The Rise of Prince 1958-1988 by Alex Hahn & Laura Tiebert

Author:Alex Hahn & Laura Tiebert [Hahn, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

16. Shock and Satisfaction

Among those who saw Prince perform at the Ritz in New York City during the Dirty Mind tour had been Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger. The Stones, long conscious of the debt they owed to black musical forms, often offered opening slots to African-American artists like Stevie Wonder and Billy Preston. Now, as the band prepared for its first U.S. tour in many years in support of its Tattoo You album, Jagger invited Prince to join the Stones at the Los Angeles Coliseum, on Friday, October 9 and Sunday, October 11, 1981, and also at two more shows in Detroit. He and his managers readily accepted what was a tremendous promotional opportunity.

A sold-out crowd of more than 94,000 people was expected to attend the Los Angeles shows, and most would never have heard of Prince. It would be Mark Brown’s second gig with the band, a staggering transition from the small nightclubs he had been playing during his very short musical career. In the weeks running up to the show, Dez Dickerson warned Prince that the reaction of a large, anonymous crowd of Stones fans would be entirely different from anything he had ever experienced.

October 9, 1981, turned out to be an unseasonably warm day in Los Angeles, and a capacity crowd packed the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to witness the greatest pure rock band of its generation. Some had arrived very early in the morning to secure places near the stage; many were inebriated by the time the music was to begin in the late afternoon. Those up close included hundreds of members of the notorious Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, which had created violent altercations at the Stones’ famed concert at Altamont in 1969, resulting in the death of an audience member.

Many fans had expected only two opening acts, the J. Geils Band and George Thorogood and the Destroyers, blues bands very much in the Rolling Stones tradition. But when promoter Bill Graham, a legendary figure who had advanced the careers of many artists, took the stage and announced that Prince would be performing first, many in the audience shouted their displeasure.

Backstage, Prince and his bandmates felt a wave of dread. The dynamics quickly became clear – an impatient, predominately white crowd, fueled by masculine energy and pumped full of alcohol, was about to witness a small, scantily dressed African-American and his mixed-race, mixed-gender backing band. “We’re set up to die,” drummer Bobby Z. recalled thinking.[208]

Some attendees did take offense to Prince’s attire, which consisted of a trench coat, leg warmers, and a leather thong. Still, reaction to the distortion-drenched “Bambi” was largely positive. The band segued immediately into “When You Were Mine,” whose jaunty rhythms also produced a generally agreeable response. But the small army of bikers and boozers closer up was losing its patience; some began tossing trash, and in some cases, lighted cigarettes. An orange thrown at Mark Brown was impaled on the tuning pegs of his bass.[209]

Bill Graham, disgusted by the reaction and concerned about the band’s safety, came out and stopped the set.

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