Pennsylvania 7 January 1997

 

“Great men, it’s been noted, die twice—once as great and once as men.“
– Mark Kram

Prince’s greatness wasn’t dead in 1997, but it did seem in terminal decline. His most recent burst of creativity in 1995 already felt a lifetime ago, and the 1980s seemed to belong to another Prince entirely. It is often said that form is temporary while class is permanent, but by mid-1997 it was hard to remember just how classy Prince had once been.

The Love 4 One Another charity tour is undoubtedly well-intentioned, and a reminder that Price was a great man aside from music. But as a celebration of the Emancipation album, it was uninspired and lacked a sharp focus, a criticism that could equally be leveled at the album itself. The sheer sprawl of the album buries any interesting ideas or musically challenging moments as Prince’s productivity works against him. Likewise, the live setlist suffers the same problem, no enduring theme or concept is holding the show together, and the setlist does at times look like just a random list of songs rather than a coherent whole. If the Lovesexy tour was the pinnacle of Prince putting together a cohesive show, then this comes as the complete opposite, a dire moment in the live canon of Prince's performance history.

 

7th January 1997, Tower Theatre, Pennsylvania

Prince sets out his stall early with the first track of the Emancipation album opening up the concert. “Jam Of The Year” sounds great for cruising in the car during summer, but at this concert it feels forced and tense, undoing any previous summery vibes that may have been associated with it. The biggest problem is one common of this era, it has no firm core or focus. The song sprawls as the band takes solos. Normally I love to see the band stretch like this, but this is the wrong song, and none of the contributions build the song to any more than what it was before. Kept to four minutes and this could have been a punchy opener, instead, it becomes a disappointing introduction to what will become a trend for the next few songs.

“Talkin Loud And Sayin’ Nothing” fits better in aftershows. The intense swirling keyboards and funky beats belong in small clubs, not the larger venues such as this. However, I do enjoy all the elements. Mike Scott and Morris Hayes are not men to be taken lightly and they contribute mightily to the groove that Prince builds this part of the show around. But with no firm direction, the song begins to meander and once again is too long for so early in the concert.

Prince continues to persist with these longer songs, this time dropping “Purple Rain” as the third song of the night. There is no sense of build-up in this concert, and “Purple Rain” feels empty and throw-away because of this. Prince is drawing from his history, a history that feels far removed at this concert, and “Purple Rain” beams in as an alien at this stage. Empty and dead-eyed, this is a hollow imitation of the song. It only highlights Prince’s rapidly fading greatness and the weakness of the new material. Emotionally barren, there is a relief as the final notes fade and Prince returns to a song that has something to say.

 

“17 Days” is a short sharp shock that casts the concert back in sharp relief. Prince’s greatness continues to shadow him, taunting his current music at the time, but in this case, he embraces the song for what it is and briefly engages with the material more than we have previously heard at this concert. The tightness of the song works in its favor as it keeps Prince on the straight and narrow, here he is a slave to his music rather than the music playing on his whim, the song remaining the center of attention rather than the performer.

Light-hearted and focused, “Get Your Groove On” keeps the concert in equilibrium. After the drifting opening numbers, the concert is now moving rapidly through the music with Prince’s songcraft to the fore. With the band taking a back seat, the show becomes all the more enjoyable with the solos enhancing the music rather than distracting from it.

Prince’s recently glories get an airing with “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World.” It has a tenderness not heard elsewhere at the concert and is one of the two high points for me. It has an authenticity that serves it well, the song connecting immediately with the crowd and with Prince. As a radio hit it has an important place at this concert and is the rock that dominates the center portion of the show. Other songs may rise and fall against it, but it remains firm in it’s solid pop joy.

 

Muhammad Ali once told Elvis “Elvis, you have to keep singin’ or die to stay big.” In “Facedown” Prince is that man, still singing to stay big, and appropriately name-dropping Elvis throughout. The first portion of the song is the beat and gives the crowd too little to engage with, but once the band enters the song lifts immediately as Prince makes his angry statement through music. Not normally a fan of this singing style, but I do like the sharpness of it and its intent. There is steel to Prince that he reveals through this song. His anger briefly flashes to the surface, and the song takes on an intensity that isn’t heard anywhere else in the show.

After the pop of “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” and the anger of “Facedown,” Prince engages us at the spiritual level with a reverential rendition of “The Cross.” It is a thin, weedy version, and despite the religious heft Prince wants to install in it, it remains pale compared to other live renditions. Morris Hayes's keyboard work matches Prince’s guitar in thickness of sound, but neither can prop up a song that is ten years past its best.

From the same spiritual well, “One Of Us” holds up much better. After the climax of “The Cross,” it is a paired back sound, the music given more room to breathe in this refined atmosphere. Princes’ guitar gains the most from this, it’s call clearer in the stripped-back setting. Prince’s vocals wash over the song, it is the guitar that brings the music to a fine point, a point that holds your attention and draws the threads of the song together. As a religious moment, this is as close as Prince comes in this particular concert, and the vocals and guitar combine to give it a religious vibe, even if the vocals aren’t always distinctive.

 

“Do Me, Baby,” sucks us back into Prince’s past. The concert is cast in a new light with guitar spilling and flowing over the first minute of the song as Prince touches on his greatness. The enthusiastic crowd response breaks this spell cast by the guitar, and the rest of the song fails to live up to these first moments. Sadly the hint of vulnerability that carried the song in its first years is gone. Prince’s vocals are just too clinical and dry in this context. Prince is no longer a yearning young man, but rather a man who has conquered the world and as such carries the confidence of someone who has done it all.

This confidence is well placed and on full display for the following “Sexy M.F.” In this era, and with this band, it works well and goes over well with both the audience and me. The band has just the right amount of funk and sass to make it believable, and the song matches the general mood of the performance.

Unfortunately, “If I Was Your Girlfriend” does not match the mood of the times and feels out of place. A song that is tangled in Prince's past, the rather plastic rendition here does no favors to the song, nor my memories of it. Resting on name value alone, the song fails to deliver the emotional gut-punch I expect and is rather emblematic of this concert and tour in general. The songs are still there, but they have been strip-mined of their greatness. Prince is playing little more than cover versions of his songs.

Likewise, “The Ride” is a light ramble, rather than a smoldering dark diversion, and Prince’s guitar work repeatedly fails to capture the intensity or excitement of previous years. It lingers long, but never demands you sit up and listen. All the pieces appear to be here, yet they aren’t connecting and the song never becomes greater than its sum of parts.

 

Things return to an even keel for “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?” It’s an unhurried version, yet this time I’m happy to indulge Prince in his musical ramblings and wanderings. The piano drifts into organ and back again, the guitar and drums lightly touching the song in places to remind us this is a band performance. Prince’s vocals are outstanding as he hits all the heights expected of him. The audience is appreciative as he goes through the same routine as the previous fifteen years and there is a comfort in the familiarity and sense of stability in a concert that has otherwise been a shotgun blast of songs and styles.

The particular recording I’m listening to finishes midway through the concert at “I Feel Alright.” It sounds like the audience is well involved by this stage and lapping up all Prince can give, although there is not enough of the song for me to get a good handle on it.

This concert does nothing to dispel the notion that by 1997 Prince’s star was on the wane. Listening now, there is very little to signpost the renaissance and second flourish his career will take with the release of “The Rainbow Children” and “Musicology.” There are glimpses of his greatness, an occasional flash of guitar or vocal flourish, but for the most part Prince’s greatness remains buried, and if not dead already at least on life support. A great man dies twice, but only Prince can arise from that death and reassert his greatness with a string of creative and exciting albums in the wake of this nadir. Critics may have been ready to pronounce Prince dead, as he did in the mid-Nineties, but he was anything but. Think of this as hibernation rather than death.