Jam of the Year - Prince 1997/8
1997/8
Concert tourAmerica’s been good to us, we just can’t release our music until 1999.
Due to his deepening feud with Warner Bros Records, Prince defiantly vowed he would continue touring until the expiration of that contract on 31 December 1999 to demonstrate he was out of the studio and not making new music for the label.
The resulting Jam of the Year Tour became so lengthy it evolved into an amalgamation of several tours, all performed when Prince was under the name Prince Love Symbol (The Artist Formally Known As Prince). As a newly independent artist and in need of self-promotion, Prince performed a brief preview of the tour on NBC’s The Today Show on 3 January 1997. The then named arena tour Love 4 One Another Charities Tour launched on 7 January following a performance on the Rosie O’Donnell Show in New York ahead of his opening show in Pennsylvania that night. Clothes bins were provided at the shows for fans to donate unused clothes to the local homeless. It was Prince’s first concerts in the US since changing his name to Prince Love Symbol on his birthday in 1993 in protest over his long running dispute with Warner. A TV appearance on the series launch of The Chris Rock Show followed on 7 February. The leg wrapped in Hawaii on 16 February 1997 to do performances at the BRIT Awards on 24 February, Top Of The Pops 26 February, and back in the US for the VH-1 Awards on 10 April all in promotion of the new album Emancipation under EMI. Love 4 One Another Charities Tour resumed on 11 April and continued until 28 June, with Jam Of The Year commencing on 21 July.
Jam Of The Year was the first tour that Prince sold tickets through Ticketmaster, although excessive touting led to some shows being cancelled. To combat this, later performances were announced with just two weeks notice. The tour in one guise or another would remain on the road for exactly two years. Jam of the Year Tour showcased the completely reconfigured lineup of Prince’s backing band, still referred to as New Power Generation but with its original incarnation replaced in the summer of 1996. Morris Hayes remained on keyboards and Kirk Johnson was newly reassigned to drums in place of Michael Bland. Newcomers Rhonda Smith was enrolled to take over Sonny’s T’s place on bass, and Kathleen Dyson to free up Prince on guitar. Marva King, who once sang for Michael Jackson, was enlisted as backing vocalist. Despite Smith and Dyson being recommendations from Sheila E, Prince was still not yet content with the band and that December Mike Scott, session musician for Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis joined the NPG on rhythm guitar. Mayte quit professional dancing when she and Prince married in February 1996 and fell pregnant soon after. Prince played lead guitar with his new striking white love symbol electric, providing a potent symbol of Prince stamping ownership on his Warner era catalogue performing them with the instrument shaped in his unpronounceable new name. NPG’s new lineup played their public introduction with Prince on the David Letterman The Late Show on 2 July 1996, promoting Chaos And Disorder. Feeling that they needed further preparation the tour began in January 1997.
Due to its sheer length of two full years, the tour spanned several projects, prompting its continual renaming. Beginning as a six-month run of Love 4 One Another shows to raise awareness and to organise clothing and food drives for the local homeless for Prince’s charity of the same name, these served as warm-up shows for Jam of the Year tour played in larger venues. This main phase of the tour was staged from 21 July 1997 specifically to promote Emancipation, Prince’s first record freed from yoke of Warner Brothers. Jam of the Year ran for three legs, which came to a close on 22 January 1998. Combined, some 130 shows were performed, each averaging a length of 100 minutes. The stage design comprised risers for the keyboards stage left and drums stage right, with banks of clear cased perspex amplifiers placed in the centre flanking steps to an upper platform from which Prince made his entrance. Above this raised platform hung a large Prince Love Symbol dominating the set’s backdrop. Another Prince Love Symbol adorned the stage floor.
Reinstating the piano set, Prince’s new light purple grand piano was a centrepiece in Jam of the Year. Bearing the word ‘Beautiful’ painted both sides in metallic gold script, the piano boasted a reinforced lid to allow Prince to dance atop. It was stood on this Prince sang the opening of the show Jam of the Year brandishing a plain black version of his iconic gun mic. The piano itself was actually a Roland A-90 keyboard housed in an empty Yamaha grand shell, replacing his previous ‘fake’ touring piano housing a KX88 synthesiser. Stage right was a riser with floor under lighting, from which Prince would dance and perform solos swathed in white light.
Jam of the Year saw Prince return to performing the hits and back catalogue he readily abandoned on his previous tour, Ultimate Live Experience. Purple Rain was configured early into the setlist, a highlight of the shows was Face Down with Prince playing his One Eye bass. Billed as his emancipation celebration because he was free from his former label, the shows were loser and thereby funkier, instilling the sense of spontaneity into its sets: “There are no slaves in this building tonight.” Set lists received slight variation throughout the run, and whilst Emancipation featured strongly, Prince performed also the popular hits from his Warner era material. Each show opened with a spoken introduction “Please take your seats” preceding a taped medley that comprised Controversy, Get Off, Kiss, Alphabet St., When Doves Cry, 7, Eye No, Let’s Go Crazy, and 1999 – another reinforcement by Prince reclaiming his Warner legacy.
Newpower Festival
Following a three month pause to co-produce three further studio albums in this time, between 22 January and 20 April 1998 a run of shows were played at Paisley Park, incorporating Larry Graham into the band for the next phase of the tour. Prince was supported in the final stages of the tour by Graham and Chaka Khan to promote their individual projects created during the tour’s hiatus. This was another US leg that commenced in April 1998 and ran for the remainder of the year under the banner Newpower Soul Tour in promotion of NPG’s Newpower Soul album, released 30 June 1998. The second leg toured Europe that August. The format was repeated in September, newly renamed Newpower Festival when in the promotion of their respective projects: Newpower Soul – essentially a Prince album albeit credited to NPG to avoid a possible legal challenge from Warner – Graham’s GCS 2000 and Khan’s Come 2 My House. Newpower Festival returned to US arenas before heading back again to Europe where the tour eventually wound down on 28 December. Khan and Graham were again support acts, Prince guesting with Khan to sing I Feel For You during her opening set. The opening song for Prince’s main show switched to Push It Up, which along with The One brought the main changes to the setlist to represent Newpower Soul. The sheer extent of Prince’s touring schedule amassed $30 million in revenue and ranked Prince among the highest grossing acts of 1998.
Performers
- Vocals/Guitar
- Prince Love Symbol
- Drums
- Kirk Johnson
- Guitar
- Kathleen Dyson L4OA and Jam Of The Year
- "The Rev" Mike Scott
- Bass Guitar
- Rhonda Smith
- Keyboards
- Morris Hayes
- Backing vocals
- Marva King
Total performances
- Love 4 One Another Charities Tour (USA & Canada)
21 shows from 7 January to 29 June, 1997 - Jam Of The Year (USA & Canada)
65 shows from 21 July 1997 to 22 January 1998 - Newpower Soul Tour (Europe)
17 shows from 30 April to 28 August, 1998 - Newpower Festival (USA & Europe)
15 shows from 23 September to 28 December, 1998
Sample setlist
Love 4 One Another Charities Tour
- Intro ‘Take your seats’ medley
- Jam Of The Year
- Talkin’ Loud And Sayin’ Nothing [James Brown] / Rock ‘N’ Roll Is Alive! (And It Lives In Minneapolis)
- Purple Rain
- 17 Days
- Get Yo Groove On
- The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
- Face Down
- The Cross
- One Of Us
- Do Me, Baby / Adore / Insatiable / Scandalous! / How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore
- Sexy MF / Love Or $
- If I Was Your Girlfriend
- How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore
- Take Me With U
- Mr. Happy / 18 & Over
- The Holy River
- Sleep Around / I Feel All Right [James Brown] / Take The ‘A’ Train [Duke Ellington]
- Johnny
Jam Of The Year
- Jam Of The Year
- Talkin’ Loud And Sayin’ Nothing [James Brown] / (Eye Like) Funky Music / Rock ‘N’ Roll Is Alive! (And It Lives In Minneapolis)
- Purple Rain
- Little Red Corvette
- Get Yo Groove On / Six
- The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
- Face Down
- When You Were Mine
- The Cross
- One Of Us
- Do Me, Baby / Adore / Insatiable / Scandalous! / How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore
- Sexy MF / Love Or $
- If I Was Your Girlfriend
- The Beautiful Ones
- Delirious
- Girls & Boys
- Diamonds And Pearls
- Kamasutra
- How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore
- Take Me With U
- Raspberry Beret / Mr. Happy
- Sleep Around / Take The ‘A’ Train [Duke Ellington]
- Baby I’m A Star / 1999
Piano set
Newpower Festival
- Push It Up
- Talkin’ Loud And Sayin’ Nothing [James Brown]
- Let’s Work
- Delirious
- Purple Rain
- Little Red Corvette
- I Would Die 4 U
- Get Yo Groove On
- I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
- The Ride
- The Christ
- The One
- Let’s Go Crazy
- She’s Always In My Hair
- U Got The Look
- Kiss / Pop Life
- Gett Off
- Baby I’m A Star / 1999
- Come On
- Eye’magettin / People / Sex Machine [James Brown] / Water / Earthquake [Graham Central Station]
- Release Yourself [Larry Graham]
- Nothing Compares 2 U
- Take Me With U
- Raspberry Beret / Mr. Happy
Supporting albums
GCS 2000
NPG Records
- Released
- 2 February 1998
- US Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
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