Prince - Detroit '82 (2005)

Sourced from the circulating City Lights : Detroit / Providence release, this is 4DaFunk's version of the excellent Detroit 1982 soundboard. This is the only complete soundboard from the first leg of the 1999 tour widely circulating which is not sourced from video (the Houston 29th December 1982 recording comes from the video footage), so having something this special in this stunning quality is very special indeed.

This show is extremely unusual in the respect that both 'Head' and 'Uptown' make an appearance during the first half of the show in place of 'D.M.S.R' which is played as a closing encore following '1999'. The only downside to this is that the piano segment contains only one track, and even the short instrumental intro of 'With You' is not performed. The show is extremely lengthy and one of the longest of the entire tour due in part to the two rare inclusions in the first half of the show and a very lengthy 10 minute version of 'International Lover' with an extended "seduction speech" which is laughably cheesy. The quality of the recording is certainly an improvement over the City Lights release in that some of the light hiss has been removed and the audio is far more powerful. Unfortunately the 2 second drop-out during the outro of 'Lady Cab Driver' is still here as is the sound glitch during 'How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore' - although these are merely observations and not criticisms.

As with the other recent 4DaFunk Soundboard Series releases sourced from the City Lights set, I wouldn't class these as replacement releases - they are more updated versions of much-loved classics.