day was on his mind and backstage we were already looking at album covers for that.

Brown : During soundchecks, we recorded “4 the Tears in Your Eyes.” “The Ladder.” All kinds of stuff.

IV. The Aftermath

Coleman : By the end of the tour, he was done with [ Purple Rain ]. He just burned fast and hard. If you look at the concert footage, he was killing his body. It was really, really hard work and to do it for six months was plenty for him. He was starting to get excited about other things. He was ready to move on.

Bennett : Prior to that tour, we were all very close, but then it started to separate out so that he was very isolated from us towards the end of the tour. I think he anticipated the fame to a certain level, but not what that was. It sounds good in theory until it actually happens. I can’t say it frightened him, but it definitely threw him off. He was just withdrawing. I used to spend a ton of time with him back in Minneapolis over at his house and doing things with him like going to movies. That all started to go away and disappear at a certain degree during that tour. It eventually got to the point where it was us and him. And it started to suck.

Coleman : At first it was just one bus for the whole band. Then the boys had a bus, and Wendy and I had a bus. And Prince had his own bus.

Melvoin : From Purple Rain through Sign ‘O’ the Times were his strongest mental and physical times. He wasn’t beaten down by any of it. It gave him incredible strength. There was a certain sort of naïveté about him during that time where he wasn’t second-guessing himself. He handled it really beautifully and wasn’t a frivolous little boy at all. He knew what his responsibility was, and he felt great about it. I don’t know how strong that feeling was for him in his later years. He handled it great at the time, but I’m sure that ultimately what it did to him is whittle away at a certain kind of deep self-esteem about himself. How could anybody reconcile that kind of power and success without it screwing with you deeply?

Coleman  [on Prince not participating in “We Are the World” near the end of the tour]: It was the night of the Grammys – we’d done so well and everything was so positive. He just messed up big. I didn’t get why he wouldn’t be involved in that. I can’t really speak to that, honestly, because I didn’t really understand his thinking on it then. I think he just saw a whole bunch of pop stars getting together to “do good,” and I think he thought that was kind of bullshit, in a way.

But if you weren’t going to go there, then just don’t be seen. He was out [that night] and his bodyguard punched somebody or something. When the bad press came out it was like, “Don’t talk about it. … Nobody mention that.” So ridiculous! I thought it was most unfortunate. It was totally the opposite of what he preached.

Bennett : That whole period was so magical. You could just feel the energy of his stardom just skyrocketing. He could’ve continued to write major hits like all the songs on Purple Rain . I think it just became too easy. It wasn’t pushing him and challenging himself, because he constantly challenged himself. He did that with all of us, too. He pushed me to be more than I thought I could be. He would see who you are, what he saw you could do, and most of the time beyond what you believed you could do. And he would just push you there.

Brown : The confidence level that Prince created in all of us – you did anything. You did whatever to win the game.

Melvoin : It was thrilling. It was this roller-coaster feeling: “ Woo , God, it’s scary, but I love it!” It felt like the world had opened up and we were going ahead and being allowed to make our dreams come true on that tour.

Singer-songwriter and ‘Voice’ coach Alicia Keys talks about the lessons Prince taught her. Watch here.

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Prince and the Revolution: The Purple Rain Tour

On demand now with KPBS Passport on the PBS Video app !

James Brown had the Apollo. Jimi Hendrix had Monterey Pop. And Prince had Syracuse, New York’s Carrier Dome — the site of his March 30, 1985 Purple Rain Tour performance that was beamed to millions live via satellite and captured for posterity as a Grammy Award-nominated concert film. It has since gone down in history as one of the most iconic live recordings in pop and rock history.

Now, for the first time, this powerful performance by Prince and The Revolution has been entirely remixed from the original 2” multi-track master reels by engineer Chris James and re-mastered by Bernie Grundman , and the picture improved significantly.

“Prince and the Revolution: The Purple Rain Tour” features smash hits from the seminal Prince albums Purple Rain and 1999, including “Let’s Go Crazy,” “1999,” “Little Red Corvette,” “When Doves Cry,” and a mind-bending 18+ minute version of “Purple Rain.”

Watch On Your Schedule:

Watch the full concert on demand now with KPBS Passport , a benefit for members supporting KPBS at $60 or more yearly, using your computer, smartphone, tablet, Roku, AppleTV, Amazon Fire or Chromecast. Learn how to activate your benefit now .

About The Prince Estate:

The Prince Estate passionately presents Prince's life and work, and cultivates opportunities to further his legacy. As the singular, authoritative source on all things Prince, The Prince Estate inspires and educates fans, celebrates Prince in his totality, and stewards Prince's legacy into the future.

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Home / Prince Tour Timeline / Purple Rain Tour

1999 Triple Threat Tour (1982/3)

Purple Rain Tour

Parade Tour (1986)

More costume changes than Liza Minelli.

Coinciding with the 14 December 1984 home video release of the Purple Rain movie , the supporting tour for the movie’s the already 8x Multi-Platinum selling soundtrack opened on 4 November and ran through to 7 April 1985.

The shows received considerable media attention as result of Prince’s triple number ones and award show appearances that year – holding a trio of chart number ones at the movie box office as well as top selling album and single. Shows sold out immediately and many extra dates were hastily scheduled. Purple Rain Tour was Prince’s first of two tours backed with The Revolution . Over 300 reporters attended the opening concert, the first of a run of seven shows staged at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Stage features included a hydraulic trapdoor through which Prince would enter the stage and open with Let’s Go Crazy , backlit by a bass drum rigged with a white light. A purple bath tub rose through the stage floor. Purple Rain Tour also occasioned the introduction of Prince’s two custom built ‘ Ejacucaster ‘ telecaster guitars which sprayed fluid over the audience front rows. Fink and Coleman on keyboards flanked Bobby Z on drums occupied a single raised platform behind Prince, Wendy and Brown Mark floor level up front.

To rehearse, Prince bought his first warehouse, located on Flying Cloud Drive in the suburbs of Minneapolis, where he drilled the band relentlessly throughout the summer of 1984 in preparation for the mammoth Purple Rain Tour . Stage rehearsals began on 1 October 1984. A 28-page tour book was also produced – Prince’s first tour to publish one. Featuring publicity photos for both the album and the movie, the tour book was tantalisingly titled 1984-85 World Tour . Performances averaged 125 minutes and the songs were elaborately indulgent, the closer Purple Rain extended to near 20 minutes.

Opening Purple Rain Tour was Sheila E promoting her debut LP The Glamorous Life , her guitarist Miko Weaver would be incorporated into The Revolution following the tour. On occasion Apollonia 6 would appear as guests in the climax of the show, joining Sheila on stage along with dancers Greg Brooks, Wally Safford and Jerome Benton, for the rousing encore Baby I’m A Star reworked into a party salsa jam: Brooks and Safford being additionally Prince’s actual security detail on the tour. Watching Bruce Springsteen in concert backed with his E Street Band, Prince enlisted Eric Leeds as an unofficial member of The Revolution to add a saxophone to the line-up. Due to their simmering rivalry on previous tours that inspired even the storyline of the movie, The Time did not appear on the bill for Purple Rain Tour and the group soon disbanded.

The encore of the performance at Inglewood Forum on 23 February 1985 became the stuff of legend when Prince was joined onstage by Madonna and Springsteen for Baby I’m A Star . Purple Rain Tour had been scheduled at Inglewood Forum to coincide with the Grammy Awards ceremony, where Prince collected multiple gongs on 26 February 1985. During an off-day on tour he and the band flew to LA to perform at the American Music Awards (28 January), collecting another trio of awards . With his slew of awards and growing celebrity following the run cemented Prince’s dominance over other acts of the day.

Purple Rain Tour was played in arenas averaging attendance of 20,000 and performed 98 dates, drawing a total audience of 1.7 million. Leg one focussed on the eastern USA, and leg two the west and then New York area and south to Florida. In December 1984, Prince played two concerts in Toronto, his first ever shows on Canadian soil. Purple Rain Tour was intended to afterwards continue to Europe by mid 1985 but after playing show number 75, Prince found himself burnt out. So he had the tour’s 30 March 1985 concert at Carrier Dome, Syracuse televised to a worldwide audience of 15 million to allow those unable to attend to see the live show and savour the spectacle. The footage was released on home video once the tour was finished, its sales would likewise attain Platinum certification. Prince had grown so tired of performing every song from the album over the near 100 shows of the tour, five days before its final concert his manager Steve Fargnoli announced Prince’s indefinite retirement from performing. Thankfully his retirement was short-lived as Prince was back on the road just months later in 1986. Purple Rain Tour played its final show on 7 April 1985 with a concert at the Miami Orange Bowl stadium, renamed Purple Bowl for the occasion, with 53,000 in attendance.

The tour yielded $30million in revenue and was among the highest grossing shows of the year, just $4million short of Springsteen’s Born In The USA Tour performed over 122 dates in the US. Madonna’s debut tour The Virgin Tour grossed $5million from 40 shows. Purple Rain Tour established Prince as a live performer extraordinaire and he never looked back.

Total performances

• 98 shows from 4 November 1984 to 7 April 1985

Sample setlist

• Shortberry Strawcake
• Bodyheat [James Brown]
• The Belle Of St. Mark
• Oliver’s House
• Next Time Wipe The Lipstick Off Your Collar
• Erotic City [feat. Prince (off stage)]

The Glamorous Life

Prince and the revolution.

• Let’s Go Crazy
• Little Red Corvette
• [Keyboard interlude “Yankee Doodle Dandy”]
• Take Me With U
• How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore
• Do Me, Baby
• Let’s Pretend We’re Married
• International Lover
• Father’s Song
• Computer Blue
• Darling Nikki
• The Beautiful Ones
• When Doves Cry
• I Would Die 4 U
• Baby I’m A Star

Purple Rain

Supporting albums.

Warner Bros. Records

Apollonia 6

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• January 4, 1985 Setlist

Prince Setlist at The Omni, Atlanta, GA, USA

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• Let's Go Crazy Play Video
• Delirious Play Video
• 1999 Play Video
• Little Red Corvette Play Video
• Take Me With U Play Video
• Free Play Video
• Do Me, Baby Play Video
• How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore Play Video
• Let's Pretend We're Married Play Video
• International Lover Play Video
• Father's Song Play Video
• God Play Video
• Computer Blue Play Video
• Darling Nikki Play Video
• Song played from tape I'm So Confused Play Video
• The Beautiful Ones Play Video
• When Doves Cry Play Video
• I Would Die 4 U Play Video
• Baby I'm a Star Play Video
• Purple Rain Play Video

Edits and Comments

2 activities (last edit by dblgleason , 30 Sep 2019, 23:36 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Baby I'm a Star
• Computer Blue
• Darling Nikki
• I Would Die 4 U
• Let's Go Crazy
• Purple Rain
• Take Me With U
• The Beautiful Ones
• When Doves Cry
• International Lover
• Let's Pretend We're Married
• Little Red Corvette
• How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore
• Do Me, Baby
• Father's Song

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Setlist History: Prince Begins 21 Sold Out Nights in London's O2

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Prince Gig Timeline

• Jan 01 1985 Reunion Arena Dallas, TX, USA Add time Add time
• Jan 03 1985 The Omni Atlanta, GA, USA Add time Add time
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• Jan 06 1985 The Omni Atlanta, GA, USA Add time Add time
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[url=https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/prince/1985/the-omni-atlanta-ga-bd855de.html][img]https://www.setlist.fm/widgets/setlist-image-v1?id=bd855de[/img][/url] [url=https://www.setlist.fm/edit?setlist=bd855de&amp;step=song]Edit this setlist[/url] | [url=https://www.setlist.fm/setlists/prince-13d6b9ed.html]More Prince setlists[/url]

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Relive Prince & the Revolution’s Iconic 1985 Purple Rain Concert During a Three-Night Livestream

Prince and the Revolution  will live stream his historic Purple Rain tour stop from 1985 for three nights to support the  COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund  for the World Health…

By Heran Mamo

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Prince and the Revolution  will live stream his historic Purple Rain tour stop from 1985 for three nights to support the  COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund  for the World Health Organization. Yup, you read that right.

Prince’s estate pulled the footage of the concert, which was held on March 30, 1985 at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York, out of the vault to spread the joy of Prince’s phenomenal live shows. This time around, the live Purple Rain show has a different venue and time. Fans can head to Prince’s YouTube channel  from Thursday, May 14 to Sunday, May 17 to relive its glory while donating to the fund powered by the UN Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation. Google will match viewers’ donations $2 for every $1, up to $5 million.

Prince And The Revolution

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Lip Sync Herstory: 5 Things You Didn't Know About Prince's '1999'

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Hours before the livestream on May 14, the estate announced that members of the Revolution would be joining the official watch party Thursday night, and virtual concertgoers will be able to chat with them. The pre-show event begins at 7 p.m. EST, and the Q&A will be moderated by Andrea Swensson of Minnesota Public Radio 89.3 The Current.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CALhVtqF6OP/?igshid=17h8zw6q0g6ss

Turn back time with Prince and the Revolution’s live stream show, starting Thursday, May 14 at 8 p.m. EST and ending Sunday, May 17 at 11:59 p.m., and check out the Syracuse show’s setlist below.

Prince and the Revolution’s Syracuse tour stop setlist: 

1. “Let’s Go Crazy” 2. “Delirious” 3. “1999” 4. “Little Red Corvette” 5. “Take Me With U” 6. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” 7. “Do Me Baby” 8. “Irresistible Bi—“ 9. “Possessed” 10. “How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore” 11. “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” 12. “International Lover” 13. “God” 14. “Computer Blue” 15. “Darling Nikki” 16. “The Beautiful Ones” 17. “When Doves Cry” 18. “I Would Die 4 U” 19. “Baby I’m a Star” 20. “Purple Rain”

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PODCAST | NOTABLE RELEASES | NEWS | REVIEWS | FEATURES

Pbs airing prince and the revolution purple rain tour.

Posted by Buddy Iahn | May 27, 2022

Iconic performance premieres June 4th

James Brown had the Apollo. Jimi Hendrix had Monterey Pop. And Prince had Syracuse, New York’s Carrier Dome — the site of his March 30, 1985 Purple Rain Tour performance that was beamed to millions live via satellite and captured for posterity as a Grammy Award-nominated concert film. It has since gone down in history as one of the most iconic live recordings in pop and rock history. Now, for the first time, this powerful performance by Prince and The Revolution has been entirely remixed from the original 2-inch multi-track master reels by engineer Chris James and re-mastered by Bernie Grundman, and the picture improved significantly. Prince and the Revolution: The Purple Rain Tour is part of special programming premiering on PBS stations beginning Saturday, June 4th.

The program features smash hits from the seminal Prince albums Purple Rain and 1999 , including “Let’s Go Crazy,” “1999,” “Little Red Corvette,” “When Doves Cry,” and a mind-bending 18+ minute version of “Purple Rain.”

PBS special programming invites viewers to experience the worlds of science, history, nature and public affairs; hear diverse viewpoints; and take front-row seats to world-class drama and performances.

Additionally, The Prince Estate, in partnership with Legacy Recordings will release Prince and The Revolution: Live on June 3rd. The completely remastered and digitally enhanced album will be available for the first time as a 2 CD/Blu-ray set, 3 LP set and limited edition Collector’s Edition box  available exclusively from the Official Prince Store.

In conjunction with the physical formats, Prince and The Revolution: Live is also the first Prince release to be made available to supporting digital streaming platforms in spatial audio, as it will be delivered in Dolby Atmos.

With this new audio-visually enhanced release of Prince and The Revolution: Live , both longtime Prince fans and new generations of music lovers are invited to experience the groundbreaking, mesmerizing, creative tour-de-force that Prince brought to the stage with The Revolution during the Purple Rain Tour in an entirely new and immersive way.

About The Author

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: [email protected]

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Prince’s ‘Musicology’ at 20: A Look at the Album, Tour and Year That Saved His Career

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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Prince had been at a crossroads before, but never like he was at the beginning of 2004.

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On February 8, he opened the 2004 Grammy Awards with a five-minute medley of “Purple Rain,” “Baby I’m a Star” and “Let’s Go Crazy” — with Beyonce — that may be the greatest opening to a music-awards show in television history. Two weeks later, he announced his first major tour in six years, noting that he’d be playing his hits again. “It’s older music, but it’s going to be played in a newer way,” he said, teasing that it might be the last time he played those songs in concert (it wasn’t). Then in March, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he played a different, much longer medley of his hits during the ceremony — but of course what everyone remembers is his show-stealing solo during the all-star George Harrison tribute, which he finished by throwing his guitar into the audience.

Musically, “Musicology” was a return to accessibility. And although it didn’t reach the peaks of his classic ‘80s material — to be fair, not much music does — it was a vivid sampler of his musical styles that marked the return of the Prince that people knew and loved. It also was a genuine hit: The ticket-CD bundle helped loft the album to No. 3 on the Billboard 200, but it was top 5 in multiple countries all over the world without that boost, even though it didn’t have a big hit single. Recorded over several years, “Musicology”’s musical baseline is the brand of lean funk Prince was raised on — he even shouts out Earth, Wind & Fire, James Brown and others in the album’s lead-off title track, which concludes with brief, scratchy recordings of some of his own hits in a mock scanning-the-radio-dial segment. There are a couple of “Do Me, Baby”-styled bedroom ballads, bombastic rock (“A Million Days”), even the new wave pop he hadn’t done since “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” on “Cinnamon Girl,” complete with splashes of vintage synthesizers. It winds down with a sultry, slow-burning burst of Aretha on the soulfully bluesy “On the Couch” and concludes with the breezy “Reflection.”

Even though Prince’s musicianship was at a new peak — his blazing guitar work, multi-tracked harmonies, production and arranging show an artist at the top of his craft — he was making music that was easy to like again, which isn’t to say it was simple; but even at its most sophisticated and complex (like the jazzy interlude at the end of “If I Was the Man in Ur Life”), it went down more smoothly. Indeed, the only area where “Musicology” fell flat is in the lyrics, which, like much of Prince’s later material, could be shockingly insipid. In particular, the album’s catchiest track, “Life of the Party,” is marred by lyrics so tossed-off that it sounds like they were written off the top of his head. (“So you’re havin’ a party?/ Goody for you/ All the beautiful people gonna be there/ Yeah, that’s cool.”) Even when he tried gravitas — about politics, war, global warming and moral decay on “Dear Mr. Man” — it wasn’t much better.

Prince was not an artist who’d ever lacked confidence, but by the end of 2004, the full swagger was back in his step. He’d significantly increased his wealth: The tour grossed nearly $90 million, the album was certified double platinum in the U.S. early in 2005, and it spurred sales of his entire catalog in an era when most people still bought CDs. But more importantly, it also marked the return of the Prince people knew, one who wasn’t completely refusing to be who he’d been, and not just musically: The weird outfits and otherworldly hairstyles had been replaced by sleek, classy suits and a short, trim cut.

The year’s creative efforts also gave him a model for how to pursue the rest of his career. Any time he wanted another million (or ten), he’d hit the road in some new and unusual way. Over the following years he played everything from a months-long Las Vegas residency to a premium-price one at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood; from a series of 21 dates at London’s Wembley Arena to a handful of shows in specific regions of the U.S. — even the Carolinas. He played brief “Hit and Run” tours that were announced just days before they launched; and of course he staged what is universally considered to be the greatest Super Bowl Halftime performance of all time in 2007. By contrast, his last tour, shortly before his death in 2016, was just him accompanying himself on piano. He kept finding new ways to keep himself interested.

And although he wouldn’t again reach the upper echelons of the charts in his lifetime and his albums continued to be frustratingly hit-or-miss, his sense of innovation returned with “3121,” the album that followed “Musicology” — on it, fans of “Sign O’ the Times,” which many regard as the peak of his creativity, could find much to grab onto, at least for the first half of the album. Unfortunately, most of the other albums he released in these years were maddeningly inconsistent (and sometimes appallingly bad) but although you won’t find any hidden “Purple Rain”s, there are overlooked gems to be found on many of them — like “Lavaux” and “Laydown” from “20Ten” (the latter of which features the priceless line, “from the heart of Minnesota/ Here come the purple Yoda”), and “Better With Time” and especially “ Ol’ Skool Company ” from “MPLSoUND.” Every once in a while on those albums and others, the Prince you love pops up with something so great it’s as if he’d never gone anywhere. And that’s really the gift of his scattershot, impossibly vast musical output — even though he’s no longer here, there’ll always be something new to find.

“Musicology” was the end of Prince’s wilderness years, and in every way, it set him up for the remaining dozen years of his much-too-brief life.

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