4 ARTS The Michigan Daily Tuesday, November 6, 1984 Page 6 The Purple Rain Revue has begun 4 i. By John Logie A month ago you probably knew the last three places that the Victory Tour had played, but do you know where Michael is now? Is he posing as a Jehovah's Witness with a fake beard, selling copies of the Watchtower door- to-door? Is he writing songs for an up- coming album? Is he yachting in the Bahamas? No. The Victory Tour is still crawling from stadium to stadium. It's still dazzling audiences with lasers, ex- plosions, and well... you know. Michael Jackson stuff. Peter Pan... Not endorsing the occult... Red leather jacket... yawn. Goodbye, Victory... Hello Purple Rain Revue. It's Prince's turn to have the hot ticket. This tour, however, has learned from Victory. Prince will play smaller venues, like the Joe Louis Arena. Prince's staging will not eat up seats. Instead, tickets for the sold-out shows appeared last week because the stage was smallerthan expected. Prince will allow himself and his band to be the spectacle, rather than mechanoid creatures and thirty- kazillion lights. Finally, Prince won't eat up thirty of your hard-earned dollars. I compare the two tours to provide contrast, not to suggest that one is a replacement for the other. Unfor- tunately a few moms will be suckered by a "you didn't take me to see Michael" ploy, and take their thirteen- year-olds to this show, unknowingly joining their children for a Sex Education class. Prince is sexual. His historical antecedent is Little Richard. Your parents shouldn't like him at all. Black or White? Straight or Gay? Imitator or Innovator? Heir apparent or the Great Pretender? All of these conflicts are part of Prince, and he seems to relish this ambiguity that surrounds him. Prince has drawn a shroud over all elements of his life other than perfor- mance. He is on record as not liking in- terviews or photographs, yet he seems to have enjoyed making Purple Rain, and seems to want to be the center of at- tention when he performs. Ego? False modesty? Designed enigmatic behavior? Legitimate shyness? Who knows? The Purple Rain Revue will not an- swer questions, but it will provide the newer Prince devotees with a chance to discover the power of Prince's live per- formance. This audience is much dif- ferent from the audiences who saw Prince after Controversy. It is whiter, more fashion-conscious, more rock- oriented, and probably younger. Hopefully Prince will challenge them and not, as the name of the tour implies he might, provide a ninety-minute rehash of his hit movie/record. How many people at this concert will know that Prince wrote "When You Were Mine," not Mitch Ryder, and not Cyndi Lauper. There were five Prince albums before Purple Rain, and Prince should not simply close the books on this material because his current audience might not fully appreciate it. His earlier work is every bit as daring and challenging-if not more so-than anything on Purple Rain. As is customary with Prince tours, a protege of Prince will open. This time around it's Shiela E., a latin per- cussionist who presently has the task of following up on her success with the single, "The Glamorous Life". Performance is the best test for Prin- ce's protegees. It destroyed Vanity 6, but made The Time. We'll see how much Shiela has learned. For the next week, the music scene will focus on Detroit. Prince has done the town a favor by kicking off the tour there, a repayment of sorts, for the loyal support Motown has given him. These seven shows look to be among the most exciting, as the Detroit audiences will get a look at this tour before the media verdict is in, and get a look at a performer at a peak in his still-young career. - 4 subscribe pOR now!l call 764-0558 University of Michigan MEN'S GLEE CLUB DR. PATRICK GARDNER, Director will present its 125th Year Reunion Concert SATURDAY, NOV. 10 at 8:00 P.M. HILL AUDITORIUM Tickets at Hill Box Office November 5-9, 8-5 p.m. November 10, 8-8 p.m. Reserved Seating $6.00, $5.00, $4.00 ($2.00 Students, General Admission) 4 0 .and Ann Arbor celebrates the artist By Paula Dohring 'Ie " 0 " " " I ( $1.75 TUESDAY ALL DAY }_ ......ioo.oooo.o........oooooioo....o.....o...o. _ _ _COUPON .= o $ 00 THIS ENTIRE AD GOOD FOR TWO $3.00 TICKETS 0.......................0......................0 AN EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WH EN THERE'S NO ONE ELSE . . . ERICAN CHOOSE:ME0 DREAMER_ * WILLIAMS . TOM CONTI SPG * S * DAILY 1:00, 7:00, 9:00 DAILY 1:00, 7:20, 9:30 9 *......................... 0..................... " ETS GO CRAZY" seems to be a L current motto in the Detroit area. And as Detroit's' Joe Louis Arena prepares for the remaining six of seven Prince concerts in the next two weeks, Ann Arbor's purple enthusiasts gathered on Saturday night at the U- Club for their own kind of preparation. It was the "Pre-concert Party" and as far as anyone involved was concer- ned, it was a complete success. In the These are the upcoming dates for The Purple Rain Revue at Joe Louis Arena. Shows start at 8:00 p.m. Monday, November 5 Wednesday, November 7 Thursday, November 8 Friday, November 9 Sunday, November 11 Monday, November 12 minds of these fans, Prince is awesome. The party started at 9 p~m. and by 10:30 the hallway outside of the U-Club was lined with people. The music was loud and the sounds of the party-ers could be heard throughout the first floor of the Union. Many of the zealous patrons danced in line as they waited up to ten minutes to get in. The place was literally filled with fans. "We had to move tables out to make room," said Daniel Segal, the organizer of the event. "We knew people would be into it." That was the understatement of the night. Finding a place to stand was difficult enough, never mind about finding somewhere to set a glass or throw a coat. Although it was crowded, it was not unpleasant. How could anyone begrudge a fellow Prince fan a bit of elbow room? The attitudes in the room were very crazy and very friendly. It was easy to assume that the person next to you liked Prince at least half as much as you did, which made finding a dance partner almost too easy. The music was magnetic. "Look how Prince draws them to the dance floor," said local DJ Carl Martin as he played "Let's Go Crazy" at the peak of the par- ty. The floor was crowded when Sheila E., The Time and Vanity 6 jammed, but with every Prince song it went from merely full to completely packed. Most of the people I talked to were long-time Prince fans who were happy for the chance to dance to a blend of his old and new songs. "I've liked Prince since Dirty Minds, LSA freshman Rollie Hudson said. "He's totally exciting and great to dan- ce to." The concerts were in just about everyone's minds-people who had tickets couldn't wait to use them, and people without them wished they could. Sue and Marie, LSA seniors, half joked that "We'd sell ourselves for decent tickets." The atmosphere at the U-Club was in- toxicating. The beer helped, of course, but it was the magic of Prince that made the room come alive. Christine Jaeggin, an LSA senior, ex- pressed her pleasure with the night when she said "everyone should have been here, because it was just a great time." There is always, however, "one in every crowd." This time it was Fresh- man Jim Werbelow who said "I hate Prince." Well, he seemed to be having a good time in spite of it. "Erotic City" was one of the last songs played. Having listened to that song 20 times before the party, I flung my notebook aside and joined the rush to the dance floor, thinking all the way Prince is awesome! It's true. I E 41 0 I Prince continues his tour which commenced at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit on Sunday. Concert dates are listed to the left. U 'Thief of Hearts' is a crime in itself By Emily Montgomery T HIEF OF HEARTS is petty lar- ceny.It didn't steal my heart, but I lost something much more dear to me, four dollars. The plotline is an implausible absur- dity, its execution clumsily un- workable. It entails a successful writer of children's books and his wife, whose house is broken into one night. In ad- dition to the couple's valuables, the thief happens to make off with the wife's highly intimate journals, filled with her deepest fantasies. LARRY "BUD" MELMAN COMEDY CONCERT from the David Letterman Show The journal entries, like the author are terminally hokey, "There are two of me's, Mickey and Michelle. Mickey is a homebody, looking for the safety of domestic life while Michelle is a free spirit." Please! Mickey fears that whoever stole the journals will read them. He does and of course the thief, called Scott Muller (Steven Bauer) who could have walked right off the cover of last month's GQ. Scott is excited by Mickey's writing (he must get excited pretty easily) and so, with Mickey's innermost secrets in hand, decides to step into her life and fulfill a few of her fantasies as her dream man. The farce degerates into utter lunacy as the affair takes off, and thickens when Mickey's husband finds out. Doing a little of the classic Junior G- See THIEF, Page 7 WIL SHRINER DAVID WOOD ~ , , m__ Imi