Young men coming of age in the 1980’s in New York City was an amazing time, with many stories to tell.
One of my favorites takes place at our go-to club, The Ritz, where many bands of the time were heard and good times were had.
1984: We show up at the club to see Sheila E, a protégé of an artist at the time known as Prince, knowing that he would be a shoe-in to show up to promote himself.
She puts on a great show, and even gives us a few thrills as she has wardrobe malfunctions and flashes us some flesh.
The night could only get better.
She plays her last song and leaves the stage but comes back out for an encore.
When she returns, the music strikes up for a song she has a duet with you-know-who.
When she introduces him, the crowd goes wild.
They finish and go off stage but now the crowd is stomping and cheering for him to come back out.
As he returns to the stage, holding a tambourine in each hand, he bows and tosses the instruments out to the audience exactly as he does in his hit movie.
Unfortunately we were nowhere near where they landed, so no souvenirs for us.
Prince performs a couple of his hits and brings down the house.
What a fantastic impromptu, intimate experience!
But the fun wasn’t over.
We worked our way down to the men’s room before leaving. What we found there has stayed in my mind.
Two lucky people left the club that night with tambourines touched by Prince himself.
The guy we saw in the bathroom didn’t get one but one had skimmed across the top of his head and slit open his scalp.
He was bleeding like a stuck pig, smiling his ass off since it was something “given” to him by that famous artist.
Lucky dude.
I guess every time he scratches his head and feels that scar where no hair grows he’ll remember that fantastic night at the Ritz.
