A performance of Uptown by music legend Prince saw a rowdy crowd boo him off the stage.
The veteran performer was left with no choice but to abandon his performance due to the crowd; it did not seem likely that Prince would return. But The Rolling Stones‘ frontman Mick Jagger convinced Prince to return, even after the Purple Rain hitmaker was booed off stage by fans. Opening for The Stones at the L.A. Coliseum in October 1981 saw the packed-out crowd trurn on Prince. His attire and performance seemed to alienate the 90,000 capacity crowd, who would find themselves angered by Prince. According to Far Out Magazine, members of the crowd hurled homophobic slurs at Prince and the band. Recalling the incident, bass guitarist Brown Mark said it was the “crazied thing I had ever seen” with the crowd throwing food at the band.
He said: “Next thing I noticed was food starting to fly through the air like a dark thunder cloud. Imagine 94,000 people throwing food at each other; it was the craziest thing I had ever seen in my life. I got hit in the shoulder with a bag of fried chicken; then my guitar got knocked out of tune by a large grapefruit that hit the tuning keys.”
Despite promoter Bill Graham attempting to calm the situation, Prince and his band were left with no choice but to leave partway through their performance of Uptown. The legendary performer would play just four songs to the crowd, and Prince vowed not to return to the follow-up show two days later.
Speaking in 1983, Jagger confirmed he understood how Prince felt but told him that if he did become a headliner in future, getting chickens and debris thrown at him would be all part of the performance.
Jagger said: “I talked to Prince on the phone once after he got two cans thrown at him in L.A. He said he didn’t want to do any more shows. God, I got thousands of bottles and cans thrown at me! Every kind of debris. I told him, if you get to be a really big headliner, you have to be prepared for people to throw bottles at you in the night.”
It seems the incident at the first show hardened Prince, who listened to Jagger’s words of wisdom and returned to the stage for the second night. Prince would not open for another band following this, with his own music big enough to land him on the grandest stages of them all.
Prince would close his set on the second night with a dig at the audience, using Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad? to hit back at the crowd, who were still booing the star. Prince would allegedly call the audience “tasteless in music” after the performance.
You can find a full audio recording of Prince’s performance at the Los Angeles venue below.
Discover more from Cult Following
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
