Sometime in April, 1988, a friend of mine knocks on my bedroom window. He's got a huge grin on his face and he's giddily showing me a cassette tape. Once inside, he excitedly explains how he'd just been listening to, and recorded on said tape, a special radio preview of an upcoming release from Prince.
As I'm putting the tape in the player, I notice it's not a blank tape, but rather some kind of inspirational encouragement tape that he's used to record the preview over; this still makes me chuckle, a bit, when I recount this story.
The recording was awful, as he'd recorded material over the same tape several times. Doing this repeatedly would often cause the sound to be warbled and uneven when played back. He and I were all smiles while the DJ explained that the upcoming record, Lovesexy, would be released in the following weeks, and that this was a special preview only select radio stations would broadcast.
Once he was finished with the promotional material, the DJ played the opening twenty or so seconds of Alphabet St. My friend and I were smiling ear-to-ear, carefully listening to every second: this was obviously a different kind of style, but it was unmistakably Prince. I was awestruck. We must have re-played that little chunk of mastery a dozen times before my friend got concerned for the tape's integrity.
In the next few months, I would relocate to Minnesota to get closer to my paternal family. My cousin, a fellow Prince fan, called one afternoon to tell me that Prince would be kicking off the Lovesexy tour in September - IN Minneapolis - and that we should buy tickets early. I was VERY happy I spent that money.
The concert was totally epic. Not only were we seeing the first show of the Lovesexy tour in America, but we were seeing it in Prince's home state. I'd not a seen a Prince show before, and I haven't seen five better performances of ANY kind, since. Though The Revolution as a band weren't present, Dr. Fink was there, sporting his monogramed scrubs; he and Sheila E. actually shot some hoops on stage.
My favorite memory from the event was when a huge, pink, neon "something” was being lowered from the top of the venue. At first, one could only see the very bottom part. But, I knew exactly what it was. I turned to my cousin and practically screamed, "That says Yes!" She couldn't hear me, so I repeated, "THAT SAYS YES!" And, sure enough, what was being lowered was a huge, neon-pink heart with the word "Yes" inside of it - just like on the album.
I felt, right then, and have ever since, that I was able to kind of tap into that illusive Prince vibe, even for just those several, fleeting moments. Some of my most cherished memories of seeing live music come from that concert. In the years since, I've been able to collect a couple pieces of event shwag that I didn't have the money to purchase, back then.
Prince was the ultimate showman, even driving a white Thunderbird around the stage during the Alphabet St. rap. Hard to believe that show was thirty years ago, today. I sure miss him. And his millions of dedicated fans do, too. This is quite fitting, in my opinion.
Among his many artistic talents, Prince had a real knack for putting the right letters together… and making a better day.