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Act I Tour

1993

Y’all make me sorry I stayed away so long!

Act I Tour was the name given to the US leg of a wider world tour staged in promotion of Prince‘s Love Symbol Album, his second LP co-credited with the New Power Generation. Act I Tour was followed by the Europe leg of the tour, so named Act II. The first half of the usually 130-minute show focussed on songs from the NPG’s Love Symbol Album, with the latter half centring on the established hits.

The tour got its theatrically inspired name through the musical Prince was planning to work on in 1993, for which the tracks of his next album Come was due to feature. That musical evolved into a dance show named Glam Slam Ulysses.

Act I Tour marked Prince’s first full scale shows of the USA since his Lovesexy Tour of 1988. Since 1986, Prince’s music had been experiencing better success in Europe where he had a string of albums perform better than on home soil, and because of his confidence rattled by dwindling audiences in the US, Act I Tour was performed for just 25 dates and at modest to medium sized venues to ensure shows sold out. Promotion of Act I Tour was spearheaded with a 30-min appearance of Prince and the NPG performing a preview of the tour on Arsenio Hall Show, which was aired on 25 February 1993 two days after the tickets for Act I Tour went on sale ahead of its 8 March opening date.

The two legs were essentially very different tours, which intentionally or not bookended Prince’s transition from giving co-billing with New Power Generation to becoming a solo act once again. NPG’s Tony Mosley, Damon Dickson and Kirk Johnson (known collectively as TDK) who received prominent roles on Act I Tour would be dropped from the line-up before the Act II phase of the tour following poor feedback. With Rosie Gaines having quit after the Diamonds And Pearls Tour, Morris Hayes was enlisted to her role on keyboards and would become Prince’s longest serving band member.

Act I Tour also produced Prince’s final collaboration with long-term production designer LeRoy Bennett. The key feature of the set was a giant lighting rig in the shape of Prince’s Love Symbol #1, reused from the previous tour, suspended almost face-on to the audience it dominated the stage backdrop. The shows started with the raising of a curtain bearing the Prince Prince love symbol symbol, opening the performance with My Name Is Prince. The horn section occupied a large central riser, with Michael B on drums and Morris Hayes on keyboards on lower risers stage right, and Tommy Barbarella’s keyboards stage left. Prince’s blue grand piano was located stage left for the piano set, complete with reinforced lid to dance atop. Act I Tour also featured dancers Kelly Konno and Indrani Desouza who got the introduction via Janet Jackson’s choreographer Tina Landon, and Mayte.

Whereas the set list of Act I focused on tracks from Love Symbol Album, released the previous October, Act II was a bigger affair and drew on Prince’s greatest hits. Act I Tour was documented for posterity in Prince’s first printed publication, the photo book The Sacrifice Of Victor. Because the venues were small, averaging 4,000 capacity, shows sold out. The Canada dates offered 12,000 nightly capacity and too sold out. Act I Tour ran until 17 April 1993, significantly just weeks before Prince announced on 7 June he had changed his name to Prince love symbol, the name he would remain known as until 16 May 2000. Despite this the following Act II phase of the tour, which continued that 26 July, was promoted as Prince.