Prince Celebration 2019 Recap: The Legacy Lives On

PRINCE: LIVE ON THE BIG SCREEN

The “Prince Live On The Big Screen” ‘concert’ is two concerts – “Welcome to America” and “Musicology” edited together to look surprisingly like one show, similar to what is done with Elvis shows at Graceland (which also operates Paisley Park). Last year, “Prince: Live On The Big Screen”  was  at the Target Center; this year at the much smaller Armory. About 3,000 fans, including those who had it included with their Celebration ticket, attended.

One lineup of former NPG musicians including Shelby J. and the NPG Horns, played along to the shows, with Shelby singing live during “Nothing Compares to You” and the group playing a song they used to warm up with and inviting folks on stage to dance. It’s bittersweet for some, but both years, fans have dressed up and partied like it was an actual Prince concert from back in the day. Seeing what looked like a 12-year-old watch the show, mesmerized, means that some are passing the legacy on to the next generation.

UNRELEASED CONCERT FOOTAGE:

Each year at Celebration, there are Prince concerts shown that are not available to the public and have never been, though some portions of certain concerts have surfaced via YouTube, only to disappear. Over the three years, footage from the first “Piano and a Microphone” tour (done at Paisley Park on 1/21/16); the “Nude” tour in Japan; the “Musicology” tour from Staples Center; a Manchester, England show with 3rd Eye Girl; the “Purple Rain” tour and the “21 Nights” shows at the O2 in London have been played. These concerts are golden and there are more, as Prince recorded everything. Why these are not being cleaned up digitally and packaged for sale, I have no idea, but each year they are among the highlights of the Celebration.

PANELS:

The Revolution has been to Paisley Park before, but they have not run out of memories. This year, Wendy talked about 3 of Prince’s many personalities: “Fred Sanford,” “Marilyn Monroe” and “Stevie,” who was apparently the chill one. The Funk Soldiers panel included keyboardist Renato Neto, who said he deliberately messed up at times so Prince would let him do more takes when they were recording, and Kirk Johnson, still a controversial former collaborator, who talked about all the things he did for Prince -including supervising repairs around Paisley Park and being dancer, bodyguard, road manager, assistant, drummer and more over three decades.

First-timers to the Celebration were photographer Jeff Katz, who shared his stories shooting with Prince, and Bob Cavallo, Prince’s former manager. He talked about how hard Purple Rain was to get made and that it was once attached to Richard Pryor’s film company until the deal fell through. Every year you learn something new about Prince that makes him even more of a fascinating figure.

PERFORMANCES:

Music is obviously the reason everyone came to love Prince in the first place and his multiple bands are still cookin’ with fish grease. All the performances were stellar, and Stokley Williams with the Revolution is a genius idea. Stokley and Mint Condition worked and toured with Prince and Stokley has both the showmanship and the chops to perform in his stead.

Click to see how the Celebration needs to evolve if it wants to survive into the future.