Prince playing Purple Rain at First Ave in 1983

From the City Pages press archives

​Our dear friend Joel Bremer, the Minnesota music-loving fiddler from Sweden, posted a couple of amazing old Prince videos on his Facebook page recently. In addition to showing Prince and the Revolution playing "Purple Rain" live at First Avenue, which is already awesome, Joel points out that you can see familiar local music scene faces Jim Walsh and Chrissie Dunlap in the audience (2:49 in the first video is a good shot of the crowd).

According to the description in the video, the performance was part of the Minnesota Dance Theater Benefit Show on August 3, 1983, and was the first public performance of "Purple Rain." Watch it in two parts below.