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Musicology Live 2004ever

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• July 30, 2004 Setlist

Prince Setlist at Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, MI, USA

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Tour: Musicology Live 2004ever Tour statistics Add setlist

• Song played from tape Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech intro Play Video
• Musicology Play Video
• Let's Go Crazy Play Video
• I Would Die 4 U Play Video
• When Doves Cry Play Video
• Baby I'm a Star Play Video
• Shhh Play Video
• D.M.S.R. Play Video
• A Love Bizarre ( Sheila E.  cover) ( Instrumental ) Play Video
• The Glamorous Life ( Sheila E.  cover) ( Instrumental ) Play Video
• I Feel for You Play Video
• Controversy Play Video
• What a Wonderful World ( Louis Armstrong  cover) Play Video
• Solo guitar set
• Little Red Corvette Play Video
• Peach Play Video
• Alphabet St. Play Video
• 17 Days Play Video
• Something in the Water (Does Not Compute) Play Video
• Adore Play Video
• Cream Play Video
• Raspberry Beret Play Video
• 7 Play Video
• Sign “☮” the Times Play Video
• The Ride Play Video
• Let's Work Play Video
• Lopsy Lu ( Stanley Clarke  cover) Play Video
• U Got the Look Play Video
• Life 'O' the Party Play Video
• Soul Man ( Sam & Dave  cover) Play Video
• Kiss Play Video
• Take Me With U Play Video
• Call My Name Play Video
• Purple Rain Play Video

Edits and Comments

4 activities (last edit by [deleted user] , 4 Jun 2013, 14:07 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Baby I'm a Star
• I Would Die 4 U
• Let's Go Crazy
• Purple Rain
• Take Me With U
• When Doves Cry
• A Love Bizarre by Sheila E.
• Lopsy Lu by Stanley Clarke
• Soul Man by Sam & Dave
• The Glamorous Life by Sheila E.
• What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
• Little Red Corvette
• Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)
• Call My Name
• Life 'O' the Party
• Sign “☮” the Times
• U Got the Look
• Controversy
• Let's Work
• Raspberry Beret
• Alphabet St.
• I Feel for You

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Prince gig timeline.

• Jul 28 2004 Air Canada Centre Toronto, ON, Canada Add time Add time
• Jul 28 2004 Much More Music Toronto, ON, Canada Add time Add time
• Jul 30 2004 Joe Louis Arena This Setlist Detroit, MI, USA Add time Add time
• Jul 31 2004 The Palace of Auburn Hills Auburn Hills, MI, USA Add time Add time
• Aug 01 2004 Van Andel Arena Grand Rapids, MI, USA Add time Add time

10 people were there

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Prince in 2004 interview: Detroit a ‘second…

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Prince in 2004 interview: detroit a ‘second home town,’ not resting on his laurels.

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RELATED: See photos looking back at his career at Media.TheOaklandPress.com .

RELATED: Read our review of his 2015 Detroit show .

On a warm July afternoon, before one of his three Musicology Live 2004ever shows in suburban Detroit, Gary Graff was granted an “audience” with Prince to chat about everything he was up to at the time. And there was plenty; just out of his “slave” phase, he had new music in motion, a variety of Internet-related projects and as hot a live show – a 360-degree experience on a cross-shaped stage – as he’d ever put on. The ground rules for his occasional interviews were no recording or photography, though some discreet note-taking was allowed. And despite his veiled persona and taciturn reputation, Prince was actually very talkative.

Six weeks ago, Prince was jamming hard in front of a sold-out crowd at the Palace of Auburn Hills, on its feet and whipped into a frenzy even though it’s early in the show.

“What’s my name?” he shouted, smiling as the more than 20,000 enraptured fans shout back the answer. “It’s a respect thing,” he told them.

And these days, it’s all about respect for Prince – more so than in the past dozen years or so.

He blew everyone away when he opened the Grammy Awards in February. He did the same at his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction a month later, where admirer Alicia Keys telling the gathering that “There are many kings…but there’s only one Prince” before he paid homage to fellow inductee George Harrison with a stinging guitar solo on the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

But mostly Prince is making his statement on the Musicology tour, filling arenas while his album of the same name has hovered around the top of the Billboard charts – partly thanks to a clever plan that includes a copy of the CD with each concert ticket purchased. The net result is that Prince and his fans are partying like it’s 1984, when he was a crossover pop culture phenomenon with the “Purple Rain” film and album project.

But he categorically rejects the idea that this is a comeback.

“The vibe is not really different,” Prince, popping open a can of mix nuts and dropping into a plush couch, insisted in his candle-lit, incense-sweetened dressing room at the Palace, whose door was labeled Tayshaun in reference to the Pistons’ own Prince. “I’ve been touring for awhile. I took a break to make the `Musicology’ project. It hasn’t really stopped.

“Take away the Grammys and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, put them aside, and I’d still be here in this building, talking to you. I would still be releasing the album. I’d still be out here. I ain’t going nowhere.”

That may be the case, but Prince’s journey – particularly over the past dozen years – has taken a circuitous route back to mass audience favor.

During the `80s, the multi-faceted musician — born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis — had the touch of gold, with critically ballyhooed multi-platinum albums (“1999,” “Purple Rain,” “Sign O’ the Times”), hits like “Little Red Corvette,” “When Doves Cry,” “Raspberry Beret” and “Kiss,” successful singles he wrote and produced for Chaka Khan (“I Feel For You”), Sheena Easton (“Sugar Walls”), Sinead O’Connor (“Nothing Compares 2 U”) and Sheila E. (“The Glamorous Life,” “A Love Bizarre”). He also made forays into film, with the tremendous success of “Purple Rain,” a chart topping hit (“Batdance”) for 1989’s “Batman” and a dud in “Graffiti Bridge.”

Prince’s commercial fortunes turned in the `90s, however, even as his musical ambitions broadened and led to some of his most eclectic albums. But behind the scenes he was battling with his label, Warner Bros., which he says wouldn’t allow him to release his music with the volume and frequency he desired.

“We started having discussions about releasing things under other names,” recalled Prince, then 46, who’s still based in Minneapolis, where he lives with his second wife, Manuela Testolini. Detroit, however, is still a “second home town,” the reason why he’s playing two more shows here this weekend after playing a pair in June.

“I mean, George Clinton had Parliament, then he had Funkadelic – two different bands, two different labels. Then he had George Clinton records, the Brides of Funkenstein… He could get it all out of his system. You just keep doing stuff, and it gets stacked up and drives you crazy. And you don’t know what to do about it.

“Studies show that things like regret, not being able to forgive other people, that’s what causes cancer. It piles up, and you get irritable.”

And Prince vented. In 1993 he changed his name to the unpronounceable symbol, a blend of the signs for male and female, that he used for an album title the previous year. He also scrawled the word “slave” on his cheek and launched a bid to leave the label and strike out on his own.

He became the butt of many jokes from a public that didn’t quite understand what he was up to (Prince blames the media for not explaining it properly, though his unwillingness to make himself available for interviews certainly didn’t help). But when he hit No. 3 with “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” – which he released on an independent label rather than Warners – he notes that “the whole discussion changed.”

“Now these people sat back and looked at me with their arms folded, and we talked man to man, not parent to child,” Prince said. “At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I ran into a guy who was at Warners back then. He said `Back then, we really treated you like it was a parent-child relationship.’

“I said, `Sir…I was a grown man. The fact you guys could look at me like that…I see now. I understand. I couldn’t before.’ So there’s nothing to be bitter about, because I can see now what was going on.

“As time clicks on and we watch events unravel…people understand. Anita Baker came up to me recently. She said, ‘Prince, at first we didn’t know what was happening. We said ‘He needs to kick up his medication.’ Then it happened to all of us.”

These days Prince is a walking definition of creative independence. Having separated from Warners in the late `90s, he now releases albums through a variety of licensing deals – “Musicology” is being distributed by Columbia – while he sells other projects via the Musicology Download Store on his NPG Music Club website, the first artist-owned, independent download store of its kind.

Sitting down at a large computer terminal in the dressing room, he clicked through a variety of online-only albums; a ministering Jehovah’s Witness, he apologizes when a “bad word” sneaks through the mix. There are funky workouts such as “The Slaughterhouse” and “The Chocolate Invasion,” as well as the jazzy “N.E.W.S.” and individual songs and videos.

And he described a forthcoming instrumental collection, “Xpectation,” as “one for dinner parties…I’m not trying to shock the world with every record.”

The plethora of material, however is why he promises that the Musicology tour will be the last time he plays many of his older hits. “I’ve been playing `Purple Rain’ and `Little Red Corvette’ a long time,” he explained. “I’m writing all the time. Those are the songs I want to be playing It’s hard to stay away from that and rest on my laurels. I can’t do that.

“The cool thing,” he added, flipping through the assorted web site offerings, “is it’s interactive immediately. The temptation is to fill it up with new songs all the time. Freedom can get you into trouble – too much freedom, anyway.

“But it’s so much more fun and there are so many more rewards to doing it on your own. You can become so much more connected to your audience this way. They don’t need to see a chart first or hear it on the radio first or read a review. What they vibe off of is what they vibe off of – it’s that easy.”

But not necessarily simple. Prince got into a donnybrook with SoundScan, the company that compiles figures for Billboard’s charts, over whether the copies of “Musicology” distributed at his concerts should count as sales after several record labels protested. SoundScan is counting them – thus “Musicology” was quickly certified gold – but will only count such promotions in the future if ticket-buyers are given a choice as to whether they want the CDs.

Prince rolled his eyes at the controversy. “You come up with something new and you’re gonna have trouble with it,” he said. “This is not me trying to make war on anything. The people at the shows don’t have trouble with it. Why would someone who’s not even part of this have trouble with it? I’m not gonna get in William Hung’s way.”

None of this, Prince said, will discourage him from continuing on the independent path he fought so hard to achieve. In addition to lots of music – “There are a lot of things we haven’t addressed yet on our records,” he noted – he’s also started discussion on a series of artist-friendly music shows for television, an idea stoked by his Grammy and Hall of Fame appearances.

Some of these projects will be more successful than others, he acknowledged; more importantly, he can approach them with the confidence that they’ll come out and be exposed. Meanwhile, he’s enjoying the latest bout of Prince-mania but also accepting it for what it is.”

“‘Purple Rain’ as more or less like a fever-pitch type feeling all the time,” he recalled, “people at the hotel waiting, crowds everywhere we went, just…crazy. Now it’s more business-like. I’m running the affairs, making a lot more money. I know everything that’s going on. It doesn’t seem like a madhouse. I like that.”

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Prince performing “d.m.s.r.” at 2004 concert in detroit.

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How Anger Fueled Prince’s Masterful ‘Musicology’

As Prince’s estate celebrates the 20th anniversary of his 2004 comeback album, the artist’s former collaborators reflect on what made it so special.

The Prince Estate/Afshin Shadhidi Musicology

When Prince released his 28th studio album, Musicology , in 2004, it was hailed as a remarkable return to form. Though he’d released a steady stream of music throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, most of those albums were deemed too conceptual or uncommercial. But Musicology —which turns 20 years old on April 20, just one day shy of the eighth anniversary of Prince’s death—is perhaps the high-water mark of that period. An old-school funk record made with virtuoso musicians playing real instruments—which even at the time was a novelty—it featured heaps of what Prince was best at, including infectious, R&B-tinged pop songs, dance workouts, slow jams, and even political rants delivered with a swagger he’d not exhibited since his mid-’80s heyday.

Of course, being a genius can be a fraught road. With albums like 1999 , Purple Rain , and Sign ‘O’ the Times , Prince had set a bar so high that, by 2004, after more than a decade of fighting with his record label, writing “SLAVE” across his face, and changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol, many fans had moved on and were satisfied with simply revisiting his greatest hits whenever they came on the radio.

Then came Musicology . And while it wasn’t Prince redefining the music landscape the way he did in the ’80s, upon its release, fans reveled in its breezy confidence and in, once again, hearing every facet of his genius.

“This record… remember, it’s made by someone who’s been there and back,” Prince said at the time of evoking the great funk records of the ’70s. “Hopefully people feel that and listen to it with that set of ears. Music is music, ultimately. If it makes you feel good? Cool.”

It certainly resonated. Musicology went top five around the world and spawned hits like “Call My Name” and “Cinnamon Girl.” But Alan Light, author of the ultimate book on the legend’s golden period, Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain , believes that, by 2004, with Prince’s finger firmly on the zeitgeist, it was nothing more than flipping a switch for the Purple One.

“ Musicology was an active decision to say, ‘OK, these are the switches I need to hit to go be a creative force in the world,’” Light says. “‘I know what they are. I’ll show you what that is.’”

Sometimes, that came at a cost—but one that Prince was willing to pay, says drummer Michael Bland, who was a member of Prince’s New Power Generation.

Randee St. Nicholas

“Prince was like David Bowie in that he thought, I’ll give my audience a little bit of what they want, but I’m mostly going to do what I want,” Bland says. “He certainly wasn’t afraid to lose fans, if it meant going where he needed to go. In fact, quite the opposite. If the fans he’d gained didn’t get where he was going, he was happy to leave them behind.”

Still, if recent archival releases are any indication, in much the same way Bob Dylan fans scratch their heads at how he often leaves some of his best tracks off his album releases, Prince often held back amazing material. “United States Of Division,” a Musicology -era B-side, was recently released to streaming services in celebration of the album’s anniversary. The powerful protest song sees Prince lamenting the state of a fractured nation: “How far from heaven must we go? / Before the winds of change will blow and show / This world how it’s supposed to be / Land of peace and harmony.”

Written and recorded at the height of the war in Iraq, “United States Of Division” serves as a potent reminder of Prince’s often under-appreciated passion for social commentary, as well as his ability to write a timeless song, no matter the subject matter. Because while Prince’s lyrics may be referring to a moment 20 years ago, his unyielding stance on inequality remains just as relevant in today’s turbulent socio-political landscape.

“It’s obvious that there’s an agenda against the disenfranchised and the uneducated,” Prince said at the time. “So ultimately, I think, to counter that, we’re gonna have to talk to one another. One of the ways we used to do that was through our music.”

As for where Musicology now sits in Prince’s canon, while it was considered a return to form at the time, Light feels it holds up to the artist’s best work.

“On Musicology , first of all, you feel him working on the songwriting again,” Light says. “You feel very explicit self-editing going on, but there’s also this additional layer of effort going on in those records. And there’s this re-embrace of old-school R&B, and then the stripped-down sound. Remember, we were now post-Napster, and however many years into hip hop’s explosion, coming out of the Bad Boy and Death Row era, and the pop takeover by Britney and NSYNC. And here he was saying, I want to celebrate musicianship and traditional, quality songwriting. For any fan, at the time, it was amazing. But today, those are albums worth everyone’s time and attention, because they are that good.”

“If you can see the finish line before you start the race, that’s a true artist,” Bland says of his former mentor. “Prince’s greatest gift was his inspiration and his creativity, because it’s not that he was a great guitar player, for instance. It’s what he was able to say with it.”

In the aftermath of Musicology ’s release, Prince seemed to be everywhere. The album earned him two Grammy Awards at the 2005 ceremony—where he memorably duetted with Beyoncé —and was certified double platinum that same year. The Musicology tour, meanwhile, became Prince’s highest-grossing U.S. tour, with him and his band performing to over 1.4 million fans. The album came at the peak of his 2000s resurgence, coinciding neatly with his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, where he famously performed a stirring guitar solo on an all-star rendition of The Beatles’ classic “ While My Guitar Gently Weeps ” to mark George Harrison’s induction into the Rock Hall.

“They gave away Musicology with tickets to the tour—something he’d always resisted in the past, branding a tour to an album—and there was the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction and the Grammy performance. That all led to the Super Bowl performance in 2006,” Light recalls, marveling at how effortless it all seemed for an artist who had been through so many ups and downs since becoming part of the cultural firmament with Purple Rain .

“I think that so much of the story of his entire career is this tension between some very big questions,” Light notes. “Is he a huge pop star or is he the world’s biggest cult artist? Is he somebody who goes out and fills stadiums, or is he somebody who has a million people who are on for the ride and it can go wherever he wants? And, you know, he could turn up or down those dials. And because of that tension between those two sides, you’re never sure if he’s over-performing or under-performing. Unfortunately, too much of the time, he wanted both of those things.”

Perhaps it was that desire that informed what Reggie Griffith, Prince’s sometime front-of-house sound engineer, describes as the artist’s “astonishing” work ethic during that time in his career.

“We would get a text and we would have to go to Paisley Park,” Griffith recalls. “Let’s say that was at two in the afternoon. So we’d all show up and we’d go to work from, say, two to ten. Then he’d open up Paisley Park and he’d do a show for two or three hours, sometimes with a special guest. Then he’d take that special guest, after the show, and they’d go into Studio A and they’d work on songs till eight in the morning. And then we would get another text to come in, same thing, two o’clock, the next day, and we would do it all again. And that might go on for something like 20 days straight. It was relentless. I remember thinking, ‘Fuck. This is making me good!’”

Ultimately, the period covered by Musicology and its excellent follow-up, 3121 , was one of artistic ups and downs, of triumphs and failures. After fighting for his artistic freedom for years in the wake of Purple Rain ’s success, it may have taken what seemed like ages for Prince to find his footing. But once he did, he asserted himself as the best in the business—while never losing grip of the thing that drove him: his deep love of music.

“It was never turned off. He was never not Prince,” Light recalls. “But when you would sit down, he would want to talk about old Earth, Wind & Fire records, or whatever you were listening to, or what he was listening to, because he was a fan, always. Even from fairly early on, dealing with him didn’t feel like you were dealing with a regular, average guy. It didn’t feel like he was issuing pronouncements when he talked, as some artists do. He was funny and shy, of course, but then he would get going on music, and you couldn’t stop him. And you can feel that in these albums here, for sure.”

“As he became discontented with his artistic situation, he changed as a person,” Bland remembers of his former boss and the Musicology era. “But if anything, it drove him. He worked harder, as though he had something to prove, even if that was only to himself. Anger is just another emotion for you to make what you want to happen in your life, and I feel like Prince used that to drive himself.”

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by Bobby Kahn

April 19, 2017

Minneapolis was always home for Prince, but another Midwestern city loomed large in his heart from the very beginning of his career. One need only look at the Purple Rain Tour dates to understand how much Detroit meant to him. The tour kicked off with seven straight sold-out shows at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit — nearly two months before Prince and his family of bands played five shows for the hometown crowd at the St. Paul Civic Center.

Prince called Detroit his second home and referred to its denizens as his “motor babies”; he did so with good reason. Months before he first played Sam’s (later renamed First Avenue) in March 1981, a purple flame was beginning to consume Detroit.

When he put out his first three albums —  For You , Prince , and Dirty Mind  — there wasn’t a huge market for black artists on Twin Cities radio stations. “Here, we had KMOJ, a 10-watt station with a 150-foot antenna that you couldn’t get well outside of three or four miles if you were lucky,” says Alan Freed, a historian and former radio DJ with KMOJ and other stations. “In Detroit you had two or three major stations at the time.”

The demographics of the Motor City, as well as the infrastructure in place (radio, clubs, and retail) made Detroit a top market for a black artist. Motown had moved to Los Angeles in 1972, leaving a prime opportunity for someone like Prince to come into Detroit and become a star. That’s exactly what he did — but he had some help.

“The Electrifying Mojo was the torch bearer for Prince,” Freed says of a radio DJ colleague. “He’s a big reason Detroit played the role it did.” The enigmatic radio DJ known on air as the Electrifying Mojo (real name: Charles Johnson) had complete control over his show, since he paid directly for his own FM air-time. He was very forward-thinking when it came to music programming. He's perhaps most often remembered as being the man who first broke techno music to the world in the mid-80s, but he was also a very early adopter of Prince.

By the time Mark Brown, aka Brownmark, joined Prince’s band in the summer of 1981, Mojo had whipped Detroit into a purple frenzy. “Detroit was crazy, I couldn’t believe the energy,” says Brown. “I don’t know what it was about the demographics and the sound, but they were Prince fanatics.” Minneapolis was starting to catch on by then, but not with the fervor of Detroit. “They would come to concerts wearing trench coats and have their hair thrown to the side,” says Brown. “There was something special about that place. They were Prince crazy.”

The 1999 Tour featured a four-night run in Detroit in the tour’s first month, and another date added months later — this time at the 20,000-seat Joe Louis Arena. It was a sign of things to come. By the time the Purple Rain Tour started in November 1984, Detroit was one of Prince’s top markets and the tour opened there with a longer run of dates than they played in any other city.

Freed made the trek to Detroit for the opening night of the tour, and the excitement was palpable. “It was electric," remembers Freed. "The radio’s going nuts. It felt very big.” Freed says, adding that being in a different city made it feel like what was happening back home was real, “You don’t know a lot of people there, you’re not in a familiar environment. It was a form of validation.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQb-Nkn2IBQ

Prince and the Revolution returned to Detroit in 1986, for a pair of shows that included a show at Cobo Hall on the night of Prince’s 28th birthday. “Detroit is like my home town – I mean that. I could’ve stayed in my town and partied but I wanted to come down and party with you,” Prince said on stage that night. By then, Prince had moved on from mammoth tours and was starting to favor what would soon become one of his trademarks: the sneak-attack strategy. The Detroit shows were announced just days in advance.

In the audience at that birthday show was Detroit DJ Mike Servito. It was the first concert he ever attended; he was eleven at the time and was brought to the show by his older cousin. “I remember the room just being electric the entire time. The excitement level can't be compared to anything. I was so young and so mesmerized and so aware.” Servito was also impressed by the scope of it all, with costume changes and skits leading in to songs. “There was so much going on because it was the extended Revolution. So many people on stage jamming and dancing. It was just incredible,” he says, and Prince himself did not disappoint. “He was jumping and spinning and doing everything I imagined. It’s insane to think he was only 28 at the time.”

On their way back home after the show, Servito and his cousin did what many Detroiters did that time of night; they tuned in to listen to the Electrifying Mojo’s show, where history was about to unfold. As one of Prince’s first and biggest supporters, Mojo had a very deep connection with a man who could be quite difficult to reach. That relationship was put on display when Prince called in to Mojo’s show after the Cobo Hall show for an interview, surprising even Mojo himself.

Prince was always averse to the media, but he took that to an extreme during this span of his career. In his piece about Prince’s influence over dance music, Michaelangelo Matos notes it was the only interview Prince gave to anyone between Rolling Stone cover stories in 1985 and 1990, making the interview that much more significant.

The two men spoke about growing up in Minneapolis (or as Prince called it, Uptown), Prince’s work ethic, and production of his second film Under the Cherry Moon . The common thread through the 15-minute interview, though, is the deep affection the two men had for each other and that Prince had with the city of Detroit. He told Mojo that he decided to spend his birthday in Detroit because, “I wanted to give them a little taste of where we live and get a taste of where you all live. To me, this is like my second home.” Servito knew he was witnessing something very special, “I was just in disbelief, that he’s on air talking in my hometown and calling us ‘motor babies.’ We were all pretty excited about it.”

The Electrifying Mojo, like Prince, did things his own way. During his three-hour shows, he would sometimes play an album all the way through or a single song three times in a row. He would mix the B-52s and Peter Frampton with Funkadelic and Prince, with some Kraftwerk thrown on top. His arrangement with the radio station WGPR, in which he purchased his air time and sold sponsorships directly, allowed him total freedom. “The show that Mojo did was very different. He wasn’t just a DJ doing a show, it was a production,” says Freed. “It was a mix of urban radio, rock radio, free-form radio, with old-time radio drama from the '40s and '50s thrown in.”

Mojo had a deep connection with his listeners. He took their calls on the air and offered them encouraging and uplifting words. In a 2010 interview with Red Bull Music Academy, Detroit DJ and producer Moodymann had this to say of Mojo: “He made it seem like you were in the room with him, or he was in the room with you. It was a true blessing to have a DJ like that.”

Moodymann is not alone in praising the Electrifying Mojo. Ask pretty much any DJ from Detroit over the age of 35 to list their influences, and Mojo will be near the top of the list. He was very adventurous with his music selection and was willing to take a chance on things outside the mainstream. He would eventually become the person who first introduced techno music to the world in the mid-80s, but years before that he was introducing its pioneers to all kinds of music they had never heard before. “Hell, I thought Kraftwerk were four black guys,” Moodymann said in the 2010 interview. “We thought that shit came out of Detroit for the longest [time].”

Derrick May, one of techno’s founding fathers, famously described techno music as being “like George Clinton and Kraftwerk caught in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company.” Those influences are undeniable, but Prince is right up there with them. Carl Craig, one of Detroit’s most prolific producers and DJs, at least halfway agrees with May. “Prince was the biggest influence on me outside of Kraftwerk,” Craig said in a 2015 interview .

The first techno songs, created by Juan Atkins both as part of a duo with Rik Davis called Cybotron and eventually as a solo artist under the name Model 500, came out between 1983 and 1986. By the time those songs were released, techno’s pioneers had been receiving a heaping dose of Prince on Mojo’s show for years. He was one of Prince’s earliest adopters, but when it comes to techno music, he was the earliest adopter.

May and Atkins staked out Mojo, who kept his identity secret and personal life hidden, after Mojo’s show one night to get him the first Cybotron song, “Alleys of Your Mind,” in 1981. A few days later, he played it on his show. The song was more electro than techno, but it laid a solid foundation and more importantly established a relationship with the man with the hottest radio show in town.

Techno was Detroit’s answer to the soulful, disco-like house music coming out of Chicago. Techno incorporated Detroit’s industrial and futuristic nature by using more of a machine-like sound, while still retaining the soulfulness and funkiness of house. Prince’s early adoption and inventive use of one of the earliest drum machines, the Linn LM-1 Drum Computer, during the years the first techno tracks were being made make his influence over techno music all the more apparent.

Just as most Detroit techno producers cite Mojo as an influence, many credit Prince with inspiring them want to make music. Nowhere is this inspiration more apparent than with Moodymann, a house, funk, jazz, and techno producer/DJ who like Prince and Mojo, refuses to be boxed in and does things his own way. He's at times worn masks or been obstructed from the crowd while DJing, and insists that his personality is not important. He makes Prince seem like a media hound by comparison, having given less than five interviews in his entire 25-year career.

Born Kenny Dixon Jr., Moodymann creates productions that blur the line between many styles of music, much the same way Mojo mixed it up on his show every night and Prince incorporated many genres into his music. He's outspoken about his dedication to maintaining a black influence on house and techno music. As an adept sampler, Dixon incorporates the music of musicians like Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and of course, Prince. Through these samples, he gives new meaning to old music, for instance when he etched an insignificant lyric from Chic’s “I Want Your Love” into house music canon with his 1996 song “I Can’t Kick This Feeling When It Hits.”

Dixon further connects the past with the current by frequently collaborating with Detroit artists such as Amp Fiddler and Norma Jean Bell, who had been members of George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic. In 2014, he was given access to the original tracks from Funkadelic’s “Cosmic Slop” and recorded some additional vocals with Clinton himself to record “Sloppy Cosmic.” Through his samples and collaborations, he pays tribute to the past while adding his own style to his productions to make them something distinctly Moodymann.

Dixon is such a big Prince fan, that after Prince passed away last year, he decked out the windows of his Detroit home with purple curtains, set up a museum of his Prince memorabilia , and had a mural of the Dirty-Mind- era band painted on one of his walls. He also blasted Prince music around the clock, which is the reason I stumbled upon his Prince shrine while visiting Detroit last year in late May. I heard “The Beautiful Ones” coming from down the street and I went to find the source.

Several months later, on the night of the official Prince tribute at the Xcel Energy Center , Dixon and I had a chance encounter on the dance floor at First Avenue. He had come to town solely as a Prince fan, not to perform, and somehow ended up 10 feet away from me. I had been hoping to do a party with Moodymann since I saw his house in Detroit, so it felt to me that Prince wanted this meeting to happen. Thanks to his assist, Moodymann will be doing a DJ set in Minneapolis for the first time ever, at an event I'm putting on with First Avenue called Deep Purple – A Tribute for the Heads on April 21 in the 7th Street Entry. Unfortunately for those without tickets, it is sold out.

Years after Mojo went off the air and a year after Prince passed away, the connection between the two men and their respective cities lives on thanks to people like Dixon. “He is the best example of someone directly inspired by Prince, the Electrifying Mojo, Detroit, and those musical legacies,” says the Detroit DJ Servito, adding that even though Prince is gone, it’s clear that his connection to Detroit is here to stay, “Detroiters like Kenny Dixon Jr. are going to keep the legacy and spirit of the Prince sound alive.”

Five Moodymann tracks with Prince connections

Kenny Dixon Jr. has made a career out of incorporating his influences into his musical output through the use of clever samples and nods to his sources of inspiration. As one of his biggest influences is Prince, the Minneapolis icon found his way into several of Dixon’s productions. Here are five examples of tracks on Dixon’s KDJ record label with clear Prince ties.

U Can Dance If U Want 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q54qGYTUh4

Prince’s influence over Dixon doesn’t get any clearer than it does in the 1997 song “U Can Dance If U Want 2,” which is essentially a remix of Prince’s “All The Critics Love U In New York.” The bass line is given more prominence, the drum pattern is re-created and rearranged, and even the car horn noises from Prince’s original are used to open and close the track. The titular lyrics were sampled straight from “Critics,” slowed down and at times chopped up and repeated in trademark Moodymann fashion. The few other lyrics in the song (which are sung by Dixon himself), such as “It ain’t about the trippin’” and “They’re trippin’ old school” are a nod to the lyrics of the source material.

Dreams of Yesterday (Rick Wilhite’s Never Will Forget Mix)

The KDJ label has primarily served as a vehicle to release music by Dixon himself, but they also put out several releases by some of his main collaborators. The first non-Moodymann artist to join the KDJ ranks was Rick Wilhite, who — along with Dixon, Theo Parrish, and Marcellus Pittman — comprise the supergroup 3 Chairs. Side A of his second KDJ release, 1997’s The Godson EP, features “Dreams Of Yesterday,” a deep house track that kicks off with the dream-like chimes from the end of “Purple Rain” (the song) over a simple drum beat. Three minutes into the song, a sample of “Computer Blue” comes in and remains a prominent part of the song for its remainder, with Wilhite layering the "Purple Rain" chimes over the top of the "Computer Blue" sample towards the end of the track.

On “J.A.N.”, released in 2001, Dixon samples the famous Prince interview conducted on-air by the Electrifying Mojo on Prince’s 28th birthday, immediately following a concert he played in Detroit that night. All of the samples used are of the Electrifying Mojo’s voice; some lines are pulled directly from the interview word for word, while others, such as, “What was it like growing up from Detroit?” are stitched together to give the effect of Moodymann taking Prince’s place in the conversation. The song showcases Dixon’s range as a producer, starting as a deep house track with a thick, low-slung bass line and dramatic strings, and ending with several minutes of funky jazz.

Why Do U Feel

Dixon openly states that much of his music is not geared for the dance floor, and “Why Do U Feel” is a good example of that. The title of the song, originally released as a 12” single on KDJ in 2012, and the sampled vocals come from the 1978 song “Just An Excuse” by British singer Elkie Brooks. In typical Moodymann fashion, he manages to turn the lyrics from the original song into something completely different, rearranging them and sampling Brooks’ “mmhmmms” and turning chopped up words into noises rather than lyrics. More importantly, he manages to draw much more soul and emotion out of the words than the source material did. The Prince connection comes at around the 1:30 mark, when Dixon stops the song completely to play five seconds of “Sexy Dancer,” and then brings it back shortly before he first drops in the uneven, battered kick drum that defines the track. Giving listeners something to groove to and taking it away just as fast is another Moodymann trademark.

Lyk U Use 2

On “Lyk U Use 2,” a track from Dixon’s most recent official release (2014’s self-titled Moodymann), Prince is not sampled but his influence is plain as day, and not just from the U and 2 in the song’s title. Moodymann plays the left behind lover, a role Prince played in many of his songs, lamenting how things have changed with a now disinterested former love interest while recounting the good times that once were. The lyrics are filled with tongue-in-cheek remarks and sexual innuendo, another shout-out to Prince. Dixon is joined on the track by the Detroit producer and drummer Andres, aka DJ Dez of the hip-hop group Slum Village. Dixon’s laid back vocals make the track seem much slower than its frenetic 183 beats-per-minute pace (the other tracks on this list are in the 120-125 range, for comparison).

Bobby Kahn is a writer, performance artist, event promoter, cable access television producer, dance class instructor, accountant, and lifelong resident of Minneapolis. He used to be shy and afraid to dance, but since then he was chosen by the funk to serve as one of its ambassadors.

Prince plays Detroit: 30+ years of concert reviews

For much of Prince's career, he was a regular on Detroit stages. There was a 35-year span between his first show here (March 1980, opening for Rick James at Cobo Arena) and his last (April 2015, Fox Theatre).

The Free Press reviewed many of the performances. Here are excerpts of some of the notable concerts, stretching from the early years to his final Motor City show:

Opener of six-show-stand, Nov. 30, 1982, Masonic Temple

When he was just beginning to generate controversy a few years ago, much of his routine centered around his bikini shorts, leg warmers and high heels.

Now he knows he can keep his pants on and communicate more with gestures of hands and hips and looks than he can with mere exposure. He throws himself against speakers, collapses to his knees, talks about the G spot and explicitly strokes his microphone stand. In his most theatric gambit, he returns to the catwalk, watches as a brass bed is brought up to the level of the walk, doffs his shirt and simulates lovemaking in silhouette.

None of this would work if Prince's music didn't have a consistent kick to it and if flashes of critical thought – a rare commodity in pop music -– didn't show through.

• W. Kim Heron

First of seven sold-out nights to open the Purple Rain tour, Nov. 4, 1984, Joe Louis Arena

They stood from the second the arena went dark, and they screamed at the first chair-shaking synthesizer chord. By the time Prince, standing atop a bank of speakers, intoned, "Detroit – my name is Prince, and I've come to play with you," they were ready to accept anything.

So they forgave the muddy sound on the opening number, "Let's Go Crazy," and instead screamed for the confetti that dropped from the ceiling, for the well-rehearsed choreography of Prince's five-piece band, the Revolution, and for the Minneapolis-born star's high-energy stage presence.

By the time the sound – from the largest speaker setup ever used for an arena rock concert – was adjusted during a shortened version of "Delirious," Prince and the Revolution were rewarding their fans with a flashy light show, costume changes, an elevated purple bathtub and a repertoire heavy on songs from the chart-topping "Purple Rain" soundtrack album.

Birthday party show, June 7, 1986, Cobo Arena

A grinning Prince took the microphone himself. "Does that mean I can come back?" the Minneapolis native asked as the crowd shook the building with cheers and stamping. "Last year we had a party, and it was fun, but it wasn't as fun as this. ... Detroit is like my hometown – I mean that. I could've stayed in my town and partied, but I wanted to come down and party with you."

And that he did, proving that his new soul revue-style concert – a slick, energetic, tightly choreographed '80s update of the old Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Ike & Tina Turner and Sly & the Family Stone shows – worked as well in an arena as it did in at the Masonic and other theaters in Minneapolis, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Act 1 Tour, April 1, 1993, Fox Theatre

Though his versatility is widely acknowledged, it's still hard not to marvel as Prince slides from decidedly prurient come-hithers such as "Sexy MF" to the smooth crooning of "Love 2 the 9's" to the rock 'n' roll guitar heroics of the unreleased rave-up "Peach." It's a rare kind of diversity, explaining an equally broad and racially mixed audience that ranged from suit-and-tie adults to youths attired in the trendiest of fashions.

He is funky, yes. But there's more to it than that, which on Thursday let the long-absent Prince reclaim his stature as a preeminent pop showman.

Love 4 One Another tour, Jan. 13, 1997, State Theatre

After a long and successful battle to get out of a disputed contract with Warner Brothers Records, this current 14-city jaunt though small venues is Prince's self-proclaimed liberation tour – and a chance to reconnect with fans.

Prince may be pop's ultimate egomaniac, but Monday was one night when he looked eager to share his obsessions with the world.

"Freedom is a beautiful thing," he told the crowd early on, and he looked ready to prove it, bounding across the stage and including the balcony in his playful flirtations. He and his tight five-member band locked into a near-continuous groove for the entire night, plucking mostly familiar tunes from a career repertoire that numbers into the hundreds of songs.

• Brian McCollum

Musicology tour, June 20, 2004, Palace of Auburn Hills

One reason this "Musicology" tour has garnered ample attention is that Prince has vowed to retire many of the Top 40 songs that made him a superstar two decades ago. If he's honestly intent on letting them go, he's obviously sending them out to pasture with a swift kick in the rump. Picking up licks from across the 20-year spectrum, a positively playful Prince lit into the material with a determined passion – even when he was stripping it down solo-style ("Little Red Corvette," "Cream," "Raspberry Beret"), lending a bluesy panache to the attack.

With sax man Maceo Parker leading a three-piece horn section, the night's performance was tight but loose, a structure that allowed funky jams to break down into slinky sex ballads. Nobody else in pop history has found such a comfortable spot to work among funk, metal, soul and jazz, and Prince revealed why he earned his laurels long ago.

"We've got to go back," the diminutive star said as the show neared its end. He wasn't just talking about leaving the stage. He was talking about recapturing his past – and in the process, pointing toward what enticingly lies ahead for an artist who's rarely stopped moving.

Hit + Run tour, April 9, 2015, Fox Theatre

Outside of Minneapolis, there may be no place more closely bonded to Prince than the Motor City. The Fox was pulsing with energy out of the gate, packed with longtime fans happy to dive into a musical journey that would feature hits, obscurities and a dive into funk-rock history. At 56, Prince impressed with his own stamina and strong voice, bounding across the stage and nailing the highest notes when needed.

It was an occasion for soaking in a master at work – and a potent reminder of the magic to be had when the right performer locks in with the right audience on the right night. From the frenetic opening of "Let's Go Crazy" to the epic "Purple Rain," Prince and his nimble 3rdeyegirl band wound through his catalog with energy, showmanship and soul to spare.

And then the night brought one of the most authentic encores you're apt to see: Prince and company were already back in their dressing rooms, done for the night, when Detroit fans refused to let them go. Stomping, chanting, pleading for 10 long minutes, the Fox audience at last coaxed the players back out to the stage – where Prince proceeded to whip up a lengthy, loose round of music that took the clock past midnight.

Prince coverage roundup

• Prince leaves vast musical legacy in Detroit and beyond
• Sheriff: Prince was unresponsive in elevator; CPR failed
• Five great Prince moments on the big, small screen
• 5 great Prince stories, celebrity version
• Detroit fans share tributes to Prince on social media
• Bob Seger on Prince: He was an awesome talent
• Detroit theaters honor Prince with 'Purple Rain' showings
• Share your favorite Prince song
• Detroit Lions saddened by Prince's death
• Detroit Pistons' Stan Van Gundy: Prince's death 'hits home'

Prince - "Musicology" [LIVE Detroit Michigan 2004]

• 2 years ago

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See list of every concert Prince played in the state of Michigan

• Published: Apr. 21, 2016, 6:54 p.m.
• Jessica Webster | [email protected]

Prince played dozens of live shows in Michigan over the years, from Kalamazoo to Saginaw and many stops in between, especially during his early career. From 1980 to 1988, he played the state nearly two dozen times, and he was back in the mid-1990s through the 2000s for more.

Prince's last Michigan show was a concert with 3RDEYEGIRL at The Fox Theatre in Detroit on April 9, 2015.

The Detroit News reported then that Prince raised his fist and yelled: "Detroit! It seems like only yesterday. They told me it's been 11 years! Well, if that's true, we're gonna play 17 hits in a row, until I see tears!"

Plenty of tears for Prince fans today, as millions mourn the loss of this music legend, who was found dead at his Paisley Park studio on Thursday morning.

Did you see Prince at any of these shows? Share your Prince stories in the comments below, and we can all remember what a dynamo he was as a performer.

Fire it up Tour 23 MAR 1980 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Cobo Arena 04 APR 1980 ::::: Saginaw, MI, USA - Saginaw Civic Center: Wendler Arena

Dirty Mind Tour 20 DEC 1980 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Cobo Arena 11 MAR 1981 ::::: Royal Oak, MI, USA - Royal Oak Music Theatre (1st show) 11 MAR 1981 ::::: Royal Oak, MI, USA - Royal Oak Music Theatre (2nd show) 20 MAR 1981 ::::: Ypsilanti, MI, USA - EMU - Bowen Field House

Controversy Tour 04 DEC 1981 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 01 FEB 1982 ::::: Ann Arbor, MI, USA - Hill Auditorium

1999 Tour 30 NOV 1982 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Masonic Temple Auditorium 01 DEC 1982 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Masonic Temple Auditorium (1st show) 02 DEC 1982 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Masonic Temple Auditorium (2nd show) (am, billed as: 01 DEC 1982, midnight) 02 DEC 1982 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Masonic Temple Auditorium (1st show) 03 DEC 1982 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Masonic Temple Auditorium (2nd show) (am, billed as: 02 DEC 1982, midnight) 03 DEC 1982 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Masonic Temple Auditorium 08 DEC 1982 ::::: Saginaw, MI, USA - Saginaw Civic Center: Wendler Arena 25 FEB 1983 ::::: East Lansing, MI, USA - MSU Auditorium 27 FEB 1983 ::::: Ann Arbor, MI, USA - Crisler Arena 13 MAR 1983 ::::: Kalamazoo, MI, USA - Wings Stadium 08 APR 1983 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena

Purple Rain Tour 04 NOV 1984 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 05 NOV 1984 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 07 NOV 1984 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 08 NOV 1984 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 09 NOV 1984 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 11 NOV 1984 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 12 NOV 1984 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena

One off shows, no tour 06 JUN, 1986 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Masonic Temple Auditorium 07 JUN, 1986 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Cobo Arena

Love Sexy Tour 30 OCT 1988 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 31 OCT 1988 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena

Act I Tour 01 APR 1993 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Fox Theatre 02 APR 1993 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Fox Theatre

Love 4 One Another Charities Tour 13 JAN 1997 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - State Theater

Jam of the Year Tour 21 JUL 1997 ::::: Clarkston, MI, USA - Pine Knob Music Center 18 DEC 1997 ::::: Grand Rapids, MI, USA - Van Andel Arena 27 DEC 1997 ::::: Auburn Hills, MI, USA - The Palace of Auburn Hills

New Power Soul Festival Tour 24 OCT 1998 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena

Hit n Run Tour 14 NOV 2000 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - The State Theatre 19 NOV 2000 ::::: Grand Rapids, MI, USA - Van Andel Arena

Prince Celebration Tour 23 JUN 2001 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena

One Night Alone Tour 01 MAR 2002 ::::: Saginaw, MI, USA - Heritage Theater 06 MAR 2002 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Detroit Opera House

Musicology Tour 20 JUN 2004 ::::: Auburn Hills, MI, USA - The Palace of Auburn Hills 21 JUN 2004 ::::: Auburn Hills, MI, USA - The Palace of Auburn Hills 30 JUL 2004 ::::: Detroit, MI, USA - Joe Louis Arena 31 JUL 2004 ::::: Auburn Hills, MI, USA - The Palace of Auburn Hills 01 AUG 2004 ::::: Grand Rapids, MI, USA - Van Andel Arena

HitnRun Tour 09 APR 2015 :::: Detroit, MI, USA - The Fox Theatre

(Most tour dates taken from this listing of Prince's tour history. )

Jessica Webster covers life and culture for MLive, and will be listening to her Prince records all night tonight. Reach her at [email protected] . You also can follow her on Twitter and on Google+ .

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