PRINCE REMEMBERED, FROM EUGENE
TO MINNEAPOLIS’ FIRST AVE,
HOME TO PURPLE RAIN
O
n April 21, the day of Prince’s death, his music
could be heard spilling out of bars all over
downtown Eugene. A source tells us that dancers at
the Silver Dollar Club were dancing to the Purple
One, and Voodoo Doughnut made a “Raspberry
Beret” memorial doughnut for 99 cents. At (sub)Urban
Projections, the multimedia art festival put on by the city at
the Hult Center, a Prince shrine was one of the post popular
attractions.
Having grown up in Minneapolis in the ’80s, ’90s and
’00s, I can say Prince’s cultural influence permeated the
Twin Cities like a fine violet mist, yet his proximity made it
easy to take the Minnesota-born musical genius for granted.
That’s not to say Minnesotans aren’t as fanatical about
Prince as the rest of the globe — we are, as has been illustrated
this past week with fans flocking to all his stomping grounds,
bridges lit up purple and the Twins and the Wild both pay-
ing homage — but there was something normalizing, even
reassuring, about the Coolest Person on the Planet living in
a suburb of a “flyover” state. His legendary recording studio
8
A pril 28, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
and party pad, Paisley Park, for example, is in Chanhassen, a
pretty regular, mostly white, little city of 23,000.
And Prince wasn’t as much of a recluse as the world
romanticized him to be. In March, he gave an impromptu
performance at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. About a
month ago, he showed up at the First Avenue nightclub in
downtown Minneapolis, where Purple Rain was filmed.
Appearances like this at his favorite haunts were not rare,
even recently.
“It never occurred to me that we would be dealing with
Prince’s death any time soon,” First Ave manager Nathan
Kranz tells EW. “He was just here last month. He looked
great; he was dressed up. He had a date on his arm. He had
a good time watching local music.”
Kranz says he found out that Prince had passed on his way
to work April 21, and when he arrived at First Ave, people
had already started to gather around Prince’s star painted on
the outside of the venue, leaving flowers, balloons, artwork
and letters. That night — and for the following two nights —
First Ave hosted a last-minute, all-night block party.
“By the time that got rolling, there were 10,000-plus
people out on the street,” Kranz says. “We were turning
away thousands of people every night.”
The celebration of Prince’s life and legacy doesn’t seem
to be slowing down.
“MTV is filming here,” Kranz says. “It’s been crazy for
days.”
First Ave will host a more official memorial soon. “We
have been talking to different people who performed in
Prince’s band over the years, and people at Paisley Park,”
he says.
And Kranz sums up what pretty much every Minnesotan,
and fan, is experiencing right now: “I feel fortunate that
we’ve gotten to be in Prince’s orbit.”
If you want to stay in Prince’s orbit locally, Corvallis’
Carmike 12 and Bijou Art Cinemas, joining cinemas
nationwide, are airing Purple Rain, and Eugene’s David
Minor Theater will start screening the cult classic Friday.
— Alex V. Cipolle
To read the extended version of this article, visit eugeneweekly.com.
photo courtesy wbr press