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One Nite Alone… Live! Prince album
Big Daddy Music
albumIn an age of conformity, Prince remains a defiant nonconformist.
For decades, fans had been pleading with Prince to put out a live album. His concerts were legendary and were some of the most widely bootlegged material of any artist throughout the 1980s and 90s. Yet despite that he had recorded every show throughout his entire career and the obvious commercial pressure to publish it, Prince was opposed to releasing a live album since all his tours were very different, even from one show to the next. In his view, releasing a live album would never therefore capture the quintessential show. Although Prince had released live material in previous albums – Purple Rain (1984), Sign O’ The Times (1987) and Crystal Ball (1998), finally bending to fans’ demands, in 2002 Prince released One Nite Alone… Live! his first album comprised entirely of live recordings.
One Nite Alone… Live! was compiled from soundboard recordings gleaned from nine concerts during the US leg of Prince’s hugely successful One Nite Alone… Tour. The tour, supporting perhaps his least commercially palatable album, The Rainbow Children, and first since converting to the Jehovah Witness faith, even in the eyes of Prince, the tour was earmarked as his farewell turn, so was staged in theatres. Unrestricted to playing hits needed to pack arenas, the sets drew on rarer songs from his catalogue and proved such resounding success it was perhaps the decider for Prince to finally issue it his first live LP out of it – One Nite Alone… Live!
Unlike previous live releases, One Nite Alone… Live! recordings were not tweaked or overdubbed in post-production but are presented as captured directly on the soundboard. The recording engineer at the shows is Scottie Pakulski, Prince’s live sound technician from 2000 and through to 2016. Pakulski also writes the album’s liner notes recalling his career and his experience working for Prince.
Compiled into the album are recordings from the shows from the opening US leg of the tour performed at: Murat Theatre, Indianapolis, 11th March; 2002; Warner Theatre, DC, 31 March; Youkey Theatre, Lakeland, FL, April 6th; Verizon Wireless Theatre, Houston April 14th; Kodak Theatre, Hollywood, 19th and 20th April; Paramount Theatre, Oakland, 24th April; Paramount Theatre, Seattle, 29th April; and Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland, 30th April.
One Nite Alone… Live! was issued as a double CD packaged within a piano shaped long-box credited to Prince and his touring band New Power Generation. The release was accompanied by a separately cased CD The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over! containing recordings from the tour’s aftershows, and a presentational picture booklet documenting the run.
The intimate and stripped down format of the shows, as well as offering soundchecks and the best seating to subscribers of the npgmusicclub.com, stands this tour as one of Prince’s most fondly remembered. The box set was mailed to the membership from 24 November 2002, ahead of its wider commercial release on 17 December 2002 handled by the independent music publisher Big Daddy Music Distribution.
A promotional single Days Of Wild issuing both full and edited live versions of the song from the tour, was released as a CD single in July 2002, available as mail order from NPG Music Club. The song was captured during the concert performed at Centre Molson, Montreal on 18 June 2002, although was not included in One Nite Alone… Live!
Cover story
The cover image for One Nite Alone… Live! is a collaboration between Prince’s then official photographer Afshin Shahidi and acclaimed light-smith Jake Armour arranging the lighting. The session took place over a night in 2002 overnight using four locations inside Paisley Park. Prince was so taken with the result, in 2004 he had Shahidi and Armour create the cover shot for Musicology.
2020 Up All Nite With Prince reissue
Sony Legacy reissued One Nite Alone… Live! on 29 May 2020, repackaged as a boxset containing its original companion album The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over! as well as the DVD Live At The Aladdin Las Vegas – a filming of the tour’s final night that was captured for posterity – and the piano album One Nite Alone…, together they were repackaged with updated artwork by the original graphic artist Sam Jennings and titled Up All Nite With Prince: The One Nite Alone Collection. The original booklet was also faithfully reproduced. The three albums were also issued separately on vinyl – as originally available only on CD – the same day as the boxset.
Performers
- Vocals/Guitar
- Prince
- Drums
- John Blackwell
- Keyboards
- Renato Neto
- Bass Guitar
- Rhonda Smith
- Trombone
- Greg Boyer
- Alto Sax
- Maceo Parker
- Saxophone
- Candy Dulfer
- Najee
Data
- Producer
- Prince
- Label
- NPG Records
- Distribution
- Big Daddy Music
- Cover/Design
- Afshin Shahidi and Sam Jennings
- Released
- 23 years ago on 24 November 2002
- Reissued
- 29 May 2020 as Up All Nite With Prince: The One Nite Alone Collection
- Running Time
- 2:04:34
- US Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- Orig. Format
-
Tracklist
Disc 1
- Rainbow Children (11:45) 2
- Muse 2 The Pharaoh (4:49) 1
- Xenophobia (12:39) 9
- Extraordinary (5:01) 9
- Mellow (4:30) 1
- 1+1+1 Is 3 (6:05) 3
- The Other Side Of The Pillow (4:45) 1
- Strange Relationship (4:12) 1
- When U Were Mine (3:47) 6
- Avalanche (6:04) 9
- Running Time
- 63 min, 42 sec
Disc 2
- Family Name (7:16) 9
- Take Me With U (2:53) 7
- Raspberry Beret (3:26) 9
- The Everlasting Now (7:40) 9
- One Nite Alone... (1:12) 8
- Adore (5:32) 4
- I Wanna B Ur Lover (1:21) 9
- Do Me, Baby (1:56) 4
- Condition Of The ♥ (0:39) 4
- Diamonds And Pearls (0:40) 9
- The Beautiful Ones (2:10) 9
- Nothing Compares 2 U (3:47) 9
- Free (1:06) 8
- Starfish And Coffee (1:07) 8
- Sometimes It Snows In April (2:40) 8
- How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore (5:06) 9
- Anna Stesia (13:12) 5
- Running Time
- 61 min, 52 sec
1 Recorded at Murat Theatre on 11 March 2002.
2 Recorded at Warner Theatre on 31 March 2002.
3 Recorded at Youkey Theatre on 6 April 2002.
4 Recorded at Verizon Wireless Theatre on 14 April 2002.
5 Recorded at Kodak Theatre on 19 April 2002.
6 Recorded at Kodak Theatre on 20 April 2002.
7 Recorded at Paramount Theatre, Oakland on 24 April 2002.
8 Recorded at Paramount Theatre, Seattle on 29 April 2002.
9 Recorded at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hal on 30 April 2002.
Singles from One Nite Alone… Live!
Days Of Wild
NPG Records
- Released
- 27 June 2002
- US Chart Peak
- Ineligible
- UK Chart Peak
- Ineligible
- Formats
-
- Days Of Wild [Single Edit] (4:08)
- Days Of Wild [Concert Mix] (10:45)
- 1+1+1 Is 3 (5:51)
One Nite Alone… Live! album review
Always opposed to releasing a live album, Prince finally give fans what they had been longing for since 1980. An officially released live album. Prince once said if he ever released a live album it would have to be of the definitive show and being that his shows were so varied, he and us all knew there was no such a thing as the ‘definitive show’. But then came along the One Nite Alone Tour, his ‘definitive’ tour. Worried he was going to tour the piano album of the same name, One Nite Alone Tour thankfully turned out to be the stuff fans’ dreams are made of. One Nite Alone… Live! captures the energy which swept fans away in 2002, Prince’s career musical peak. One year since the curtain fell on its last show this double-disc set dropped to keep those heady one-nights alive for those who went to what was a master class of musicianship and an experience that continues to blow the mind of attendees decades later.
Being that by 2002 Prince wanted to keep his setlists fresh and purge many old stalwarts (Purple Rain being the main casualty) the tour’s included long lost fan favourites The Question Of U and Joy In Repetition and are sadly omitted from this album. Whilst disc two retains the familiar songs played on tour, disc one is occupied by the newer, livelier tracks performed for the shows’ opening segment. There can be just one gripe with the content of this double album. Disc two dwells on the piano portion of the show and slows the whole album it falls short of capturing the electricity experienced by fans attending the live shows and result for non-goers a flatter experience than the sonic odyssey that defined the tour; missing are Days Of Wild, The Ride and the covers Love Rollercoaster and Whole Lotta Love. Presented as a wonderful piano trimmed box set to make collectors gush, One Nite Alone… Live! contains a bonus CD of a collection of recordings taken from after shows in the US leg; named in honour of the fans’ chant heard throughout the tour It Ain’t Over! This bonus disc houses the jam-laden funk of the fabled aftershows and restores fire to the set, which will quite justifiably hold pride of place in your Prince collection.
One Nite Alone… Live! is rated 4 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.
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