For those of us who haven’t lived in major cities, it’s pretty uncommon that our local venues get captured on vinyl by way of live albums. We didn’t have Fillmore East or places like that. While I have extraordinarily fond memories of venues like Jabberwocky or The Firebarn in Syracuse, the shows at those places were not immortalized on vinyl.
When I was in high school, there was a frisson of excitement and a taste of local fame because Jackson Browne included a song, “Rosie,” that he had recorded at nearby Saratoga Performance Arts Center on his “Running On Empty” megaseller – though it wasn’t even from a performance before an audience, but was actually recorded backstage, so none of us could actually have been there when it was recorded.
Then in college, I was quite excited not only because a big portion of The Kinks’ “One For The Road” live album was recorded locally, at the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse, but: we were there. That may well have been the biggest indoor venue I had attended to date, and I will admit that I was more than a bit terrified by the way the balcony was shaking as people jumped about during that show – it was more than a minor distraction, which I’ve since confirmed with others who were there. But, we didn’t die, and that album came out just months after their March 4, 1980 performance, giving us a little touch of fame and pride of place.
The biggest venue I’ve ever been in, which opened later that year in 1980, was the Carrier Dome, a 50,000 seat concrete domed stadium, built very much for football and very much not for concerts. The sound in there was simply horrific. It also wasn’t contained, given the fabric roof – concerts in the Dome could be heard a mile and a half away. I remember a Rolling Stones show where I was pretty certain I had better sound in my apartment than anyone in the Dome had.
I only ever went to one concert in the Dome that I can recall – an uncharacteristic venture into trying something different. On July 2, 1983, Willie Nelson tried to recreate one of his famous July 4 picnics in the Dome – and I appreciate the thought, but you can’t have outdoor fun at an indoor venue, especially not one as locked down (and expensive) as the Dome. It was not a place focused on fun. We weren’t huge Willie Nelson fans, and much less so country music fans, but we thought we’d try something different and see how it went. And it was a huge bill – in addition to Willie as the headliner, there was Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and the Stray Cats. The event was listed to run nine hours. Nine hours. The newspaper reported that it went 10-1/2.
Famously, the Carrier Dome – named for what was then still a Syracuse company that manufactured air conditioners – did not have air conditioning. We were there for the opening football game in September 1980, which was stiflingly hot. At the Willie Nelson concert, it was worse – 90 degrees outside and nearly that inside. The Herald-American reported that more than 300 people were treated for heat exhaustion. There was just no air.
Here’s what I remember about this show: nothing.
I think we saw Waylon Jennings, and perhaps Merle Haggard – someone country who wasn’t my cup of tea. I think I would have remembered if we had seen The Stray Cats, of whom I was a huge fan. I know I would have remembered if we’d gotten to hear Linda Ronstadt, as big a fan as I was and am, but I didn’t even remember she was on the bill until I looked it up.
And it wasn’t even that I was drunk – even if we were willing to pay Dome prices for beer, the lines were reportedly an hour and a half long. My wife recalls that we had to arrive stupidly early, sometime before noon, and that it was unspeakably hot, but she doesn’t have a better memory of who we got to see perform than I have. We had another friend with us, and pretty early on – especially when it became clear there was going to be 45 minutes or so of dead time between acts – we just decided to bail. The newspaper reported that Willie played for two hours, but we had long since departed.
So . . . even if I had been very into Prince in 1985, which I was not (that year’s “Around The World In A Day” was his first album that I bought), I can promise there was absolutely nothing that could have gotten me to go to a concert at the Dome. Then, or ever. And at the time, I was not very into Prince. So I missed this one.
And now, decades later, I’m stunned to find that a recording from a venue with legendarily terrible sound was chosen for an absolutely epic 2022 Prince release (and yes, I know the board doesn’t hear what the audience does – or what the neighbors do). I had some hesitation, but having just deeply, deeply enjoyed the concert film for “Sign O’ The Times,” when I heard this being played in Forever Changes, I was quickly all in.
And, it’s an awesome record. The sound is fine, the energy is contagious, and Prince is Prince. It’s all of Purple Rain, sure, but it’s also some fairly obscure Prince songs, all thrown at the audience with the same energy. Just a fabulous record.