Q&A: The Revolution On What Made Prince A Live Legend And That Seminal ‘Purple Rain’ Syracuse Show

This year’s Super Bowl halftime show, featuring Dr. Dre, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, was phenomenal, one of the best of all time.

If, however, it wasn’t the best halftime show it is because of one that can’t be topped — Prince’s legendary performance in the rain in Miami, February 4, 2007. In every list of the greatest shows that is rightfully ranked first.

Prince was a live legend, arguably the greatest performer of his generation. That magic is captured on a new release, Prince & The Revolution: Live, recorded at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, March 30 1985 on the Purple Rain tour. The show is being released on CD, vinyl and Blu-Ray tomorrow (June 3) after previously only being available on DVD.

The Syracuse concert was one of the seminal concerts in cementing the Prince legend. What is remarkable is it came just four years after Prince was famously booed off the stage at the Los Angeles Coliseum while opening for the Rolling Stones.

According to Revolution drummer Bobby Z., that debacle was actually an important stepping stone on the way to Prince becoming such an iconic performer. I spoke with Z, as well as Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman about the new recording of the Syracuse show, the Purple Rain tour and why Prince was so unique live — “James Brown on steroids,” Z says.

Steve Baltin: Can you look back on it now and figure out what it was about that night in Syracuse that was so special that night?

Bobby Z: You see things on the schedule, Purple Rain was a work in progress because it kept building and building and building, and the fight was of course, to continue on, that’s what this Syracuse show was about. So most shows you look at the itinerary and Lorde’s totally right, you don’t know. What was the old expression. “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium.” [And] it definitely has a disoriented feeling with Prince, a super disoriented feeling because you’re just captivated in his world in a way when you’re rehearsing, you’re on the road with him. And so it creates this environment. But Syracuse became compromise as they added it because of the size of the building and the ability to do this satellite hookup. So they’ve talked about it for weeks leading up to it. “We’re not gonna tour Europe, we’re gonna do this satellite thing.” And that added a little pressure, but when we went to Syracuse, at first I thought “What’s in Syracuse?” But once we did a sound check, I realized that the venue was one of a perfect medium size, the 20 to 30,000, as opposed to the super, almost 80,000, which was really daunting. But with Prince you’re making history and he was fired up, this is what we’re doing. And it definitely took extra pressure on a show that was already tremendous pressure. It was doing the Olympic routine, trying to get a ten, trying to be perfect.

Wendy Melvoin: We had been on the road for a while by that time, and so we were pretty well-rehearsed and at this point we were like a well-oiled machine, I like to say. And this night was gonna be different because of it being broadcast all over the place, it was one of the first pay-per-view shows. So there was excitement on that level, so that added to what we had already known in our performance was good. It made it just better with the excitement level we had. Plus there was a little bit more pressure, obviously, ’cause we didn’t wanna make any mistakes. We couldn’t go back and redo a take. So it was just like anything, live TV, make it the best you can. And Wasn’t it Prince who said to us, “Go out there and play like it was your last time?”

Lisa Coleman: Yeah, he often said that. [laughter] But definitely that night he was super focused. And it was really special because that was it, we were gonna stop touring with Purple Rain and go on to the next thing. So this was a chance to really solidify what we had been doing. And he just wanted to be perfect, and then of course, so did we, to please ourselves and to please him and really make something that could make history. It was always about, “Let’s go out there and make history,” and we would say that, but we didn’t really know that that would end up happening. [chuckle]

Baltin: How far into the tour was that show?

Z: It was close to the very end. The Orange Bowl of Miami was in April. So, this was March 30th. Look, when we started the Purple Rain tour around the world, that day was already in the can mixed, mastered, ready to go. He was bored halfway through because of the confinements of the tour, at that show, as you could tell, runs like a play, it’s a serious play. And let’s pause here and give credit to Roy Bennett, the lighting and stage designer that came with us from Dirty Mind on, and designed this massive structure with elevators and tunnels and incredible lighting. Roy we considered to be the seventh member of the band, he was just really captivating Princes’ vision for all this. It definitely had a feeling of creativity, but at the same time for him, it became confining. And so he wanted to move on and could have definitely gone on to done Europe and Japan, but then we wouldn’t have this beautiful product we’re talking about now, which is this immortal concert that we’re all very proud of.

Baltin: When was the last time that you went back and watched this show?

Z: There was a night when Warner Brothers in the last couple years after he passed, gave us some beautiful plaques for Purple Rain. And then they had a screening of this and for all of us it’s a little mesmerizing because first of all, you’re so young. Second of all, it’s the amount of work and time that put into that night after night leading up to it is daunting. It’s like watching a highlight, the ball is caught, the touchdowns are made, so it’s pleasant, but it’s still the excruciating of the minute by minute of the game. If you know what I mean.

Melvoin: It’s funny you should say that ’cause I was just talking to Lisa when we first saw it after many, many years, which wasn’t too long ago. I think the first thing that the two of us said to each other was, “Wow, we were really good.”

Coleman: Yeah, and we played everything so fast, we were excited, [laughter].

Baltin: Are you typically comfortable looking back?

Z: I like looking back so you can capture the nuances and bring those into the present. ‘Cause there was so much each bar, each measure with Prince had so much music in it. There was so much space between one and four for Prince. The one end three that so much happened on the three for Prince, which is a weird count. So you get these little pieces of information and you, “Oh yeah that” and you don’t want to bring that forward because it’s all so important. I look at it, Mozart wrote these notes and he had a band I’m sure when he died, some kind of orchestra. And after Mozart died, people say, “Please play the maestro’s arrangements.” And so you’re trying to be as authentic as you can to go back and do what Prince and The Revolution did on March 30th, 1985, as much as you can to bring that self-satisfaction of hitting that. Oh yeah, I got that, we did that. And of course modernizing stuff, but it’s fun to grab the parchment if you will.

Baltin: I’ve become friendly with Brandi Carlile. And we were talking about her doing Joni Mitchell, Blue, all the way through. And she said the impetus for her was for people who want to hear these songs live. So I imagine it’s been a lot of fun to see people who love these songs getting to see them live for the first time.

Z: And especially because in the ’80s Prince and everything was done as secret and the mysteriousness of it all was part of his aura. So now you’ve got social media and meet and greets. And these people, we saved lives with this music and it’s really incredible to see the reaction. “Purple Rain” has become, as Prince called it, medicine. He knew the power of that song, that it somehow brought everyone together. It brings people that are into polka and metal [chuckle] and river dance. Anybody that likes any music at all. “Purple Rain” seems to get them in the heart. And that’s a beautiful thing. And you don’t realize that in 1985, but now it’s so important to people to hear, “Let’s Go Crazy,” done in an authentic way, and to hear “Computer Blue,” “The Beautiful Ones,” and “I Would Die 4 U,” “Baby, I’m A Star,” “Purple Rain.” These songs are etched in the society. I say that the term “party like it’s… ” is just taken for granted now. But it’s iconic, almost part of our dictionary. It’s almost part of our culture. And it just seems incredible to me that this kid I knew that we grew up with that the dreams were sitting in just a car dreaming and now all of a sudden “party like it’s… ” is his statement here to stay. That’ll be forever.

Baltin: At what point did you start to understand who Prince was becoming in the context of the music world?

Z: I started ’76, I was in the original band and helped him as personnel changes, which are difficult. People don’t realize you get the benefit of time. Now you look back at all, he became a star, but Purple Rain was the sixth album of a sixth album deal. And it was a long period of time and he’s pushed and pulled against the major label system, we know that in the beginning as well as he did in the end, but I think it was on 1999 I just had a sense where he was understanding it. The Rolling Stones tour was a debacle of course everyone knows that. You never prepare yourself as a musician for violence, you see it, that’s the old boot off the stage, get the hook, throw the tomatoes, it was all on TV or movies, you just never imagined but when it really happens. No matter what he did or what he was wearing or what he was singing, you just never imagine people to kind of turn violent and turn this into some kind of like a Romans thumbs down kind of thing. But, Lisa’s comment was he had to win over the people that just did that. In order to achieve what Purple Rain ultimately did, he had to win over the hardcore rock audience, the pop audience, all these straight AOR album, rock audiences, all of this stuff had to come along and he, with his precision songwriting was able to go after this, in “1999,” he would say, “Okay, I get it. Well, here’s ‘Little Red Corvette’ for the rockers.” And he has a tongue and cheek comment in ‘1999’ where he says, “Party, that’s right,” and he’s taking, what’s ever left of disco. And then live it just turns into something else altogether. So he strategically was able to write his way out of trouble many times. And that was the magic that I think I just realized, “Wow, these songs are not stopping.” And on the contrary, they’re just flowing and for a while there, he just could do no wrong. So things were changed you got Brown Mark, this fresh face kid who’s one of the greatest bass players of all time. The guy is just a monster and then Wendy comes in another fresh face kid, hungry and unbelievably talented guitar player. She was so creative and that gave us the unit that we are still today there’s just something about when people are committed, things change. And Prince now had this band that was committed and we were gonna do it with him and we were gonna go to the top and we were gonna do whatever it took night after night after night. And that’s what he needed and it’s not that easy to get, but that’s what he got and I’m really proud that I helped him do it.

Melvoin: We had an idea. The audiences were maniacal, they were crazy. So we knew it was more than just your regular rock concert. We knew that it was above and beyond most shows that were touring at the time. But then again, we’re talking about big ’80s shows as well. So there was a lot of competition on the road at the time. There was a lot of big ’80s stuff going on. But there was somehow something different about bringing that movie to life on stage, without the dialogue, of course, but bringing that movie to life by the performances was really something, was probably the goal. And that night, I know that Prince was really, really aware of wanting to bring that movie to life with that show for people around the world.

Baltin: Do you look back on that Coliseum show as a sort of turning point where the band realized the things that had to change from getting booed off the stage to owning the Carrier Dome and becoming a live legend?

Z: Yeah, the guy’s a figure skater up there. There’s just nobody that was as fluid and is in command of the band like Prince, it’s James Brown on steroids. We’re playing rehearsed material, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of rehearsal, and then there’s a layer of spontaneity that he adds with hand signals, audibles, physical cues, audible cues, it’s the NFL. The guy had stuff going on that was unseen. He would do the stop on the one things off to the right where you couldn’t see them, Mark would have to relay to me the stops, there was relays it was just crazy. The guy’s shows were what I like to call on a high-wire with no net. This guy was up there between the sky scrapers and he’s dancing on the wire and you could tell, and that’s why people talk about it to this day because he pushed this band to the edge every single night. And I’m glad Syracuse is pretty flawless. It’s pretty flawless, and it’s captured and it’s really fun. I must say that I have revisited this version with some of the remixes and stuff, it’s great to hear a different perspective, hear different sounds, the way it separated, isolated, mixed in a 22 fashion Bernie Grumman mastering, it really is great for the fans to get this restored video and audio.

Baltin: You had Purple Rain, Born in the USA, Thriller, and at that point that was really kind of everything else. I know that Springsteen and Prince had a great mutual respect. In fact, Bruce covered “Purple Rain” right after he died. Were there other musicians that you really looked to that kind of inspired you on a nightly basis?

Melvoin: The only person that comes to mind would be Joni Mitchell. She was the one that was the biggest supporter of what Prince was doing in a world that wasn’t in Prince’s world, and someone that he loved so much. She was our everything. We were true disciples of hers at the time. So to have her support during those momentous concerts was really inspiring for us, to have people like that love what we were doing. As far as other musicians were concerned, there was just a mutual love fest with everybody, but we were isolated. We were on a really intense schedule and it was about being the best and leaving everybody else in the dust, that was kind of what the goal was, and I don’t mean to sound that way. That sounded a little bit pompous but there was a bit of competition.

Coleman: I think we were a bit pompous, but we were very isolated because of the schedule, I think. That really lent itself to just living in your own world. And this Purple Rain, especially, it was a project that even from its inception, just seemed to always surprise us of how it was developing even from the inception of this song being three simple chords and turning into this beautiful piece. And then the film, we expected at first it’ll be like a cult film, it’ll be an alternative to mainstream and then it turned into a hit film, and then it was released and had a big release. And then the tour got bigger and bigger [laughter], Yeah, so it was this, slow crescendo the whole time. And so we were just involved in that. And I don’t think we looked anywhere but to Prince for most of that encouragement, really. But he was so motivated.

Baltin: During Purple Rain you’re dealing with a scrutiny and an attention that you’ve never experienced before, and that very few people can understand, but Joni Mitchell was one of those people who could.

Coleman: Yeah, absolutely. She had purists all around her and wagging their fingers at her and shaking their heads and we kind of went through the same thing, being are we Black, are we White, are we funk, are we rock, are we whatever, and we liked all of it.

Baltin: So was there particular advice that she gave you guys that you recall or was it more of just a vibe on how to deal with all of that?

Melvoin: It was just a vibe. Her comfort level was permission for us to be comfortable with ourselves as well. She was very comfortable with us and that was validating. If someone’s uncomfortable around you, you know they don’t wanna be there. They don’t really get what you’re doing. [chuckle]

Baltin: When you go back and hear that Syracuse show now are there particular moments that really stand out to you?

Melvoin: No. What struck me listening to it was this is like chapters in a book. You can’t just take it from the middle. You gotta take it from the first chapter to the last chapter and it’s a great book. That’s what was so great about that show. So I loved every part of it. If I was to think of something right now, I loved how he sang “The Beautiful Ones” every night, I thought that was stunning. And having to recreate “Darling Nikki” every night, that takes a lot out of a person, and he was amazing. He never, ever, ever did less than 100 person ever. It was incredible.