LIFE AFTER PRINCE
The Revolution keeps the music alive
Prince dominated the spotlight. When you sing, dance, play, produce and write your way through pop’s past and future, that tends to happen. But through the hype and haze that marked Prince’s ’80s heyday, the Revolution won some welldeserved attention. Prince’s backing band — anchored by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman — provided much of the musical throb and gaudy, glorious look of the era. Prince moved on to other backing bands, but none of them achieved iconic status. “It’s nice to hear some people talk about how Wendy and I and the Revolution are Prince’s definitive band,” Coleman said ahead of the Revolution’s show at the Wilbur tomorrow. “Part of me hopes that’s true, part of me isn’t sure. But I will say there was something about us being in the film ‘Purple Rain’ that made people remember us. Prince, being such a strong frontman, he could have a lot of strange characters surround him and still be the center of everything. “We had a really great run of albums,” she added. “So there is that.” The Revolution backed Prince from 1982’s “1999” to 1986’s “Parade.” A few of the members kept collaborating with Prince through the decade, but for the most part, the group members went their separate ways. Coleman remained busy. She and Melvoin recorded a string of albums as Wendy & Lisa and composed for a dozen TV shows. They won a 2010 Emmy for the theme music to “Nurse Jackie.” But Coleman never shut the door on a Revolution reunion and jumped back behind her keyboards in 2012 when the band performed at a benefit at Minneapolis’ First Avenue, the site of key “Purple Rain” scenes. “There were rumors Prince drove down to First Avenue and around the block and then back home,” Coleman said, then laughing. “(Drummer) Bobby Z went out with Prince later and he told Bobby he heard we were good.” Then Prince died in 2016. There would never be a complete Revolution reunion, but the musicians wanted to come together for a few shows to honor their former bandleader. They began with three nights at, naturally, First Avenue. “We came back together over something very tragic and sad, so the shows, at first, we were dealing with a lot of grief,” Coleman said. But by 2017, fans were clamoring for more shows and the Revolution hit the road in a more celebratory state. “You can’t grieve forever, and over these last three or four gigs, there has been an obvious surge of joy,” Coleman said. The whole endeavor has been an interesting experiment. Prince used to tell them what to play and how to play it. Sometimes that meant giving them freedom to groove away in their own style; other times, he exerted complete control. Now they find their band is more a democracy. Coleman likes where that’s leading. “We have had some really killer jams at sound check and rehearsal, and writing new music is something that we are starting to think about as things happen with this organic kind of flow,” she said. “What we do now doesn’t have the same pressure, and it’s not just because Prince isn’t here. These songs, we don’t have to sell them. People know them. We can just enjoy playing them. But eventually we might want to add our own to the catalog.” Coleman doesn’t know if new music will come before it’s time to end the reunion. When will that be? She says the audience will let them know. “As soon as people go, ‘The Revo-who?’ We’ll be out of here,” she said.
The Revolution, at the Wilbur, tomorrow. Tickets: $50-$65; thewilbur.com.