This is utterly astounding.
Brother in music and lover of all things Prince Mike A. sent me the link below. If you were ever into Prince, I highly suggest clicking on it and chalking up the next 15 minutes to enjoying pure awesomeness.
What will you see if you click? The 1983 performance of “Purple Rain,” from which most of the album version of the song was pulled. I always knew that the song was mostly live, but I had no idea that there was video of the actual performance.
That alone would be amazing. But whoever posted the video has all kinds of insights into the performance which they helpfully, and unobtrusively, share during the song.
Seriously, go watch it.
Appropriate that it surfaces now, as we’re right in the middle of the 30th anniversary of both the movie and the album1. Last night, while drifting off to sleep, I listed to the Sound Opinions podcast on which they discussed the album and invited former Revolution members Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin to share their memories of how they joined the band and how the album came together. Bits of most of the songs on the albums are played during the show. I couldn’t help but think that exactly 30 years ago, I was likely lying in my bed, trying to fall asleep while listening to ZZ99 or Q-104 and no doubt heard “When Doves Cry” at some point. Crazy.
- The album came out June 25, 1984. The movie opened a month later on July 27. ↩