Celebration 2024 honored Prince’s legacy with unreleased songs, live performances, and interviews

For the sixth time since Prince’s tragic death in April of 2016, Paisley Park hosted Celebration from June 20 – 24, welcoming fans from across the nation and around the world in commemoration of the life, music, and cultural legacy of Minneapolis’ favorite son.

Celebration 2024 took place a little later than it has  the past couple of years to line up more closely to the 40th Anniversary of Prince and the Revolution’s ground-breaking album “Purple Rain,” released on June 25, 1984, and debuting at #11 on its way to 24 straight weeks atop the Billboard chart.

In addition to adding a fifth day to this year’s festivities to accommodate a cruise on Lake Minnetonka for VIP ticket holders, there were a few unannounced surprises to this year’s programming.

The event kicked off on Thursday morning, June 20, with a Paisley Park listening session that showcased a total of  10 unreleased songs from Prince’s legendary vault, among which were early demos of both “Let’s Go Crazy,” and “Purple Rain.”

Other notable vault tracks included: “Friction,” from a Jamie Starr project that was shelved in 1985; “Fat Jazz,” a 1977 instrumental number featuring André Cymone and Bobby Z.; and an up-tempo collaboration between Prince and his father John L. Nelson, titled “First Time I Saw U.”

The first day of Celebration at Paisley Park also included a screening of the Purple Rain Tour’s finale from Miami’s Orange Bowl on April 7, 1985, before moving downtown for a dance party with DJ Lenka Paris at Foshay Tower’s W Minneapolis Hotel.

All the action on Friday and Saturday remained centered in downtown Minneapolis, beginning Friday morning at the State Theatre where fans witnessed additional footage from the Purple Rain Tour, this time from one of seven concerts held at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland.

Following this screening, the first surprise of the weekend was unveiled; a live interview on the State Theatre stage with none other than Billy Sparks, who starred as the club owner opposite Prince in the film Purple Rain. Among the many stories Sparks shared about working with his friend across the decades, was how he first came to meet Prince in 1979.

While working closely with Earth, Wind & Fire, Sparks was asked by the band’s management team (Cavallo, Ruffalo & Fargnoli) to meet with this young Warner Bros. recording artist who went by a single name. Those three men, who went on to manage Prince for the better part of the ’80s, were looking for Sparks’ impression of Prince and whether they should sign him to their company.

In relaying the story about his initial encounter with Prince and his report to Cavallo, Ruffalo & Fargnoli, Sparks said, to the delight of the crowd, “I told them they should have signed that m*#%&r f*%#!r yesterday.”

After a break, the brand new 4K Ultra High-Definition version of “Purple Rain” was shown on the State Theatre’s big screen, where the more than 1,000 in attendance behaved as if they were actually watching Prince live on stage, often cheering and dancing in their seats, and in some cases, in the aisles.

A surprise panel with members of The Revolution followed, before the scene shifted to First Avenue where the band performed the first of two weekend shows, marking the fifth and sixth time since Prince’s passing that they’ve graced the stage they helped to make world-famous 40 years ago.

The Revolution’s 83-minute set on Friday night showcased several Prince hits between 1980 and 1986, with bassist Brownmark and guitarist Wendy Melvoin trading lead vocals on many songs and special guest Judith Hill taking the helm on others, including “The Beautiful Ones,” and “When Doves Cry.”

Fans returned to the State Theatre on Saturday morning where they were treated to live footage from a 2004 Prince soundcheck, before another surprise live interview: this time with the one and only Morris E. Day.

Interviewed by WCCO-TV’s Reg Chapman, Day recounted his earliest days with Prince through the “Purple Rain” years and beyond. And, of course, Day’s inimitable sense of humor was on display as he kept the audience in stiches through much of his 45-minutes on stage.

Saturday afternoon at the State brought a preview of the upcoming Broadway musical “Purple Rain,” which will receive its pre-Broadway debut on the very same stage next April. Along with a few of the live performances that are currently being workshopped, fans heard from the musical’s director (Lileana Blain-Cruz), book writer (Branden Jacob-Jenkins), musical director (Jason Michael Webb), and The Revolution’s Bobby Z., who, along with the NPG’s Morris Hayes, has been tapped as an advisor on the project.

Later that evening, as an all-day block party was winding down near Prince’s mural at Ramp A, Dr. Susan Rogers, Prince’s staff engineer from 1983 to 1987, was honored with the first ever Prince Legacy Award. And finally, there were live performances by Day, the NPG, and a 14-year-old guitar prodigy from Australia, Taj Farrant, to close-out Celebration activities at the State Theatre.

Aside from Monday’s cruise on Lake Minnetonka, the remainder of Celebration 2024’s programming took place back at Paisley Park where, in addition to the standard studio tours, Sunday included live music and a live interview with Rogers. Monday closed with and outdoor festival and more live music headlined by the powerhouse vocals of Liv Warfield.

For many, Celebration 2024 proved to be the most ambitious installment of this annual event yet. And although there were few technical and logistical glitches, the multitude of fans are already anxiously anticipating what next year might have in store.