00:00Hey everyone, welcome back to The Darren Show.
00:12Got a little bit of a special treat, especially for you Prince fans.
00:15I ran into this at the library.
00:18It is a DVD, Raven to the Year 2000.
00:23It's a 1999 Prince concert film.
00:26And you can't really find too much of it on YouTube, because believe me, this was filmed
00:31at Paisley Park Studios in December 1999, and then it premiered as a pay-per-view special
00:39on In Demand on December 31st.
00:43So it was a nice New Year's Eve party held by Prince at his house.
00:47I love this video, but here's a special treat for you, because I couldn't find too many
00:53clips on YouTube, I recorded some right off of my TV while I was watching this, and I'm
00:58going to include them in this video so that you can also enjoy a little bit of some of
01:05this.
01:05So this concert was kind of a companion to his recently released, at that time, album Rave
01:13Unto the Joy Fantastic.
01:16The concert featured performances of songs from that album, of course, and then all kinds
01:21of Prince hits and cover songs, including the, it's kind of funny because he goes to the
01:28whole concert, and he says, good night, everybody, and then he leaves the stage, and you're thinking,
01:34wait a minute, he didn't do 1999, and this is 1999, and this is what the whole song is
01:42about, you know, in 2000 and everything, and of course he comes back, you know, the encore
01:46is 1999.
01:47So, spoiler alert, 1999 is the final song.
01:52Special guests include Rosie Gaines, Morris Day and the Time, who did Jungle Love, and
02:00Bird, we've got funk legend Maceo Parker, and members of Sly and the Family Stone, and bass
02:07player Larry Graham from the Family Stone pretty much plays the whole, he's like, serves as
02:14the bass player.
02:16In my review, I did a review of a Prince album, and I talked about, I think it was, was it
02:25my review of the Rainbow Children?
02:27Larry Graham was on there, and he was inspired, he inspired Prince a little bit, and was on a
02:32couple of songs, but he's on this whole, whole concert.
02:37Everybody is dressed immaculately, it's awesome, but Lenny Kravitz comes on, and I did film a
02:46little bit of this, it's kind of cool, when Lenny comes out, he comes to the crowd, this
02:51is held at Prince's house, you know, at his estate, but Lenny comes to the crowd, along
02:57with Prince, and it looks like they're fighters coming up to a boxing match, or wrestling, or
03:04something like that, because the crowd parts, and they're, you know, cheering, playing some
03:07music, and everything like that.
03:09Lenny comes on, he and Prince do a couple of Lenny songs, all together, this is, look
03:14at this, what is this, like, 23 songs, but in addition to that, it's got some special features,
03:21got some interviews with several people talking about Prince, members of the band, that kind
03:28of thing, bonus grooves, there are actually, like, three or four, I think, songs on here,
03:36and, in fact, I think it was featuring George Clinton, that didn't end up on the, in the
03:42concert, so, I don't know how long this concert was, but if you went to Prince's house in December
03:48for filming this, you've got quite a show, this was a phenomenal show, again, I don't
03:53know if you can find it on YouTube, I've got mine at the library, as I tend to do, I love
03:59the library, but perhaps you can pick this up, if you want to go buy the DVD, PBS actually
04:05aired it, they did it in June of 2019, it aired on PBS, they, I guess they purchased it, or
04:12whatever, in honor of what would have been Prince's 60th birthday, they picked it up for
04:19broadcast, and so, here we are, New Year's Eve, 26 years later, and I'm telling you about
04:25it, this track listing, Let's Go Crazy, She's Always In My Hair, You Got The Look, Kiss, Jungle
04:33Love with Morris Day, The Bird, Morris Day, Lenny Kravitz comes out, American Woman, Fly Away,
04:40then Prince, Get Off, there's a medley featuring Rosie Gaines, Mike Scott, and Maceo Parker,
04:49there's so many great musicians on this, It's Alright, Everyday People, featuring a couple
04:55of members of the Family Stone, Higher, Purple Rain, and I've got a little video of that coming
05:03up, so we're gonna put these clips in here, here and there.
05:06I don't know.
05:35As I'm making this video right now, and you're going to find out, I may put the clips of the songs in here as I'm reading the list, or I might just put them all together at the end. We'll find out.
05:48Track 15, The Christ, then a blues medley. Prince is a phenomenal guitarist, if you don't know that by now, but he rocks out some blues guitar, and there's some saxophones and piano. It's great. A blues medley.
06:05It goes into Nothing Compares to You.
06:07Nothing Compares to You.
06:17Then Take Me With You, blended into Raspberry Beret, the greatest romance ever sold, Baby Knows.
06:27He says goodnight, leaves the stage. By the way, there were several costume or wardrobe changes. He comes back, and I'm thinking, well, this is probably pretty easy because he's home.
06:38Another funny thing about him being home, at one point he said to the people, are you having a good time, and do you have to, can you stay up? How late can you stay up?
06:49Because it's like, it's not at a venue or something where they're going to say, hey, it's one o'clock in the morning. You got to get out of here. We got to turn off the sound. It's at the Prince estate, so they could basically go all night, and they pretty much do.
07:02So he comes back. Kind of looked to me like he went and changed the pajamas, but they're really glittery pajamas. Speaking of that, glitter. There's glitter. In the close-ups of Prince, he's got glitter in his hair, glitter on his face, just glitter everywhere.
07:18It's, I mean, it's a great production. If you can see this somehow, by the way, this is completely off topic, but why does he look like Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction and a little bit of the Red Hot Chili Peppers? I'm sorry, but he does.
07:39Okay. So anyway, he comes back out and goes into Baby I'm a Star, and then Baby I'm a Star, well, actually, I think they started out doing 1999, like the intro for 1999, and then the band is doing this.
07:56Then Prince comes out, does Baby I'm a Star from the Purple Rain soundtrack. Awesome. And then flips into 1999. Everybody comes out on stage. I mean, there's like 100 people on stage. There's a big band already. He's got horns and keyboard players and drummers and guitar players and all kinds of stuff.
08:18But backup singers, they all come out. The stage is full. This place is rocking. They're having a party. I wouldn't be surprised if people from the audience came up on stage, and they're doing 1999, and that's how they wound it down.
08:34So check this out if you can. Here's a close-up of some of the guest stars. And again, there are some special bonus stuff.
08:46Here's an interesting thing, because I clicked through all of the special features. One of them is Freedom News, and it's a whole deal about the copyright and about record labels saying that artists and musicians are basically work for hire, and artists should not own their music and their artistic creation.
09:15And it's a pretty good read in itself. It's three or four pages. You click through, and Prince was kind of talking about how it'd be like if the plumber came to your house and fixed your faucet, and then every time you turn on the faucet, the plumber gets a little cash, or the plumber now owns your sink.
09:40And it just didn't make any sense to him that he created all this stuff, and because the record company published it and put it out into the world, they decide that it's theirs, and they should reap the rewards financially and otherwise, and that artists shouldn't own their own work.
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