Hello, my name is De Angela Duff, and, today, I would like to talk to you about conjuring the mystique of Prince. The footage that we’re seeing here is from November 21, 1981, Washington, DC, during the Controversy tour. And what I want you to notice is the smoke. I want you to notice the backlight. I want you to hear and palpably feel the excitement of the crowd.
One of the ways that Prince actually started his own mythology is by leveraging dry ice, a lot of dry ice. And in doing so he creates this mystery. He also creates this otherworldliness by also using a lot of backlight. And this really began with the Controversy tour.
Smoke during concerts isn’t anything new, particularly, if you’re a Kiss fan. I grew up in a household of three Kiss fans. So I saw a lot of Kiss footage as a...