Prince July 18, 2009 Montreux, Switzerland @ Auditorium Stravinski - Montreux Jazz Festival Disc One: First Show @ 7:35 PM: unknown audience > ? > 128kbps mp3 > CDR 01. band introduction 02. When Eye Lay My Hands On U 03. Little Red Corvette 04. Somewhere Here On Earth 05. When The Lights Go Down 06. Willing And Able 07. Eye Love U, But Eye Don’t Trust U Anymore 08. She Spoke 2 Me 09. Love Like Jazz 10. All This Love 11. First Encore: 12. Empty Room 13. Elixer 14. In A Large Room With No Light Disc Two: 01. Second Encore: 02. Insatiable 03. Scandalous (w/ Morris Hayes) 04. The Beautiful Ones (w/ Morris Hayes) 05. Nothing Compares 2 U (w/ Morris Hayes) ----------- 06. In A Large Room With No Light (2009 new studio version) 08. In A Large Room With No Light (1986 original studio version) Second Show @ 11:55 PM: unknown audience > ? > flac > CDR 08. band introduction 09. When Eye Lay My Hands On U 10. Stratus [Billy Cobham] (w/ Morris Hayes) 11. All Shook Up [Elvis Presley] (w/ Morris Hayes) 12. Peach (w/ Morris Hayes) 13. Spanish Castle Magic [Jimi Hendrix] (w/ Morris Hayes) 14. When You Were Mine (w/ Morris Hayes) 15. Little Red Corvette 16. Somewhere Here On Earth 17. She Spoke 2 Me Disc Three: 01. Eye Love U, But Eye Don’t Trust U Anymore 02. Love Like Jazz 03. All The Critics Love U In Montreux - Housequake (chants) - Black Sweat (chants) (w/ Morris Hayes) Encore: 04. In A Large Room With No Light (w/ Morris Hayes) 05. Purple Rain (w/ Morris Hayes) ------------- June 16, 2006 New York City, NY @ Butter Restaurant unknown audience > ? > "Gotta Lotta Butter To Go" bootleg CD on 4DaFunk (Akashic Records) 4DF#068-069 > flad > CDR 06. Thank You > Play That Funky Music (w/ Questlove) last song of 1st set 07. Be Happy > Ecstasy > The Bird (w/ Questlove) last song of 2nd set Montreux band members: Prince: vox, guitar John Blackwell: drums Rhonda Smith: bass, upright bass Renato Neto: keys Guest: Morris Hayes: keys ===================== 7-18-09 first show notes: * The music played on PA before the concert was one of Ana Moura's album (title to be confirmed). * The setting itself was very minimal, as described by Claude Nobs when he announced Prince would bring a "cuisine de campagne": the two disco jellyfishes as seen on Tonight Show in March, as well as the circular screen featured on the Ellen TV show on 2 April, 2009 were set up. To complete that, two discotheque balls provided light effects (notably on Somewhere Here On Earth), one above the stage, another one, bigger, at the center of general admission floor. Metallic sculptures by artist were discovered by Prince two nights prior in club MAD, where Prince went clubbing. Prince requested to borrow some of Zappof's motorcycle sculptures to be feature on the stage. One was located left of Rhonda Smith, on the right side of the stage. It was later removed to make place for Morris Hayes keyboard set. Another one was in front of Renato Neto set up. * Five cameras were filming the show: on the right of the stage was a so called Luma, providing moving shots, behind the console, fixed on the middle of the balcony was one providing a wide overall view of the stage. That was completed by two tripod mounted cameras used for close ups, on each side of Prince's mic stand. And a mobile shoulder carried camera operated on stage. A total of 6 mics were placed over the audience to tape their response. * On two big screens, one on each side of the room, live images from the 5 cameras were provided. * Prince's red Fender Stratocaster was the only guitar used for the performance. * Prince's outfit, which he unusually did not change during or between the two shows, until he encores of show 2) was similar to the poster promoting the Montreux concerts, in red instead of purple, completed with similar colored platform heels. * The musicians were positioned in a similar way to how they were for Ellen: Renato Neto on the left, then John Blackwell drum set, right of that, a little left of the middle. On the other side was Rhonda Smith, and opposite side of Renato Neto was Morris Hayes' rig. * After the concert, Claude Nobs went on stage for a salute and to distribute a few Prince/Montreux t-shirts. * Cornell West and Tavis Smiley were spotted in the audience, seated front row in the balcony. Soundcheck Calhoun Square, Peach, All The Critics Love U In Montreux, Turn Me Loose, When You Were Mine, Colonized Mind and When Lay My Hands On U were played at rehearsal a day prior to the show. Somewhere Here On Earth and When Lay My Hands On U were two of the songs played during the soundcheck on the 18th. ----------------- 7-18-09 second show notes: * No music was played on the PA before the concert. * The set remained as described on thed 1st concert, minus a Zappof motorcycle scuplture that featured on the right of the stage. * Although staff indicate that only the 1st concert would be filmed, the 5 cameras filmed the entire second set. * Prince's guitar was a raspberry Fender Stratocaster (as seen in the Ellen show earlier in the year). * Prince's outfit was similar to the 1st concert, until the encore, where he appeared dressed like in a similar fashion than in the Tonight Show performance of Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful (minus head scraf and jacket). His long sleeve shirt was featuring a picture of a Hohner guitar player, possibly him during the Purple Rain era. Pants were matching this shirt, in dark blue. * During the second part of In A Large Room With No Light, Prince sat on a speaker on, the extreme left of the stage to play his solo, after which he hugged his guitar, before making a sign to ask a fade out. * Two different setlist were taped one on the other onstage, the first setlist wasn't featuring When I Lay My Hand On U which was added on the second one. Empty Room, Elixer and All This Love were present on both setlist, albeit not being played. ==================== Info about "In A Large Room With No Light": It was May of 1986 and Prince was going thru a period of renewal and change. Parade, his latest album was just released to good reviews and the first single, KISS, was #1 on the charts. At #2 was The Bangles MANIC MONDAY, which was also written by Prince, so he his professional life was going well. The second single, MOUNTAINS, was about to be released, and the world was waiting for his 2nd movie, “Under The Cherry Moon”. Not one to ever rest on his laurels, Prince had already begun creating his next project. The previous weeks had him holed up in Minneapolis, where he was recording a great deal and trying not to focus on the demise of his relationship with Susannah Melvoin. She had recently moved out of his home in Minneapolis and he decided to fly to Los Angeles and bury himself in his recording. Saturday, May 3, 1986 Studio 3, Sunset Sound, Los Angeles Prince asked his engineer Coke Johnson to set up the studio for a new batch of recordings. Because the Revolution was rehearsing and touring together during much of this period, they were invited into the studio. Coke arrived at the studio at 11:30 and began the set up for a band recording, but it wasn’t until 4 that people started showing up. During group jams, it wasn't uncommon for Prince and whoever was invited in the studio to just groove and record the entire session. Sometimes Prince would be inspired, sometimes he would hear something amazing and that would dictate the direction of the session. It was not an exact science and sometimes people got left off of credits, depending on Prince's mood and generosity. On other occasions, a familiar song would come up in the groove and everyone would start focusing on recording a cover of that song. On this day, Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman, Sheila E., Levi Seacer Jr., Eric Leeds, and Matt Blistan joined Prince to work on the classic song “Get On Up” by The Esquires (from their 1967 release on Bunky Records). After laying down the familiar jam, Prince led them into recording a new jazz-fusion song called “In A Large Room With No Light” (sometimes inaccurately referred to as “Welcome 2 The Ratrace”). The song was based on a jam by Wendy and Lisa. Eric Leeds remembered this session: “We also did … another song that Wendy and Lisa...we recorded live with Wendy and Lisa. I cannot remember whether Levi was there, I want to believe he was. Sheila played drums, the vocals, the background vocals were done by Sheila and Wendy and Lisa. Susannah might have been there but I don't remember. The horns were myself, Matt Blisston, and Norbert Stachel, who was Sheila's saxophone player by now, Eddie M having left. He was there for that session, playing alto sax, for a song called "Have you ever felt that love was like looking for a penny in a large room with no light”. It is like....Prince does Fifth Dimension. It was one of my favorite songs we ever did. It was an absolutely wonderful performance live, Sheila just absolutely kicked butt on it, it was just a great song, and unlike anything Prince has ever done. Very unique song, and a great song. It was another one of those cases where I thought, just really felt that we were part of something special on that one. And that's a song that I really hope sees the light of day some time, personally." The recordings took place until midnight. Sunday, May 4, 1986 Studio 3, Sunset Sound Prince asked various members of the Revolution to show up for overdubs for yesterday’s session. Prince also included Sheila’s band member, Norbert Stachel to record various saxophone overdubs. From 3pm to midnight, additional layers were added to GET ON UP and to IN A LARGE ROOM WITH NO LIGHT. Prince and Coke spent the next 5 hours mixing the tracks. At 5 in the morning, Prince realized the mixes were missing some additional vocals so he spent the next 7 hours adding his vocals as well as other background vocals to the tracks. If you listen closely to LARGE ROOM, you can hear the layered vocals behind the busy track. Monday, May 5, 1986 Studio 3, Sunset Sound The session didn’t stop. It was not uncommon for Prince to continue for hours at a time if he felt like he had a mission. This was one of those instances. From noon to 2:30 pm, Prince spent the time mixing the new vocals into the song and copying them on to cassette (2 TDK C-60 tapes). Prince left the studio for a short time but soon afterwards, asked to be set up for some additional mixing. Apparently he wasn’t completely happy with the songs once he played them in the car and wanted to continue working on them. Although Coke set up for the next session, Susan Rogers was called in to take over for Coke now that he had been in the studio for over 24 hours straight. Prince showed back up just after 8pm and he and Susan spent the next 5 hours working on crossfades and edits in the tracks. Prince would continue to tweak the track over the next few days, eventually adding it to the collection he was compiling called “Dream Factory” but that is another story for another day. - this information is from an early draft of PRINCE: The Studio Sessions.