i found this yesterday night via Reddit via Redditor Captain Psyko (you made my day!) and was blown away. I am listening to this for the (must be) 1oth time or so at a video length of 13+ min! I have to share this with all of you. since this is the exact original live recording of purple rain, that made it on the album (in a shortened version), i didnt even know it was live. Pls read these comments. Excuse my (copy & paste) french :) Prince is/was/will be a genius in my book in all eternity.
From the YouTube comments:
In case you all don’t know this IS the original live recording of the ALBUM VERSION. This is not some random live recording. This exact recording is what you hear on Purple Rain sans the 2nd chorus and 3rd verse which he took out. There are also some string quartet overdubs and edits to the guitar solo. But the vocal track is the exact track on the album. Love it. One take. LIVE.
And, from Wikipedia comes confirmation:
The song was recorded during a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theatre at the First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis on August 3, 1983. The performance was guitarist Wendy Melvoin’s live debut with The Revolution, at age nineteen. City Pages described the 70-minute performance as Prince’s “sweatiest and most soulful hometown concert yet”, and drummer Bobby Z stated, “it certainly was one of the best concerts we ever did”.[2] The concert was recorded by David Rivkin using a mobile recording unit brought in from the Record Plant in New York City, staffed by engineers Dave Hewitt and Kooster McAllister.[3] The basic tracks for three songs were used on the Purple Rain soundtrack: “Purple Rain”, “I Would Die 4 U”, and “Baby I’m a Star”. Prince performed overdubs and re-recorded the vocals while working at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles from August–September 1983. A solo and verse from the original recording were edited out, changing the length from eleven to eight minutes.[2] The extra verse was about money, but was removed because it diluted the emotional impact of the song.[citation needed]
Holy. Shit.