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Lovesexy Tour

1988/9

Technically (even to this day) it supersedes any in the round show that’s been done.

Despite being completely sold out of its entire 500,000 allocation of tickets across its 32 date European run, and a further 600,000 tickets in the USA, the massive $2 million production cost of Lovesexy Tour and the 50 trucks and two 747s required to transport it and crew of 90 found the tour barely break even. It would become the driver behind Prince accepting Batman OST as his next project.

The staging of this arena tour comprised a circular outer stage surrounding a central riser, this was in turn bridged by three catwalks arranged in the appearance of the CND logo. The layout created two inner sections where Sheila E’s drumkit sat within one of the spaces and Fink and Boyer’s keyboards recessed into the other. To incorporate backdrops within the stage’s circular arrangement, three elastic trellises rose through the stage floor on telescopic poles to add the sense of structure to the set. The sound system and lighting were rigged above, the whole arrangement allowed unobstructed views of Prince wherever he was on stage. The stage floor itself was decorated with letters of the alphabet and road markings.

The props included a 3/4 scale white Ford Thunderbird Landau sporting powered windows and working headlights – replicating the very 1969 model owned by Prince’s father. There was also a basketball hoop, bed, playground swing, and a heart-shaped hydraulic platform in the central riser. Lovesexy Tour was Prince’s first touring show to take advantage of remote controlled DMX directional lighting, this in the round setting required no less than 32 lighting spots, each queued and choreographed to the concert performance.

To lead into the first encore of the stage show was a solo set in which Prince played a blue grand piano. This was actually a Yamaha KX88 keyboard housed in an empty grand piano shell, sporting a reinforced lid to allow Prince to dance atop. Critics hailed this part of the show ‘Liberace on acid’. Spectacular was the show’s aim, and in Lovesexy Tour Prince, bedecked in polka-dot costumes emblazoned with his name, showcased his custom guitars: the blue Cloud guitar christened The Blue Angel, and the striking white Model C.

The advantage of a stage in the round added the equivalent to three front rows of premium seating in the arena. Transporting Prince to and from the stage was the car, rigged to a turntable on rails. Lovesexy Tour produced Prince’s most extravagant and technically complex stage show of his career, and is the masterpiece of his long-time production designer LeRoy Bennett.

Lovesexy Tour launched exactly two months after the release of the LP. Dancers Wally Safford and Greg Brooks had quit Prince’s band in February 1988, leaving Cat Glover as Prince’s sole dancer on the forthcoming tour. She played a prominent role. The remainder of Prince’s touring line-up continued unaltered from his previous Sign O’ The Times Tour. Lovesexy Tour was also significantly Prince‘s first touring show to undergo rehearsals at his newly operational complex Paisley Park Studios. Held throughout May and June 1988, Paisley’s soundstage was Prince’s first facility large enough to accommodate the entire stage. In this time show’s intermission music was also recorded.

Lovesexy Tour opened in Europe that July where sales of the album where strong and which topped the charts in four European countries. The Europe leg was scheduled ahead the US run to wait for sales there to improve (the album peaked at 11 on Billboard), the switch led to many venues needing to be rebooked at late notice. Because of this, some European dates had to be rescheduled to stadiums despite Prince’s reluctance to stage outdoor shows since his previous tour was curtailed by unseasonable weather but the scale of demand for tickets required larger venues. The outdoor dates of Lovesexy Tour were staged theatre style instead of in the round and required additional elements of the set to be created for these events.

The show itself averaged 130 minutes and was separated into two acts. The first act comprised the raunchier songs, then following a brief intermission the tone of the second act was formed of songs more spiritual and positive. Act one culminated with Prince shot in Bob George, and to rise on the hydraulic heart-shaped platform performing Anna Stesia solo on a keyboard. Swathed in dry ice as if atoned and cleansed, before slowly lowered to close out act one using the Model C, it produced the concert’s standout moment. Combined the two acts depicted the journey of reaching heaven through hell – the triumph of light over dark. It offered an ingenious configuration of the set list, designed to please both hardcore and new fans alike, being distinctly divided into two parts it produced one cohesive show. The opening act featured Prince’s funkier material, from Dirty Mind and the unreleased Black Album and Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic, whereas the second concentrated on the Lovesexy LP and Prince’s hits. The second act concluded with three encores; the first comprising the piano set; the middle encore dedicated to his major hits; and the third closing out with Alphabet St. and Prince and Cat’s exit atop the hood of the car.

Lovesexy Tour was a truly spectacular affair, no support act was required. The 9 September 1988 show at Dortmund, Germany, the final date of the European leg, was filmed for posterity and the footage was televised and later commercially available on home video as Lovesexy Live (volumes 1 and 2) – separately available to mirror the two act format of the concert. Prince’s first full-scale tour of the US since Purple Rain Tour, uptake there was slower for Lovesexy Tour, which lost money on this leg but finally turned a profit with the closing Japan run in 1989. This experience rattled Prince’s confidence to tour the US again, which he would not undertake until 1993. Anecdotally, 1988 was also the year of Michael Jackson’s Bad World Tour, the only tour he would stage in the US as a solo artist.

On the road with Lovesexy Tour exerted a toll on Prince and Sheila’s relationship, she quit the band after the Japan leg. Boyer followed Sheila and departed also, as did Cat who headed to London to pursue a solo career. Cat would put out an EP in 1989 titled Catwoman to coincide with Prince’s Batman soundtrack, however her debut album I Am Energy was cancelled by the label and brought her short-lived pop career to an abrupt end. Tragically, Boyer died in 1996 from a brain aneurysm, she was aged 38. Lovesexy Tour is widely considered Prince’s benchmark tour and enthralled all who saw it and to this day is regarded as one of the greatest in the round productions ever staged.