Prince, who has been living in California for the past three years, was coming home to Minnesota and decided Thursday that he wanted to throw a concert on Saturday, October 24th. It was at his studio so the maximum amount of people allowed inside was about 2000. Tickets went on sale at 8:00pm, the doors opened at 10:30pm, and Prince started playing around midnight.
This story starts with me receiving a call from my boss saying he had this opportunity for me to work for Prince. I of course said yes. The only requirement was that I wear a suite with a black shirt, and a tie of my choice (I chose purple).
I showed up at Paisley Park at 6:15, which was 15 minutes early from when they asked me to be there. Once all of the security people were there, they gave us the rundown of our responsibilities. Which was to confiscate cameras, make sure the pictures were deleted and to escort that person out. All cell phones had to be turned off and if we saw people using them we had to inform them that they can only use their phones outside.
They had told us that we would get breaks, and rotate us so we weren't in the same spot all night. Neither of those happened. Initially I was stationed at the entrance and was with other security guards, making sure people phones were turned off before they went in the building. After everyone was inside they had me walking around the floor looking for people with their phones on. While I was walking around another security guard asked me to watch his spot, he said he'd "be right back." I assumed he was going to the restroom. He look like he was a professional security guard, who was not my initial group at the beginning of the night. This was at the right side of the stage. My crude drawing references my position. This couldn't have been a better spot.
In my crude drawing I didn't include the three VIP boxes. There was one on the left, one on the right, and one in the back. The one in the back had Morris Day and The Time, Morris's wife, and George Clinton. The one on the left had Prince's date, who he ate dinner with before the show. She looked like she was in here mid twenties, which is half Prince's age.
(If you don't know who Morris Day and don't care to read the Wikipedia article, click here to listen to a song of his you'll recognize. The same for George Clinton here.)
Prince performed a lot of songs and even took some songs past the ten-minute mark. I don't remember how many songs he played but it was a mix of new and old. About half way through then show Morris Day was called out by Prince and went up to the stage grabbed a base guitar and grooved with Prince for the rest of the show. On two separate occasions Prince called out to the audience that he needed dancers up on stage. The first time he did this about 10 people rushed to the stage, using the stairs behind me, and danced with him for the song, no problems what-so-ever. The second time was a different story. About 15 people this time made it up there and more wanted to come. Prince's manager, or bitch boy, one of the two, told me not to let anymore people on stage. I gave him an understanding nod. After this a man, overweight and very dorky looking, asked, "Can I go up on stage!?" I said, "Sorry." He replied, "Come on man, I flew all the way from California!" I just shook my head no and he got sad and turned away. A minute or so after this I see George Clinton at the rope in front of me asking to go up on stage. I didn't really care what Prince's bitch had to say, George Clinton was going on stage so of course I said yes and then helped him up to the stage. So here are my lame claims to fame: Prince walked by me about ten times all of them being within a couple feet of me, I touched George Clinton, and I got to talk to Morris's wife for a couple minutes.
After Prince was done playing he left the stage and then came back for a two song encore. After that he came back again to people chanting "Purple Rain" and then he played the song. After which all of the lights were turned on and everyone started to leave including the band members. There was one lady still standing at the front of the stage claiming that she "knew" Prince wasn't done and he was going to come back out. Look lady, if the lights are on, everyone is gone, Prince already played two encores, and the clean up crew is cleaning, he most likely isn't coming out again. After that our managers for the evening took us back into an office to pay us. The hallway to the office had all of Prince's gold and platinum plaques on the right wall, and all of his magazine covers on the other. The door we entered into the office had a door opposite to it. This door was open and behind it... was a basketball court! If you're thinking, "yeah, so he has a basketball court, so what?" then you need to get a hold of Chappelle's show season two and watch the episode about Prince. They paid me, then I went to Perkins with my girlfriend and Aunt and had waffles. By this time it was about 4am.
My feet had never hurt so bad in my life, but it was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. Thanks go to my boss Aaron and of course, Prince.
