birthday bucket trip to Paisley park

One of the things on my bucket list was to visit Paisley park in Chanhassen, MN. It's the studio/home of the late great musical genius Prince. I ordered the VIP tixs were you get an extended tour of his facilities and a flash drive of the only photograph allowed to be taken in the studio (see above taken by the tour guide).
Chanhassen, MN is about a 20 minute drive from Minneapolis. It reminded me of Windham, NH. A rural area with small patches of new developments. On the outside, Paisley park looked like a big white warehouse something like a car dealership. On the inside was something different. It remains as a working studio.
You walk in the foyer and you see the very "Prince" like artwork of doves, clouds and his symbol with funky purple furniture. You can see his two doves in a large cage (Divinity and Majestic) on the second floor. I wanted to go upstairs to see them up close but guests were only permitted on the first floor. (The elevator were he passed was closed off and covered with a faux doorway) Above it held his ashes in a mini "Paisley park" glass case. I felt kind of sick and sad seeing that. Whereas the rest of facility had so much electric energy.
There were rooms with a lot of his persona presented during the many phases of his musical history. Oh the clothes and shoes...and his famous Purple rain motorcycle. It looked so big in the movie "purple rain" but it was a 440CC Honda ( a rebel). There were displays of his pianos and many guitars (the flying cloud) and of course, awards. There were at least two dance clubs for after hour parties. Oh I would've loved to go to one of those. Music was playing constantly and I couldn't decide which was my favorite song because I had lots of favorites. My legs were itchy from the music and couldn't help myself but to dance around in just about every room.
And of course, I had to eventually use the bathroom.
It was one of the cleanest bathrooms I've ever been in and it smelled nice too. One odd thing was there were no windows in the facility except for a giant glass skylight pyramid in the foyer.
I didn't want to leave. The artistic energy was everywhere.
When I got home I was so inspired I did my living room over in purple and funky furniture. And I am working on some new art work too. I made my husband sit through "under a cherry moon" because the music is so awesome. (He liked it )
I had found out earlier that Sheila E, his most talented percussionist, was in concert at the Big E right here in Springfield, MA!. And would you believe it was on my birthday.
I had to go.
I managed to horn my way up to the very front of the stage. She looked fantastic and whoa, what a talent.(see photo above) She has a new CD out called "Iconic". I like her version of "Jesus children" better than Stevie Wonder's version. I held up a sign that said "we all want a love bizarre" and she took my sign when she sang/played "love bizarre'.(!) She then came off the stage and walked right over to my husband and played a guitar solo right in front of him! She was so close to him that she almost bopped him off the head with her guitar! I thought to myself, "Oh my God are you f*&%ing kidding me!?!" I have it recorded, if you don't believe me. I gotta say, that was one if not the BEST concerts I've ever been to. What a freakin' blast! I was completely drenched with sweat from dancing (and it was about 80F)
Wow...
Did I have a totally pissa birthday month or what!