Tag Archives: aroundtheworldinaday

Prince: Syracuse, New York, 30 March 1985

Posted on by

In these crazy times, it’s always good to hear music that ‘washes away the dust of everyday life’, to paraphrase Art Blakey.

Rewatching Prince’s 30 March 1985 Syracuse gig this week did just that. The brilliant 1984-1989 period of albums is one thing but it’s somewhat of a shock to be reminded of how fantastic the live shows were during this time, and musically streets ahead of pretty much everything 2026 can offer.

Even though by all accounts he was already tired of the Purple Rain tour by early 1985 (during the tour he had put the finishing touches to The Family’s self-titled debut, Sheila E’s Romance 1600 and Around The World In A Day), he gave nothing less than his all.

The Syracuse gig was reportedly attended by 49,000 people but wasn’t sold out. A heavily edited 78-minute cut is currently on iPlayer for UK viewers, commemorating 10 years since Prince’s death, with a lot of the weirder sexual stuff edited out.

Joni Mitchell once said Prince was not a pioneer but instead a brilliant assimilator, and here we see James Brown, Little Richard, Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana rolled into one. The show is built for pure entertainment. There are so many notable moments:

– Prince taking off his Telecaster and chucking it 25 yards into the arms of a roadie during ‘Computer Blue’

– Wendy and Prince’s twin rhythm guitars on ‘1999’ (Wendy acquits herself superbly throughout, often playing Prince’s recorded solos note for note with some aplomb. According to Prince’s engineer Susan Rogers, he acted as a guitar mentor to Wendy, his frequent advice to her being: ‘Learn to solo, learn to solo…’)

– Mark Brown’s excellent bass throughout, absurdly trebly and showing serious funk chops

– The use of silence. This band could turn on a dime. In fact, Prince insisted on it!

– The small stage, and how close the band members are to each other. Check out the remarkable shot where the camera zooms out to show the entirety of the stadium, with a tiny stage in the background

– Bobby Z’s control of the Linn Drum machine: some serious pressure there. There’s a particularly quick sleight of hand between ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ and ‘Delirious’. But he plays ‘live’ on ‘Take Me With U’ and ‘Purple Rain’ with the Linn trigger on his snare. You’d hope Lisa Coleman and Dr Fink were wearing ear plugs during this gig though – he NEVER lays off the cymbals

– The ‘Baby I’m A Star’ finale featuring Sheila E, Eric Leeds et al is pretty remarkable, complete with audience members doing the conga around the stage

The Purple Rain tour ended on 7 April 1985. He began work on Parade just ten days later! He sat down at the drums and recorded the first four songs at Sunset Sound on 17 April 1985. Then Around The World In A Day was released on 22 April. This guy was always thinking two albums ahead.

Rolling Stone from 40 years ago this week, the 26 April 1986 edition

But reportedly it was a big shock to Prince’s management and band that he refused to tour Purple Rain outside of the USA. They wanted to milk it for all it was worth, but Prince was moving on.

And his bandmates were less than thrilled to receive a tour bonus of just $10,000 each (meanwhile Prince’s accountants informed Sheila, who had acted as the opening act on the tour, that she owed Warner Bros. $1 million…).

Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all though is that Prince would go on to make better music during the 1980s, and arguably do better live shows too…

Prince: Around The World In A Day @ 30

Posted on by

Prince-Around-the-World-in-a-DayI was a late starter when it comes to Prince, too young to get the sexual/spiritual absolutism of Purple Rain.

The one that really hooked me was 1986’s Parade, but these days I’d cite Around The World In A Day as my favourite Prince album.

It was released just ten months after Purple Rain, a serious statement of intent and a good indication of how prolific he was at the time.

Prince unveiled the first release on his new Paisley Park label at an uncomfortable listening party on 21 February 1985 in the LA offices of Warner Bros attended by 15 to 20 Warners executives, plus Joni Mitchell and Prince’s father, all of whom sat on the floor.

Apparently the general reaction from the suits was: how the hell are we gonna sell this?

For me, ATWIAD is prime Prince, when he was tapping into jazz, psychedelia and even classical music. But, perhaps surprisingly, the main influence is gospel.

Prince screams his way through the morality tales of ‘The Ladder’ and ‘Temptation’ with just as much intensity as Al Green, Bob Dylan or Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland.

I also hear a lot of late-’70s Joni in the more experimental tracks such as the intense ‘Temptation’ and sublime ballad ‘Condition Of The Heart’ – he’s not scared to leave a lot of space for lengthy piano and guitar improvisations. This is the first Prince album where you can add ‘arranger’ to his list of musical gifts.

Much of Around The World In A Day actually predates Purple Rain. The title track, ‘Pop Life’, ‘Temptation’ and ‘Paisley Park’ were all recorded in early ’84, while the other songs were put together during the Purple Rain tour.

While the album is credited to ‘Prince And The Revolution’, only ‘America’ and ‘The Ladder’ feature the full band. The rest is a one-man-band operation with guests here and there.

Any album which contains the classic singles ‘Paisley Park’, ‘Raspberry Beret’, ‘Pop Life’, the title track and ‘America’ has to work. Only ‘Tambourine’ now sounds suspiciously like filler, despite Prince’s spirited impersonation of Sheila E’s drum style.

And we’ve got to mention Doug Henders’ sumptuous cover art. He explained the concept to writer Per Nilsen: ‘Most of the figures are characters in the songs, but some of the people are parts of Prince so they’re all somewhat autobiographical.’

Prince insisted on zero promotion for the album – no singles, no press or TV ads. This was totally unheard of in the mid-1980s.

Even so, Around The World In A Day went to #1 in the US album chart on 1 June 1985, just 20 weeks after Purple Rain had completed its 24-week run at the top. It eventually sold over three million copies in the US.

With Purple Rain, Prince had shown Warner Bros that he could mix it with the biggies – Springsteen, Hall and Oates, Madonna and Michael Jackson. But now he was battling to do things his way.

While this stance produced arguably his best music, it also drove a wedge between him and Warners leading up to the ‘SLAVE’ debacle of 1994/1995.

But it was also, thankfully, a battle he won, producing an astonishing output of work between Purple Rain and Batman which rivals any five-year run in pop history.