Prince - Caught In The Act (Live 1993) (2021)

In a career as long and storied as Prince s, it s easy to throw around glib remarks about turning points and watershed moments in describing almost any year that one might choose to pick, but in the case of 1993, it s genuinely possible to make the case that this was the pivotal moment in the Prince narrative. In 1992, flush from the success of Diamonds & Pearls, he negotiated the famous $100m deal with Warner Brothers, the largest recording contract in history, yet quickly discovered it was a poisoned chalice. The small print warned that the big money, the famous $10m per-album advance, only kicked in if each album that Prince released sold a minimum of 5m copies. The first record under the new terms, Love Symbol, barely broke 1m, and so Prince s mythic contract, the biggest deal in history, remained just that a myth. In 1993, while preparing for his first American tour in five years, Prince launched into open warfare against Warner brothers. The tour was divided into two: Act I took place in the US and largely focused on the material from Love Symbol, while Act II was Prince s return to Europe and presented new work alongside the greatest hits. When Prince took to the stage for Act 1, he announced that he was changing his name to the famous, unpronounceable symbol and the dispute with Warners formed the backdrop of the entire tour. This performance comes from the Act II tour and the Rock Over Germany Festival in Lüneberg, Germany, on the 3rd of September 1993, an event broadcast live. In what is perhaps the finest concert from the tour, it would be one of the final nights of freedom for The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, before he headed back to slavery , and the battlefields yet to come.