Prince wanders through the neon sign-lit streets at night until he overhears the sound of a couple arguing and conceals himself around a corner to listen in. The couple (Cat Glover and Wally Safford) are exchanging harsh words, so does Prince think he has a chance with the female half? He starts to follow and before he knows what is happening, he is on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans at a concert in Amsterdam, Holland, where he straps on his guitar and performs a rendition of his state of the world anthem Sign O’ the Times as the crowd go wild. While he sings and struts, Cat dances wildly in the background and the show has well and truly begun...
Is this the greatest concert movie ever made? To be honest, although Prince's fans were full of praise, it was a bit of a cheat as the footage captured in Amsterdam was judged to be of too poor sound and visual quality to justify being edited into a film that could carry the star's brand, and so to compromise they headed over to Prince's concert hall in Minnesota and restaged the whole thing, with re-recorded tunes he and his band The Revolution could mime to. It wasn't entirely seamless, indeed there were times when it appeared as if they cared little whether you could tell there was lipsyncing happening or not, but for all its artifice, this did go some way to taking a snapshot of what seeing Prince live would be like.
Of course, the artist continued performing live right up to the last few weeks of his life, and when he died suddenly the shockwaves were felt among music fans around the world, equalling only Michael Jackson's untimely demise in its unexpected dimensions during the twenty-first century. Unlike him, Prince never suffered a scandal to put his reputation as one of the three major pop stars (along with Madonna) to dominate the nineteen-eighties in doubt, and he remained hugely respected right up to the end even if he was not selling as many records as he used to. But the live work was still going strong, and after his death the amount of people who realised they had taken him for granted and really should have made the effort to see him in concert was considerable.
This only made Sign 'o' the Times all the more precious, for it may not have been one hundred percent authentic as far as the presentation went, but there was no doubt that really was the man himself up there on a stage busting his moves, and that really was his voice we heard, and he really was playing those instruments - guitar of course, but also keyboards and drums when he let Sheila E. emerge from behind the kit and rap for a number late on in the set. Prince was always very generous in allowing and encouraging women to take the limelight, sometimes from himself, and if not overshadowing him it was clear both Sheila and Cat were as much the stars of the show as their band leader was, Cat in particular showing off some impressive choreography.
The parts where Prince tried to harness the music to a narrative were perhaps less successful, but given he seemed to regularly lose interest in them in spite of dreaming them up himself they didn't serve as too much of a distraction, and appeared to have been included to give Cat something more to do. Not every song here would be recognisable if you were not familiar with the album or back catalogue, though the musicianship and songwriting ability were not going to let you down; the title track was rather thrown away, as if it was too serious for a film that wanted to party, and Little Red Corvette was only offered a verse and chorus, but I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man stormed it, raging guitar solo and all (plus an amusing ad lib) and U Got the Look, his duet with Sheena Easton, remained as eccentric and propulsive as ever, though it was obviously the video as seen on MTV that was edited into the flow of the concert. If not the best concert movie ever, it had little to be ashamed of in bringing out the best in the music of Prince.
