Piano & A Microphone Tour - Prince 2016

2016

Concert tour

You have to try new things. With the piano it is more naked, more pure.

Being that all his previous tours received critical acclaim, Prince decided this tour, in promotion of HITNRUN Phase Two, the solo Piano & A Microphone Tour would adopt a new format instead of the regular power shows he otherwise performed accompanied with a backing band.

Expanding the format of the solo acoustic set which became a popular feature in his 2004 Musicology Tour, Piano & A Microphone Tour was just that – simply Prince sat at piano with a microphone for the entire concert. For these shows, Prince commissioned a purple Yamaha C7XSH acoustic grand piano, boasting additional equalisers and other customisations to Prince’s specification undertaken by Justin Elliott at his workshop in Tampa, Florida. The piano has such a rich sound it is as close to a full concert grand piano as can get. Its colour was matched to a fabric sample of Prince’s purple sofa. The following European leg was to be played on a 97 note keyboard specially commissioned from Austrian piano makers ALPHA. The ALPHA Grand 97 was produced and sprayed in the same purple. Prince’s model was the prototype for the range that then went into production shortly after and so bore the serial number 000. Tragically, Prince died just days before taking delivery of the item, therefore unpaid it was auctioned by the firm in 2018 and fetched $42,000. In commemoration of Prince, in August 2017 the piano’s purple hue became an official Pantone colour, named Love Symbol #2 – Prince Love Symbol.

The stage backdrop comprised a large video screen which played colourful kaleidoscopic patterns. For the walk-on, each show opened with a recorded intro of Confluence, a piece composed by John Williams for the movie Memoirs Of A Geisha. Piano & A Microphone Tour was staged at theatres, and its stripped down format provided a highly intimate experience both for Prince and fans alike. Prince, who was in a reflective mind at the time as was writing a memoir, used the shows to talk to the audience and reveal personal and sometimes previously undisclosed experiences from his life, particularly his relationship with his father and his influence on Prince’s music. Its introspective content proved further poignant as this tragically became also Prince’s final ever tour.

The show premiered at a gala staged at Paisley Park Studios on 21 January 2016, titled Spotlight: Piano & A Microphone and one month later was launched as a world tour. Piano & A Microphone Tour was earlier hoped to begin in Europe the previous December, but that entire schedule was cancelled in the light of terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris – the same day tickets for the Europe shows were put on sale, 13 November 2015. The majority of those lives had been lost at Le Bataclan where Prince played on three occasions during his career. The tour was instead rescheduled to Australia, postponed to late February 2016, when Prince played his first ever shows in New Zealand. Tickets for this theatre tour were issued at short notice to confound touting and the entire run sold out immediately as soon as announced. Most nights saw two performances scheduled to meet demand. The shows were incredibly well received.

It was a beautiful tour but one set in tragedy. Denise “Vanity” Matthews died on the eve of the opening show in Australia. Prince was visibly upset and dedicated a song to her The Dawn during the set. The second leg of Piano & A Microphone Tour switched to North America and opened in Oakland, then headed to Montreal and Toronto and on to Atlanta. Tickets for the shows were available in packages, ranging from $100 to as high as $1000, although every attendee received a free copy of HITNRUN Phase Two handed out on exit. After Atlanta, the tour was planned to then call at St Louis, Nashville, Washington DC, Miami and Minneapolis, before heading to Europe to fulfil the previously cancelled leg.

Two Piano & A Microphone shows scheduled at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on 7 April 2016 were postponed to the 14th as it was announced Prince was fighting a severe bout ‘flu’. Prince performed the rescheduled shows, which were recorded and mixed for release as a live album. But on his return to Minneapolis that evening Prince had seizure on his chartered flight which put in an emergency landing at Moline, Illinois to receive medical attention to revive him. Prince suffered a further relapse at Paisley Park on 21 April but on this occasion the emergency services were unable to save him. Prince was pronounced dead that morning as result of an accidental overdose from the powerful pain killer drug fentanyl. Unbeknownst even to those closest to him, Prince suffered from chronic arthritic pain both in his hands caused through years of playing guitar, and in his hips – the result of dancing throughout his forty year career and thirty tours. These were the true reasons behind this choice of format for a sit-down piano tour. It therefore cannot be ruled out that health concerns may also have been a factor behind the cancellation of the Europe leg in November 2015.

In 2018, The Prince Estate released a studio demo recording laid down in 1983, which poignantly echoes the format of what became his final tour. The recording became the first release with fully original music following Prince’s death and was titled Piano & A Microphone 1983.