PRINCE’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE 6
If Prince and the city of Toronto had a mutual love affair, his surprise March visit was a fitting final dalliance.
The shows developed with the late Purple One’s typical secrecy and spontaneity. Mark Hammond, CEO of the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, says the venue learned March 22, a Tuesday, that Prince “might” be interested in dropping by that Friday for a pair of shows.
“You just hope to hell (staff) keep it quiet because if the word had got out, we knew he wouldn’t have come,” Hammond said. “He was quite a secretive person that way.”
Indeed, one of the most famous people to ever live in Toronto was also reclusive. And yet, he seemed to open up ever-so-slightly here.
In October 2001, Prince and his then wife, Toronto-born Manuela Testolini, bought a sprawling $5.5-million estate at 61 The Bridle Path. They divorced in 2006, though Testolini posted Thursday that she had told Prince this week she was building a school in his name. “I’m beyond heartbroken that he won’t be there to see that come to fruition.” (The house was sold in 2011 and recently listed again for $12.788 million.)
Prince was a common sight at Raptors games and DJing at clubs, where he’d sip coffee, Amaretto on ice or Merlot through a straw. He recorded his 2004 album, Musicology, here, flaunting the city’s skyline in his liner notes. “He used to shop at the Chapters bookstore in Bayview Village,” tweeted local Peter Jakes.
In 2004, Prince declared his appreciation for our cold winters (“it’s worse in Minneapolis,” where he was born) and, best of all, Speaker’s Corner, where he noted he was always “so tempted” to stop his car and “say what I have to say.”
“It’s cosmopolitan,” he said. “There’s all sorts of different kinds of people everywhere you go in Toronto, there’s all sorts of great music, great restaurants, great night spots that don’t respond to a lot of American playlists.”
Prince could disappear when he wanted, but he couldn’t just blend in during his last visit here.
After his Sony Centre shows, Prince was scheduled to appear at the Everleigh on King St. W.
He showed up about 12:30 a.m. and hung out with his band behind a curtain eating a vegetarian meal, recalled Zark Fatah, a partner at Capture Group, which owns the club. At one point, Prince poked his head out and said if the crowd stuck around, he’d come out and dance.
That was 1:30 a.m., and when he didn’t emerge by 3 a.m., the club started to close and guests left.
Prince left too, about 3:30, and Fatah figured that was it. Then, 15 minutes later, the club got a call: Prince wanted to play.
At this point, “90 per cent of the crowd was gone” and maybe 30 staff and friends remained.
Prince performed for 45 minutes — a “magical” “unplugged jam session,” Fatah recalls — then packed up and drove to the airport. Fatah recalls one quote vividly: “Now that everybody’s gone, let’s have some fun.”