WATCH: Prince Musicology Tour — Full Concert

I've never seen the full show on video before. Catch it while you can!

I saw Prince live seven times and I wish it would have been double or triple that. He was the best live performer I’ve ever seen, and it’s not even close.

The Musicology Tour in 2004 was a real strategic comeback that succeeded. After a few years of off-hand releases and hit-and-run shows, he really made an effort to get back in the public eye that year.

He started the buzz with two very high profile performances.

First came the Grammy Awards where he opened the show with a Purple Rain medley — joined by Beyonce. She was already at superstar status, but she’s said that she was scared to death to perform with one of her idols. It doesn’t show:

Just a month later he followed that up with an even more epic performance when he was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

After being inducted by Alicia Keys he tore through a career-spanning sampling of some of his biggest hits.

Then came the guitar solo of all guitar solos. George Harrison was posthumously inducted as a solo artist. An all-star lineup of Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and Dhani Harrison took to the stage to perform “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” to honor the former Beatle.

Heartbreakers’ drummer Steve Ferrone, was quoted by the New York Times in 2016, “I had no idea that Prince was going to be there. Steve Winwood said, ‘Hey, Prince is over there.’ And I said, ‘I guess he’s playing with us?’

“So I wandered across the stage and I went up to him and I said, ‘Hi, Prince, it’s nice to meet you — Steve Ferrone.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I know who you are!’ Maybe because I’d played on Chaka Khan’s ‘I Feel for You,’ which is a song that he wrote. I went back over and I sat down behind the drum kit, and Winwood was like: ‘What’s he like? What’d he say?'”

“We get to the rehearsal the night before the show at the Waldorf Astoria,” Gallen told the Times. “Prince’s rehearsal was actually earlier — he rehearsed his big 10-12 minute medley that opened the show.

“The Petty rehearsal was later that night. And at the time I’d asked him to come back, there was Prince; he’d shown up on the side of the stage with his guitar. He says hello to Tom and Jeff and the band. When we get to the middle solo, where Prince is supposed to do it, Jeff Lynne’s guitar player just starts playing the solo. Note for note, like Clapton. And Prince just stops and lets him do it and plays the rhythm, strums along. And we get to the big end solo, and Prince again steps forward to go into the solo, and this guy starts playing that solo too! Prince doesn’t say anything, just starts strumming, plays a few leads here and there, but for the most part, nothing memorable.

“So I talk to Prince about it, I sort of pull him aside and had a private conversation with him, and he was like: ‘Look, let this guy do what he does, and I’ll just step in at the end. For the end solo, forget the middle solo.’ And he goes, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ And then he leaves. They never rehearsed it, really. Never really showed us what he was going to do, and he left, basically telling me, the producer of the show, not to worry.

“And the rest is history. It became one of the most satisfying musical moments in my history of watching and producing live music.”

Best Classic Bands asked Gallen if he had any insight on how some of the fellow legends thought of Prince’s performance. “I think it’s pretty much documented that Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Dhani Harrison, Steve Winwood – and everyone else on that stage – were blown away. It still holds up as one of the greatest music performances ever captured on television.”

All this was leading up to the April released his thirtieth studio album Musicology. It’s a very solid album and Prince was clearly trying to make something commercial. He also had a trick up his sleeve — deciding to give the CD away with every purchase of a ticket to the supporting tour. This had never been done before and shot the album to #1.

I think it would have made the top ten on it’s own merits, but the crafty move prompted Billboard and Nielsen to change their data methodology

This prompted Billboard magazine and Nielsen to change its chart data methodology, stating that from then on customers "must be given an option to either add the CD to the ticket purchase or forgo the CD for a reduced ticket-only price."

So, to the tour. Per Wikipedia:

It was a commercial success earning $87.4 million from 77 shows in 52 cities across the United States and selling more than 1.4 million tickets.height of his Purple Rain fame

I saw three of those show. The Palace in Auburn Hills, Joe Louis in Detroit, and finally in Columbus, Ohio. They all stuck to the same setlist and were uniformly great, but Columbus really stands out.

We had third row tickets — the best I ever had for a Prince show. Seeing him up close, making eye contact a few times was something I’ll never forget. I was also stunned that the dude never stopped and never broke a sweat. One of the defining things about Prince was that he made everything seem so amazingly effortless.

Prince was also notorious for professionally filming a lot of his live shows. He did that for potential release but also to go back through them with his band and call out areas of improvement. To say that he was a hard-driving perfectionist is a giant understatement.

Over the years I’ve seen a number of pro-shot songs from both Detroit area shows. I think I may have seen some LA clips as well, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen the entire show online.

While still professional, this performance hasn’t been as professionally edited as some of those other clips, but it’s still damn good. Why a live DVD of this show hasn’t been released is crazy — especially when it could have been packaged with the album and those other performances for the 20th anniversary.

But, that’s the Prince Estate and a whole other story. I’ve added setlist and time codes that were with the YouTube post. One note is that this show is missing Cream from the acoustic set which I’m surprised he didn’t have in the opener.

Given the estate this could be pulled at any time, so watch it while you can:

00:00​ Musicology 03:55​ Let's Go Crazy 07:33​ I Would Die 4 U 08:58​ When Doves Cry 11:20​ Baby I'm A Star 15:40​ Shhh... 22:30​ D.M.S.R. 29:31​ I Feel 4 U 31:36​ Controversy 40:23​ God 44:47​ The Beautiful Ones 49:42​ Nothing Compares 2 U 53:05​ Insatiable 58:36​ Sign O The Times 1:03:50​ The Question Of U 1:12:40​ Let's Work 1:14:56​ U Got the Look 1:17:28​ Life O The Party 1:21:18​ Soul Man (Sam & Dave cover) 1:23:02​ Kiss 1:25:30​ Take Me With U 1:38:42​ 4ever In My Life 1:47:20​ On The Couch 1:50:32​ Little Red Corvette 1:53:15​ Sometimes It Snows In April 1:56:11​ 7 2:00:21​ Purple Rain