FERNDALE, MICHIGAN - Back
in 1984, Prince and the Revolution was a big deal. I can remember distinctly
when this craze started to reach into a feverish pitch. I caught wind of it
when I was in rural Virginia growing up as a teen. Long story short I was
unable to go because of Prince’s notorious sexual conduct in his songs and my
parents forced me to sell my tickets to the famous Purple Rain Tour.
This tour was epic in proportion and established Prince as
an International star around the globe. This was due in large part of the way
his playing schedule was planned. He played in Detroit for one solid week at
Joe Louis Arena and then did four nights in D.C. at the Capital Center. In 1984,
there was nobody bigger than Prince and he took his seat along with other MTV
royalty namely Billy Idol, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen.
Zoom up to 2014 and we are now at the 30th anniversary
of Prince and the Revolution and the historic, Purple Rain Tour. The
Minneapolis based Purple Xperience Prince Tribute band is right on time with its 2 hour show that commemorates
the genius of those epic performances. As soon as I heard about it trekked over
there to see what the big commotion was. They were playing up at the Magic Bag
in Ferndale, MI and I decided to haul over there and check them out.
The room was almost sold out – I mean it was really packed
in there. But the cool part about the Magic Bag is that it was once a movie
theater and there is a lot of wiggle room in that place. I was able to scoot up
to the front of the stage in this standing room only pit. There were a ton of
people there and they were fans of all ages. Rock music has really become a
multi generational thing. One guy in the audience was all decked out like
Prince and I thought that was the main performer that night. He kept jumping
around taking pictures with the audience members and hob nobbing around and
getting lots of self attention. I was pretty much sure he was the main guy from
the tribute show but he wasn’t.
The band came in from the back of the stage and the first
one to hit it was Dr. Fink, the original keyboardist from the Revolution. I had
no idea that this was going to happen. This proved to be an amazing asset because
he had all the sounds right straight from the original recordings. He wore his
trademark surgical scrubs on stage since he is, “The Doctor”. I was surprised to learn this because I had no
idea there was an original member of the band in this group. I didn’t even
recognize him when he first walked on the stage. He no longer sports long curly
locks and has short cropped hair.
The two guitarists came on stage and one of them was a
spitting image of Dez from the 1999 days. Then the Prince guy came out and the
audience went wild and that was played by Marshall Charloff. He has an busy
history of working with groups like Anthony and the Imperials, The Commodores,
and Lipps Inc.
The house lights dimmed and the audience was ready. They
were already hootin’ and hollering. The familiar keyboards fired up to the
eerie church organ tones for the opening of, “Let’s Go Crazy”. This was going
to be the real deal. Marshall walked up to the mic in his purple trench coat
and the house went bananas. The band ripped into the pulsating riffs and the
audience was getting what it came for. No doubt about it the Purple Xperience
came here to please. By now the pit in the front of the stage was elbow to
elbow people and the temperature was rising down there and starting to get hot.
Call it a rush – call it adrenaline but I started to sweat
while I watched this band. There was no way I was going to leave because I
couldn’t wait to watch what they were going to do next. They did, “Take Me With
U” off of the Purple Rain album and it was a joy to watch the audience
response. The Purple Xperience was all smiles and the audience knew it was in
good hands. After a brief outfit change
Marshall came out with a white shaggy fur coat and his white guitar with the
long extended swirl near the neck. They jumped into, “U Got The Look” from the
album, “Sign Of The Times”. This was a musical journey back into time and the
sound was rich, vibrant, lush, and bold.
The guitarists had dance routines that they did in synch.
Marshall was the stand out lead presence and would do on stage antics with the
mic stand ala James Brown. This guy did his homework because he had those moves
down cold. It was hypnotic watching him work with letting the mic stand fall
forward and then wrapping the cable around the base of it. With a simple snap
of the wrist and tug on the chord the mic stand would snap right back into
Marshalls hand where he would grab it and lower it and wrap his leg over it and
spin around. That was phenomenal.
The costume changes were frequent and Prince had the outfits
from the bands many incarnations. The audience absolutely flipped out when
Carloff came out dressed in the blue sky and clouds suit from the, “Raspberry
Beret” video. The songs were colliding into one another and kept pace with the
anxious audience. We got snippets of, “Pop Life” and full renditions of, “1999”,
“Take Me With U”, and “Baby I’m A Star”. The best parts of the show was
watching Charloff handle the mic stand, and doing the dance moves almost to
mimicry. He knew how to command the crowd by adding the touches that made
Prince such a stand out celebrity. These included jumping up on the speakers,
doing the splits, and then wailing on the guitar. This is entertainment boys
and girls.
If you get a chance to see this band do it… You won’t regret
it. |
