It’s something the man himself would likely have approved of as the Prince estate announced today that Prince’s 1985 concert from the Syracuse stop on his iconic “Purple Rain” tour will be part of a COVID-19 charity effort, reports Variety.
READ MORE: Prince gets dedicated YouTube channel
The three-day streaming event Prince and the Revolution: Live will be posted to Prince’s official YouTube page from Friday, May 14 through 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, May 17.
The concert video will benefit the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization which is supported by the UN Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation.
According to the Variety report, for every dollar donated, Google will match it with $2 up to $5M.
A Thursday night watch party is planned with Revolution drummer Bobby Z on hand for a pre-watch chat moderated by public radio host Andrea Swensson, who does most of the Prince coverage for Minnesota public radio’s The Current.
The concert was one of the last stops on the “Purple Rain” tour and took place on March 30th, 1985. The concert was included as a DVD on the “1999 Super Deluxe” album release. You can see the concert setlist HERE.
During his lifetime, Prince contributed to a number of charitable causes, many of them that were specific to African-Americans from Black Lives Matter to Harlem Children’s Zone. He also donated to #YesWeCode an initiative that teaches coding to underprivileged young people of color.
In 2015, during the Baltimore uprising after the death of Freddy Gray, Jr. Prince performed a ‘Rally 4 Peace” benefit concert at the city’s Royal Farms Arena with a portion of the proceeds earmarked for youth charities. He also recorded the song “Baltimore” which is on his “Hit and Run Phase 2” release, which would be his last.
According to the Baltimore Sun, at the show, Prince told the crowd: “The system is broken. It’s going to take the young people to fix it this time. We need new ideas, new life. … The next time I come to Baltimore I want to stay in a hotel owned by you.”
READ MORE: H.E.R., Misty Copeland, Gary Clark, Jr. highlight the Prince Grammy special, ‘Let’s Go Crazy’
Prince died at his Paisley Park complex on April 21, 2016, of an accidental overdose of the opioid Fentanyl. He was 57.
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