July 13,14,15 2013 - Prince Plays Montreux For 3 Nights 11 Page Feature (Translated)

Live at Show 47th Montreux Jazz Festival

3 nights, 3 shows. In July 2013, Prince made his final appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival during three unique evenings in a big band and rock quartet configuration. Live thrills and exclusive images...

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ÉDOUARD CURCHOD & MARC DUCREST

38 MUZIQ SPECIAL MONTREUX

Entrets.

By performing three times (in 2007, 2009 and 2013) at the Stravinski auditorium, Prince participated in the legend of Montreux. Mathieu Jaton, the festival's general director, remembers.

PRINCE

<< I love challenges and everything is in the reactivity and spontaneity with Prince. For a show promoter, these are the most beautiful, but also the hardest moments of a life. For years, we went to see Prince concerts with Claude Nobs. We could never go and meet him backstage, but we gave him gifts. Claude worked at Warner when Prince came to the Palace, in 1981. He kept telling the people at Warner: "don't let him go, this guy is incredible!" In 2007, Prince announced his big comeback with 21 concerts in London. The whole music world was ecstatic and for our part, we watched it go by thinking that it would not be for us this year. However, we had a cancellation. Michaela Maithert, the festival programmer comes to see us in our office and she tells us that Prince wants to do this date. Something falls into place and we announce this concert at the very last minute, and all the tickets are sold out in a few minutes. Right away, we understand that the communication is slipping away from us. It's a tidal wave, we're on CNN, we're everywhere on the planet. I also see that Prince, through sites like Dr. Funkenberry's blog, is announcing his concert and I think that it's maybe a way for him to make it a warm-up for his 21 concerts in London. Prince arrives at the end in Montreux and he starts his concert with a jazz set. We're not allowed to film or take pictures, then he goes down to do another set at the Jazz café and it's a riot!

Singer-guitarist

We thought it was the night of our lives until he came back in 2009. It was a tough year for the festival. Donna Summer was supposed to come on the last night, but she cancelled two weeks before. It was a general panic, we tried to put together a Brazilian or African night.

It's tense, then Michaela comes into the office and says to us:

<<< he wants to come back. >> He saves us, and he offers to do two concerts during the same evening.

We understood at that moment that Prince wanted to do something very special each time in Montreux. We made our poster, but Dr. Funkenberry beat us by posting the ad before ours.

A little game was being set up, it amused me a lot. In the evening, between the two concerts, Prince asked us to watch his first show again. He went to Claude's dressing room and watched the whole concert, then he called the two directors

who are scared to death and he tells them: I'm a singer and guitarist.

I do my job. You do your job. >> In 2013, Claude passed away and in February, we received a little message and we understood that he wanted to do something. I looked at the program schedule and saw that we still had options for three days. So Michaela and I suggested these three dates and the answer came an hour later: <<< He wants to headline those three nights. >> He had just released the single Screwdriver, with a video where we see his bassist walking in a corridor. I suggested to my team to make a video in the same atmosphere and at the end, we announced << Prince, 3 nights, 3 shows ». boom! We also created a poster in the same style, with a photo of him with his afro and we informed his agent. It was February, and he wanted to announce the concerts the next day! So we sent him

the video without knowing what it's going to

48 MUZIQ MONTREUX SPECIAL

©2013 FFJM-MARC DUCREST