Detroit 8 April 1983

 I have so far covered two Detroit concerts from the 1999 tour , and this week I will take a listen to the third concert from Detroit, this time from the end of the tour. The concert on 8th April 1983 is the third to last concert of the tour and is worth listening to for several reasons. Its setlist is different from the earlier two Detroit concerts from 1982 (including in this case a performance of “Free” and “Still Waiting”), giving us an added interest during the piano set. It is also filmed, and I certainly recommend checking out the video if you can. The sound quality is rough and ready, but the spectacle of the show is what counts, as Prince and The Revolution have the concert running faultlessly by this stage of the tour. I’m sure most fans have seen it at some stage, but it is still worth revisiting and taking another sip of the purple juice Prince was peddling at the time. 

8th April 1983. Joe Louis Arena, Detroit 

I watched the Vanity 6 set, and that of The Time that was also featured on the DVD. Their music and performance are just as much Prince as anything else at the concert, and who doesn’t want a bit of Vanity eye candy before catching the Prince main show. It is well worth taking in both as the Prince portion of the video is barely an hour, while if we digest these opening acts we get almost two hours of Prince music. Prince’s eventual arrival to “Controversy” has my heart-pounding time with the music, and while it sounds passable on the tape, the visuals more than makeup for it with Prince’s dramatic silhouetted entrance. This is definitely one to watch rather than listen to. 

 

The band comes alive for “Let’s Work” and the stage and recording are awash with motion and kinetic energy. The recording fails the song somewhat, the bass playing can’t be faulted, but it is lost in the general chaos of the recording, while most of the rest of the music becomes lost among the combined white noise of cymbals and crowd screams. However, I can’t take my eyes off Prince, even after 35 years I am still mesmerized by his stage presence and sheer cool. 

The sound improves for “Do Me, Baby” as the song carries more space for the band to be heard. It is as lush as the purple lighting that baths the stage, and Prince wallows in its melodramatic nature with a performance that matches it on every level. Prince sells the song, his performance, and himself with a display of raw sexuality neatly cocooned in a honey-dipped vocal performance that would slide by even the harshest of censors. 

My favorite song off the Controversy album is “Sexuality” (this week at least) and as much as I enjoy the bare-knuckled performance of it here, it doesn’t come remotely close to the power of the preceding “Do Me, Baby.” It’s brisk, and as much as I wish it was longer, it is only a couple of minutes. It does, however, serve as a nice intro to “Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” another song that carries a momentum that propels the concert forward. Prince embodies this energy with a physical performance that matches the non-stop nature of the music, again making this a recording to watch rather than listen to. 

 

The keyboard interlude by Lisa is as we have heard throughout the 1999 tour, but in this case, I would choose to listen to it on a proper soundboard recording rather than what we have here. The visuals add very little, and it certainly sounds a lot better elsewhere. 

The piano set is the portion of the show that makes this concert a key part of most people's collections. It doesn’t get much better than the moment when Prince hunches over the keyboard for a rare performance of “Free.” As always Detroit draws the best out of him, both with its inclusion, and his vocals which are loaded with an ornate power. Paired with “Still Waiting” it becomes an unmissable bootleg moment, this is Prince at his purist, just the piano and his unblemished vocals creating their own inner sanctum and turning the arena into the most intimate of temples. 

 

“How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore” doesn’t fill me with quite the same depth of feeling and as good as it is, that is all it remains – good. Prince’s vocal yoga at the end of the song is noteworthy, but the most dramatic part of the song comes when a stagehand comes to replace the stool Prince kicks over, only for Prince to pick it up and hurl it off the stage. Now that’s rock n roll! 

 

Hands are raised for “Lady Cab Driver,” a song that is deceptively good in this context. In a concert that seems to have its fair share of drama, this is one song that is played straight, and that is the strength of it as we finally can sit back and let the funk wash over us.  It initially has a smooth sheen, before Dez adds some bite with his overhead guitar playing in a final stanza that is a fitting exclamation mark. 

 

Prince reclaims the spotlight with a perfunctory performance of “Little Red Corvette” The Detroit crowd response isn’t as strong as it had been for some of the earlier numbers, which suggests to me that it’s not just the recording that is flat in this case. 

The feverish moans and howls at the beginning of “Dirty Mind” usher in a much more frenzied and wild part of the show, and a part of the show that sees the simmering tension of “Little Red Corvette” unleashed in a maelstrom of unbridled guitar, frantic keyboard lines, and instinctive dance moves from Prince. It is a heady mix, I feel myself becoming drunk on the music being created on stage and it is easy enough to imagine myself becoming lost in the moment if I was at the actual concert itself. 

 

This extravaganza is followed by Prince’s carefully crafted seduction piece “International Lover.” Unfortunately, the recording is missing the final “1999,” so as far as this recording is concerned, this is the finale. It is every bit as seductive as you might expect, the Detroit crowd furnishing the bootleg with screams of delight at all the appropriate places. It’s not as essential as some of the earlier songs, but it does bring the 1999 album back into firm focus for the end of the concert. We never reach the climax that Prince is building to as the recording finishes before Prince can scale the final heights of satisfaction, but we see enough to know where this one is heading. 

 

I can’t deny that this is another quality Detroit show. Each of the three circulating Detroit concerts from this tour is worthy in their own way, and although I feel last week's concert was better, this is the better bootleg, purely based on the visual aspect. The 1999 tour see’s Prince playing on a far grander scale, and this is a great visual representation of where he was at that time. The video has aged badly, with color dropouts throughout the concert, but there is enough there to make this a worthwhile experience. Definitely a must-have for the collection.