Let's party like it's 2020

May 19, 2020 6:48 AM

"Prince and the Revolution: Live" is streaming on YouTube (SLYT) as a benefit for the WHO's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. For more, see Rolling Stone. (The article says that it will be available for three days from the 15th, but it is still available, so don't delay.)

Prince on MeFi previously and previously and previously, and probably many other times too.

posted by Grinder (12 comments total)

The Prince folks didn’t lock that video down, so downloading it with freeware tools is effortless. Just FYI.
posted by dbiedny at 7:11 AM on May 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

Watched the other day. Astounding stuff, absolutely relentless.
posted by Grangousier at 7:31 AM on May 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

Only downloadable at 480p but hell, it's peak Prince. I'll take it.
posted by Ber at 8:40 AM on May 19, 2020

I think this concert was sold as a VHS for a time way back when. It's a great show, and I'm always impressed with how much Wendy and Bobby Z work their asses off in concert. I didn't like that they used the prerecorded Computer Blue voice in this concert kinda awkwardly, but I understand that The Artist needed time for a costume change. (And probably a little break for the band, too. ) This is the concert that has a 20 minute version of Purple Rain, mostly because Prince doesn't come out for 6 or 7 minutes while Wendy brings it around and around again like a champion.

I think my fave Prince live concert footage are the ones from the Dirty Mind tour. There's a few out there and Prince is especially amazing in them. All just before he went in and recorded 1999.
posted by Catblack at 9:01 AM on May 19, 2020

It's only at 480p because the source material is 480p. They could have tried upscaling, but I think the digital artifacts that would introduce would make the result look... below Prince's standards. There's a fun video on this here, but TL;DR: NTSC video has a max resolution of 480p. If this were done on film, the original negatives could be rescanned at high-resolution, but if the source was video, we're stuck at 480p without the use of upscaling algorithms that introduce weird artifacts into the video.
posted by SansPoint at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

I saw this tour! In Las Cruces NM! I camped out outside the local arena to be in line to buy tickets because that's how things worked back then! It was amazing, even the sleeping on concrete for to nights!
posted by hippybear at 10:20 AM on May 19, 2020 [4 favorites]

my fave Prince live concert

The song Purple Rain was recorded live, albeit with a multi-channel sound truck in the parking lot.

A few edits and tweaks, but the bulk is from the first live performance.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:38 AM on May 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

This show is just astonishing. One of, if not the, greatest performers ever at the peak of his power, backed by a road hard band that can do no wrong. You owe it to yourself to watch this.
posted by vibrotronica at 10:39 AM on May 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm still kicking myself because I had an opportunity to get a pre-release ticket purchase for the Prince And A Piano tour (his final tour) and I didn't go because I balked at the nearly $300 price tag on the ticket (and I'd been spending money on concerts like water for a couple of years so I was starting to wind back).

So I didn't go. And later I hear it's one of the best tours he's ever done, one of the most intimate (small club dates really), and then suddenly he's dead.

Dammit.
posted by hippybear at 12:47 PM on May 19, 2020

And honestly, watching this show now 35 years later, part of the remarkable thing about the show was how the band was working together ALL THE TIME. It wasn't just music-making, it was conscious showmanship. That's part of what made this band and The Time and others of the era so amazing to see live. It's why James Brown was King.
posted by hippybear at 12:56 PM on May 19, 2020

Also, at the beginning of the concert you see things raining down on the crowd -- those were fake carnations. I still have one my in my bottom dresser drawer which is my repository of things that mean things to me.
posted by hippybear at 2:33 PM on May 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

I practically wore out my VHS copy of this when I was a kid. Some of the split screen effects are kind of annoying.

My equivalent of the fake carnation in the bottom drawer is I have a string of fake pearls which Prince threw into the crowd at a show in Earls Court in 1992
posted by alanbee at 4:43 AM on May 20, 2020