On Thursday of this last week, a few friends and I had tickets to the Amy Schumer comedy show in Minneapolis Minnesota.   For myself, this was a big move as I have become a sort of hermit this past year, I can go out and do things but I like to come home afterwards and this was an overnight event.

EEP.

Before I left town Thursday afternoon for the show a friend of mine had text me…

Prince died!

Having lived in Minnesota all of my life and growing up around Prince’s music it was a shocking message.  I started trying to do the math in my head… how much older was Prince than myself?  I could not recall if he was old, or had health issues, I honestly had not followed his career in probably a decade.

That afternoon I picked up my friend Amy and we drove the 2+ hours into Minneapolis.  We had a nice dinner before the comedy show and as everything was very close to our hotel, we walked to the event.  I did not realize as we were walking that we would be so close to the bar where Prince received his first big break, 1st Avenue.  While Farrah had mentioned that maybe after the comedy show we stop by that bar, I thought we would have to take a taxi there.

We went around a corner and this was the scene:

I was amazed. It was around  8:15 pm and this was the crowds in the street in from of the First Avenue bar.  The venue we were going to was actually on the same block, putting these crowds right outside the venue we would be at.  First Avenue had received permission from the city to have an all night dance party for Prince.

We went into the show and enjoyed Amy Schumer’s humor.  We were not allowed to take any pictures at the event so unfortunately, you just have to take my word for it. I was there. 🙂  She hits a few hot button topics, which unfortunately caused two front row attendees to be removed from the show for  rude comments.  That – was something I had never seen before.

After the show, we stepped outside the venue into this:

Helicopters were flying overhead filming the crowd, police and security were working to keep everything under control. We made an attempt to go into the bar, but there would be none of that.  The crowd as you can see was immense and I spoke to a few people leaving the masses and they said they had been waiting outside the bar for over two hours.  I made the suggestion that we all go back to the hotel and sleep until 4 and then come back then.  Of course, by the time that we went to the hotel and sat around talking until after 1:00 am….  4 am…. was not going to happen.  We were all exhausted and I thought what would I do at the bar at 4 am… I really just wanted to step into it and look around, I had never been in it.

Instead, we woke up at about 6:30 and Amy and I grabbed some coffee and walked down to First Avenue bar to see if we could see anything at the time of the morning.  Some of the signs at different venues had been changed…

  The bar was closed, there were about twenty people coming and going to stop and pay their respects at the memorial that had sprung up in the last 20 hours.

It was a bitter sweet experience.  It was a wonderful time hanging out with the girls catching up, talking, the show…. and even getting out of town and out of my own head for a night.  Seeing the Prince memorial and being among the crowds of people mourning his loss and celebrating his life was priceless.  It was a moment of history in the making and I was right there in it.  Once again a reminder of how fragile life is and how each moment should be lived out as much as possible with no regrets.

Thank you for the music, the memories, for your originality, for allowing Minnesota to be your home.  Sleep well sweet Prince. 

~Sheila

This is my post for Saturday Snapshot this week.