prince

that's an even-handed and generous reading of prince imo.

i've cooled on him since his death tbqf

yah great post Kate

Excellent post Kate.

Also, just in case it wasn't known, Prince was raised as a Seventh-day Adventist, so he was probably surrounded by very social conservative brands of Christianity his entire life. And IIRC the Star-Tribune published an epic oral history after Prince's death where Wendy Melvoin mentioned that during one attempt at reconciliation (well after Prince had converted to JW), he asked her to renounce her sexuality and convert as well - pretty bad, but it's probably something I would've predicted given what was publicly known about his faith. It was a bittersweet remembrance though - Wendy knew the path he had taken and what it meant in terms of their friendship, that things would remain a mess, but she forgave him.

Thanks to Kate and bird for the nuances

https://polishedsolid.substack.com/p/my-2023-prince-year-in-review

The person who does this Substack just had a Prince conference this weekend in NY and am seeing lots of folks speaking highly of it online

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi9nlmMA12Y

A good bit of pre-1999 concert footage is out there, but it's usually in-house video feeds or video shot from a distance, so professional multi-camera videos like this are kind of startling for me to see for the massive jump in production quality. I really hope they do an early Prince box set soon, especially of the Dirty Mind era - for whatever reason I gravitated more towards that stuff when I was binging Prince the week after he died. Just amazing to see them as this hungry little band that was still trying to make a career of their music. (And tbf, at least one of them ended up with a regular day job despite their talents.)

According to IMDb, this was his first national TV appearance. I think he did American Bandstand shortly afterwards, and a little over a year later he was co-musical guest (with Todd Rundgren!) on the notorious episode of SNL where Charles Rocket said "Fuck" on-air (supposedly Rocket said he only did so because we thought it was okay since --he believed-- Prince had already just done so in his performance of "Partyup").

I have an incredible pro-shot single-cam video (torrent) of:

PRINCE LIVE DIRTY MIND TOUR
NEW YORK
THE RITZ
MARCH 21 1981

but have never seen any other early stuff out there

Wolfgang's Vault has a whole show from the end of the Controversy tour - they may have taken down the complete show and left up a selection of clips, but other channels have uploaded a copy of the complete show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdUPjdEciqA

Also, from the tail end of the Dirty Mind tour (basically the European leg), this show from Théâtre Le Palace, Paris, France (June 4, 1981)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w2THFyyy24

assless chaps or GTFO ;)

Should mention, the first show is from January 30, 1982 at the Capitol Theatre.

Prince on American Bandstand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krEXzOEsP9I

DICK CLARK MADE HIM WEAR PANTS

The further we get from it the more 80s Prince feels like a miracle, an impossible thing

Here's the "Partyup" from SNL, which is actually live, unlike the Midnight Special and Bandstand performances.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/TdDTtEYLRZd42znK/?mibextid=oFDknk

ah here's the Ritz show, assless chaps start at 17:44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x1P84W5fa8

Technically, all chaps are assless

pedantry

That guitar solo at 42:30 is worth a few minutes of your time.

wow at that Ritz video!

holy shit i don't think wow quite covers it but yes wow at that ritz video!