freedom
7th March 2007, 09:45 PM
Hosted by MTV VJ Crispin and filmed at London's Cafe de Paris, the show profiled Prince/The Artist's career to date. Nothing new was shown or said that fans didn't know about the man already. The usual topics were covered in brief... i.e. the name change, dispute with Warner,etc.
The show did include scenes from the recent exhibition held in Europe of artworks centred around the theme of The Artist's symbol. Archive clips of interviews with Rosie Gaines, Mayte and 0(+>'s father, John L Nelson appeared at various points points throughout the programme. Clips of various Associated Artists videos were also shown.
The main focus of the show however, was the interviews with a few fans/friends who recalled their experiences of how The Artist has affected their lives...
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv4.jpgCharlie and Salit Conner met (as pen pals), fell in love and got married... thanks to The Artist. One was in the USA and the other in Israel.
Salit Conner: His first letter wasn't impressive at all...it was like 'Hi, my name is Charlie. I do this and that, I perform and sing, I go to karioke clubs...' his first letter wasn't very interesting. It took a couple more letters to find out who he was. We just fell in love really very quickly. We wrote back and forth for 14 months.
Charlie Conner: Through The Artist's music I use to tell her to listen to certain songs..certain words, before reading my letters to circumvent the mood of the whole situation.
SC: I went to Massestuses in June '94 and that was the 1st time we met. He was wearing his purple pants, a white shirt and purple waistcoat, and he looked quite like Prince. He had sunglasses on and looked very sexy. It was clear to us in the letters that this was it, the true love we've been waiting for. But of course, we had to meet to make sure.
CC: When I first met her in the first month, I got up onstage at a special karioke club and sang "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World". I wanted to perform for her because that's what I felt in my heart.
SC: Prince/The Artist friends all over the world, I think they believe in love in a special way that other people don't understand.
CC: No one understood what we were doing. Nobody would understand that I was gonna marry someone I only knew in letters.
SC: People couldn't understand that I could love somebody who lived so far away....
In a more moving story another fan called Zlatko told of how he literally put his life on the line for The Artist.
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv5.jpg"I'm from Croatia, I'm 29 and since 1982 I've been a really big fan of The Artist. The first song I heard was "Little Red Corvette". Since then I became completely obsessed with a kind of Prince mania. Every time he made an album I would buy it. I started collecting all sorts of photos, big, small, black & white, it didn't matter... I had about 3000 photos.
The trouble (in Croatia) started in 1990. You could hear tanks, big guns, everything. It was time to leave our home. So I took the "Purple Rain" video tape and other Prince stuff from my collection. I put them all in a box and buried them. Then I started to run because I saw Serbs coming with weapons. They were like vampires, like monsters.
I was at 8 refugee camps over 4 years. Without his songs, energy and music, I wouldn't have been able to cope. I would have gone berserk."
Zlatko decided it was worth risking his life to listen to The Artist again. He left the refugee camp and walked 100's of kilometres through freezing winter conditions to where he had buried his collection....
"I was just digging the ground like a dog because I was impatient to get my stuff. I realised I'd still be able to listen to it and took it back to the refugee camp and listened to it... it was so nice."
Another fan, Nir, told his story of how he got past Paisley Park security to try and get close to his idol....
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv6.jpg"I promised myself that I had to go to Paisley Park, because it's been a lifelong dream to see the place he lives in... his studios. So I manage to coincide my trip with the Emancipation celebration. When I arrived in Minneapolis, I remember asking a friend would it be possible to get into the concert? He said not a chance - we've lived here for 20 years without any luck.
I arrived at the Park around noon and just walked in and spent the whole day inside Paisley Park walking through the corridors, looking at the pictures, looking at the awards. I know I wasn't supposed to take any photos but, forgive me, I took some. I was helping the camera crew during the actual concert... then he did an aftershow.
He did speak to me. I remember he asked me if I can do something about the lighting. I was holding the lighting pole. I knew nothing about lighting, I just turned some bolt on the flap. I asked him if that was OK and he said yes and that was it.. That's my dialogue with Prince!"
The show ended with a brief look and comment on some of the websites on the Internet devoted to The Artist...
To quote one fan..."Prince is the most Internetted artist there is...."
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv1.jpg
© The Experience
The show did include scenes from the recent exhibition held in Europe of artworks centred around the theme of The Artist's symbol. Archive clips of interviews with Rosie Gaines, Mayte and 0(+>'s father, John L Nelson appeared at various points points throughout the programme. Clips of various Associated Artists videos were also shown.
The main focus of the show however, was the interviews with a few fans/friends who recalled their experiences of how The Artist has affected their lives...
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv4.jpgCharlie and Salit Conner met (as pen pals), fell in love and got married... thanks to The Artist. One was in the USA and the other in Israel.
Salit Conner: His first letter wasn't impressive at all...it was like 'Hi, my name is Charlie. I do this and that, I perform and sing, I go to karioke clubs...' his first letter wasn't very interesting. It took a couple more letters to find out who he was. We just fell in love really very quickly. We wrote back and forth for 14 months.
Charlie Conner: Through The Artist's music I use to tell her to listen to certain songs..certain words, before reading my letters to circumvent the mood of the whole situation.
SC: I went to Massestuses in June '94 and that was the 1st time we met. He was wearing his purple pants, a white shirt and purple waistcoat, and he looked quite like Prince. He had sunglasses on and looked very sexy. It was clear to us in the letters that this was it, the true love we've been waiting for. But of course, we had to meet to make sure.
CC: When I first met her in the first month, I got up onstage at a special karioke club and sang "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World". I wanted to perform for her because that's what I felt in my heart.
SC: Prince/The Artist friends all over the world, I think they believe in love in a special way that other people don't understand.
CC: No one understood what we were doing. Nobody would understand that I was gonna marry someone I only knew in letters.
SC: People couldn't understand that I could love somebody who lived so far away....
In a more moving story another fan called Zlatko told of how he literally put his life on the line for The Artist.
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv5.jpg"I'm from Croatia, I'm 29 and since 1982 I've been a really big fan of The Artist. The first song I heard was "Little Red Corvette". Since then I became completely obsessed with a kind of Prince mania. Every time he made an album I would buy it. I started collecting all sorts of photos, big, small, black & white, it didn't matter... I had about 3000 photos.
The trouble (in Croatia) started in 1990. You could hear tanks, big guns, everything. It was time to leave our home. So I took the "Purple Rain" video tape and other Prince stuff from my collection. I put them all in a box and buried them. Then I started to run because I saw Serbs coming with weapons. They were like vampires, like monsters.
I was at 8 refugee camps over 4 years. Without his songs, energy and music, I wouldn't have been able to cope. I would have gone berserk."
Zlatko decided it was worth risking his life to listen to The Artist again. He left the refugee camp and walked 100's of kilometres through freezing winter conditions to where he had buried his collection....
"I was just digging the ground like a dog because I was impatient to get my stuff. I realised I'd still be able to listen to it and took it back to the refugee camp and listened to it... it was so nice."
Another fan, Nir, told his story of how he got past Paisley Park security to try and get close to his idol....
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv6.jpg"I promised myself that I had to go to Paisley Park, because it's been a lifelong dream to see the place he lives in... his studios. So I manage to coincide my trip with the Emancipation celebration. When I arrived in Minneapolis, I remember asking a friend would it be possible to get into the concert? He said not a chance - we've lived here for 20 years without any luck.
I arrived at the Park around noon and just walked in and spent the whole day inside Paisley Park walking through the corridors, looking at the pictures, looking at the awards. I know I wasn't supposed to take any photos but, forgive me, I took some. I was helping the camera crew during the actual concert... then he did an aftershow.
He did speak to me. I remember he asked me if I can do something about the lighting. I was holding the lighting pole. I knew nothing about lighting, I just turned some bolt on the flap. I asked him if that was OK and he said yes and that was it.. That's my dialogue with Prince!"
The show ended with a brief look and comment on some of the websites on the Internet devoted to The Artist...
To quote one fan..."Prince is the most Internetted artist there is...."
http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/images/mtv1.jpg
© The Experience