Purple Reign

I’ve seen some of the greats perform, from Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to the Jackson Five, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger. None was as electrifying as Prince, whom I celebrate as the 10th anniversary of his death approaches on April 21st.

I saw the purple one twice. The first time was at Madison Square Garden in 1988, during the Lovesexy tour. What that show lacked in intimacy, it made up for in theatricality. He entered the round stage in a white Thunderbird Landau replica, designed to match the car his father owned, and hit the audience hard with “Erotic City” and “Housequake” right away. The set was packed with hits. For encores, he performed four Purple Rain tunes.

But the more intimate experience I had with Prince took place at a small club in Las Vegas in 2007. The venue was christened Club 3121, named after the home he rented in Los Angeles at 3121 Antelo Road. The furtive, star-studded parties he held there in the mid-2000s were the stuff of legend.

The Vegas show was scheduled for midnight. Joe and I arrived around 11:30 pm and planted ourselves on the floor because there were no seats at Club 3121. We waited. And waited. I drank Diet Cokes with maraschino cherries.

Around 1:30 am, we briefly considered retreating to our hotel, but that wasn’t really an option since we had made the trip to Vegas, which Joe and I both deplore, solely to see Prince.

At long last, around 2:15 am, the diminutive, kinetic, inscrutable star took the stage, wielding a purple guitar shaped like the Prince glyph. (He had stopped referring to himself by this unpronounceable symbol in 2000.)

All our waiting paid off. We had even staked out spots for ourselves right in front of the stage, so when he sang “Kiss” and sneered, “You don’t have to watch Dynasty / To have an attitude,” his face was only inches away.

Nine years after the Vegas residency, Prince’s purple reign came to a tragic end. His early song, "Sometimes It Snows in April," proved prophetic. It was recorded exactly 31 years before his death.

I had been a fan for decades. In 1985, during my time in Israel, I listened to “When Doves Cry” on an iPod while I hung out in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Whether experiencing his art through earphones at the Wailing Wall or up close in Vegas, Prince always delivered a religious experience.

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