With the outside of the Superdome awash in purple light on Friday, July 4, 2014, Prince took the stage as the Essence Festival’s 20th anniversary headliner, kicking things off with the words, “We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life” to the screaming delight of nearly 50,000 fans—many of whom were also clad in the Purple One’s favorite color.
Trombone Shorty jams with Prince at Essence Fest. Photo by Pompo Bresciani.
After a muscular rendition of “Let’s Go Crazy,” Prince deadpanned, “we’re gonna play 14 hits all in a row,” then proceeded to do just that, knocking out “Raspberry Beret,” “Little Red Corvette,” “When Doves Cry,” “1999,” “Nothing Compares To You,” and a guest-centric “Sometimes It Snows In April” featuring appearances by vocalist Lianne Le Havas and Trombone Shorty, who stuck around to solo on a handful of other tunes, including “Glamorous Life.”
Despite apparent microphone and bass problems—a sticking point fans grumbled about on social media after the show—Prince maintained his effortless cool, peppering the set with quips and addressing the crowd directly from time to time.
“Any requests?” he asked early in the show. “Since y’all can’t make up your mind, lemme pick one for you,” he said, then launched into “Kiss.”
The evening came to a close with three encores, the second of which was cued by glittering waves of purple light that flooded the center of the stage.
“Thirty years ago, this was the sound,” Prince said when he returned to the stage. After acknowledging the anniversary of “Purple Rain,” he delivered a burning rendition of the album’s title track as the Dome hummed with the warm sound of thousands of voices singing along.
Prince’s nod to 1984 was apropos for an Essence weekend stuffed with throwbacks, from Naughty By Nature reliving their early ’90s heyday with hits like “Hip Hop Hooray” and “O.P.P” in one of the Superlounges on Saturday, to Biz Markie’s sit-in jam with the Roots that night.
It rained purple during Prince's set. Photo by Pompo Bresciani.
In another Superlounge, the Atlanta-based R&B act 112 gave props to the Notorious B.I.G. with a medley of his best-known songs.
Across town, at Tipitina’s after the Roots’ set on Sunday, the drummer and producer Questlove spun his way through snippets of crowd-pleasing old-school hip-hop favorites (and giggle-inducing chestnuts like “Sweet Caroline”) until nearly 3 a.m., when he R&B and doo wop from the ’50s and ’60s started creeping into the mix.
Selections from Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Juvenile and Mystikal and a sit-in by 5th Ward Weebie, meanwhile, underscored the fact that the set was tailor-made for New Orleans. Finally, sometime after 4 a.m., Questlove reached for a more specific kind of nostalgia.
Announcing that he would play for another 15 minutes, he offered, “let’s make it count,” then mixed 100 songs from Pharrell Williams’ massive catalogue into the last moments of the show.
As he was loading his gear out of the club shortly before sunrise, I overheard Questlove say the one word that’s probably on the minds of a lot of satisfied Essence Fest attendees this week: “Exhausted.”
