*Prince is tragically not with us anymore, but his legacy very much lives on in Las Vegas with the acclaimed tribute show, “Purple Reign.”
The essence of the “U Got The Look” hitmaker is front and center with Jason Tenner recreating Prince’s appearance, sound, and style for a nostalgic trip down the road of iconic career moments, classic tunes, and a tribute to Morris Day and The Time.
“We play all the hits – ‘Let’s Go Crazy,’ “Kiss,’ “Raspberry Beret,’ ‘Little Red Corvette,’ ‘1999,’ ‘When Doves Cry,’ ‘Darling Nikki,’ and we switch out some of the songs in the center, like, ‘Wanna Be Your Lover,’ ‘Controversy,’ and of course, we play ‘Purple Rain,’” Tenner told The Blast.
“Then sometimes it’s more urban hits, like ‘If I Was Your Girlfriend.’ In total, our catalog of Prince songs probably is somewhere around 30. But we only have about an hour and 15 minutes so we condense it to the hits.”
Tenner’s current view of Prince and the tribute contrasts his thoughts on the Artist. Back in the day, he was a member of an original group while in high school. During its heyday, the collective opened for a band at a local college club in Vegas, eventually transitioning from original music to cover songs.
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“The following October, I went out dressed up as Prince for Halloween. And people were like, hey let’s do this, you really look like Prince,” Tenner recalled. “We started doing it in 1997. That’s when ‘Purple Reign’ began.”
Although Tenner admitted to not really knowing much about Prince when he dressed up as him for Halloween, he has since embraced the Purple One by becoming him in every performance. Currently, Tenner’s time in the “Purple Reign” tribute spans about 27 years, with no sign of slowing down. Overall, Tenner’s objective is to keep the show “very authentic to Prince,” with the costumes, the look, and the vibe.
“We have 100-percent live music, so there are no pre-recorded tracks or anything like that. We have dancers and a tribute to Morris Day and The Time, so we kind of play up on the ‘Purple Rain’ movie a bit and the conflict that they had in the movie,” he said. “There are jokes and banter back and forth.”
“Some of the elements have changed, a lot of them are still similar. We play a lot of the same songs, we have to play the hits, but we’ve changed the arrangements of the songs and the way that we present them. We try to do that to keep it fresh for ourselves,” he explained. “But you’re going to hear those hit songs. We can’t get away with not playing them.”
The “Purple Reign” tribute show featuring Jason Tenner is held at the V Theater inside the Miracle Mile Shops on the Las Vegas Strip.
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