Setlist Playlist of Day: Prince's 1987 Sign "O" The Times Tour

Asal Shah / Photography by: FG/Bauer-Griffin / April 08, 2020

It's been 33 years to this day since Prince dropped LP gold on the world with Sign "O" the Times, his ninth studio album that came out March 30th, 1987.
Known as one of his most critically acclaimed records from his career, the double record featured beloved songs like the title track, "If I Was Your Girlfriend," and "U Got the Look."
A few days after the release, on April 2nd of that year, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince launched the first Paisley Park "Sign 'O' the Times" concert of the year before taking the tour to Europe. The tour for the album was the first after his split with The Revolution, and marked the debut of his newest band, the "Lovesexy Band," a huge transition period for the artist.
The trek never made it to the US and made its way through Europe from May 8th til June 29th, hitting up a total of 34 shows. Prince only wanted to do the one leg for the tour, but filmed some of the shows for a concert film release. He had to reshoot most of the concerts, due to poor quality, in the Paisley Park sound stage, lip-syncing most of the sounds.
A clip from the film
Before heading out to Europe, he held a private concert at Paisley where he rehearsed 19 songs. Most of the tour carried 18-19 songs, including two encores. Each show opened with "Sign o' the Times," ended the main set with "1999" and ended the final encore with "It's Going to Be a Beautiful night."
Almost every setlist included "Housequake," "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night," "I Could Never Take the Place of Your man," "Slow Love," "Hot Thing," "If I was Your Girlfriend" and others off of the album. He did "Adore," "It" and "U Got the Look" only once during the trek.
"Hot Thing" Live 1987
He also worked in plenty of tracks off Purple Rain, 1999, and Parade, and covered "Now's the Time" by Charlie Parker's Re-Boppers each night. His hit song "Raspberry Beret" only made one appearance during the tour.
Check out the full setlist from that initial Paisley Park concert, which took place on April 2nd, 1987, then listen to the accompanying Spotify Setlist Playlist and party like its 1987!
Prince
Setlist Playlist: Prince – By Setlist.Fm Spotify
Throughout Prince's career, Sign "O" the Times was his third most performed album, with "U Got the Look" being the top performed track off the record.