As the year end approaches, Local Spins’ countdown of its top 2025 stories hits No. 2 and No. 3 — our in-depth look back at Prince’s impact and the continued popularity of Meijer Gardens concerts.
The Purple One, The High Priest of Pop: Our April tribute to Prince was the No. 2 story of the year. (Photo/Local Spins)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Today, Local Spins presents No. 2 and No. 3 in the countdown of its stop stories of 2025. Come back tomorrow for No. 1.
Support our coverage of
West Michigan's music scene
Prince would have been 67 years old had he not passed away from an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2016.
But his legacy and impact haven’t ebbed in those intervening years, evidenced by Local Spins’ in-depth tribute to the singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and dynamic performer published on the ninth anniversary of his death in April: It was our No. 2 story of the year based on reader traffic.
The report featured everything from Prince’s ever-popular, fan-attracting Paisley Park outside Minneapolis to a look into Prince’s West Michigan connections, including his one-time sound engineer Bill Chrysler from Grand Haven and super fan Jack Reedy from Lowell. Revisit highlights from that April tribute below, with the full story, videos and a special playlist here.
When visitors enter Paisley Park outside Minneapolis, they’re immediately immersed into the awe-inspiring kingdom of Prince.
Bathed in purple hues seemingly everywhere amid the sprawling residence, museum, recording studio and music venue once occupied by The Purple One, the unusual memorial to the influential guitar virtuoso and funk royalty regularly sells out daily tours packed with diehard fans from across the globe.
The curiosity seekers not only revel in the discovery of insights into the genius of Prince Rogers Nelson, who tragically passed away from a fentanyl overdose at age 57 in 2016, but take home little pieces of his legacy souvenir-wise.
His iconic, trailblazing albums speak for themselves — “Purple Rain,” “Sign O’ The Times,” “Dirty Mind,” “1999” — but there’s something about strolling amid his hallowed environs and breathing Paisley Park air that cements the fan-superstar relationship.
Prince’s Castle: The author outside Paisley Park. (Photo/Local Spins)
The musical wizardry of Prince emanates from every nook and cranny inside Paisley Park as tour guides unearth historical milestones from the artist’s four-decade-long career, giving glimpses into his infectious-yet-mysterious personality via his impressive office, stunning recording studio and in-house nightclub that regularly entertained small cadres of devoted fans for impromptu weeknight concerts over the years.
One of those devotees happens to be a West Michigan super-fan who saw Prince in concert many times over the years and spent long hours at Paisley Park.
Jack Reedy, owner of Lowell’s Rookies Sportscards Plus, had listened to Prince since he was a teen, but became wholly entranced by his music via the 1989 “Batman” album and started exploring Prince’s back catalog.
“Bought his albums on release day from that day on, and I enjoyed new music from him every year until his death in 2016,” he said, noting he also saw him in concert about 20 times across the country, starting with a 1997 Detroit Fox Theatre show.
The highlight? A week-long Paisley Park celebration that included several live shows by Prince, culminating in an all-acoustic affair at the intimate venue. “(Prince) then treated my wife and I and around 300 fellow fans to a movie at the local Chanhassen Theater. He told us he felt like a movie and to follow the limousine. He had rented out two screens for all of us at 2 a.m. at the local cinema,” Reedy recalled. “Yup, Prince took me to the movies.”
Jack Reedy: With a replica “Cloud” guitar. (Courtesy Photo)
Prince often played at Paisley Park on weekends “with little to no advance notice,” Reedy said, noting he and his wife once waited outside in hopes of a show. The doors opened around midnight and fans were allowed to enter for free.
“Prince treated us to an entire night of deep cuts and cover songs. Elvis’ ‘Teddy Bear,’ I can remember. We were there until the sun came up the next morning,” He said. “Did we just spend the night at Paisley Park? We couldn’t believe it.”
Reedy likened Paisley Park to “Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory for Prince fans,” a place “where he could live a life of constant musical creation” and an impressive building still filled with instruments, clothing and artifacts.
“Prince could do so much, so well: multi-instrumentalist, including one of the great guitar players in rock. He was a world-class talent as a songwriter, vocalist, producer, bandleader. He’s generally acknowledged as a musical genius,” Reedy said.
“He was also unbelievably prolific, constantly recording and performing through his whole life. He was fearless as an artist, and often fought for artists rights, while also having enjoyed immense commercial success. The No. 1 reason he’s a legend to me? His live performances. And his screams. Best screams in the business!”
Another Michigander had an even closer and more significant relationship with Prince.
Grand Haven’s Bill Chrysler, founder of Third Coast Recording Co. and a longtime touring sound engineer with John Mayer, Maroon 5, Madonna, Paul McCartney and other stars, handled stage sound on tour with Prince in the late 1990s.
Bill Chrysler (Photo/Loren Johnson)
“He was demanding and commanding and crazy creative and talented,” he recalled of the diminutive and “odd” musician. “Not your run-of-the-mill, every-day pop/rock star.
“I definitely have distinct and fond memories of my time with him. … He liked me, so we talked often, but (for) some crew members that were with him for years, he didn’t even know their name.”
Chrysler also spent a lot of time on the sound stage at Paisley Park in Minnesota where Prince and his band could do “a full arena stage set-up” for upcoming tours, including sound and lighting.
Paisley Park, he said, stands as an “important place for the music scene. … I’ve wandered the building, including the storage and garage below. Found some cool stuff down there.”
As for the concert tours themselves, Prince “had a strange way of booking tours and would often postpone or cancel a tour that was in process for any number of odd reasons,” Chrysler recalled.
Of course, Prince’s stage performances — from memorable tours across the globe to his much-ballyhooed 2007 half-time show at Super Bowl XLI and stunning guitar work during an all-star Rock and Roll Hall of Fame rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” — were much-buzzed-about milestones.
Prized Memorabilia: Reedy with the jacket Prince wore on the Arsenio Hall Show. (Courtesy Photo)
Rolling Stone ranked Prince No. 27 on the magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Artists and No. 16 on a list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. And a 2003 Rolling Stone roster of the all-time greatest albums of all time featured four Prince recordings.
While controversy dogged Prince during his career (his famous feud with Warner Bros. that led him to adopt the ‘Love Symbol’ as his stage name, various copyright disputes and more) and after his death (counterfeit pills containing fentanyl made to look like painkillers that led to his overdose; lack of a will that led to all sorts of claims to his estate), his music influenced an entire generation of superstar artists, including Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Usher, D’Angelo, St. Vincent, Lenny Kravitz and untold others.
NO. 3 STORY OF THE YEAR: MEIJER GARDENS 2025 CONCERTS
Alison Krauss & Union Station on stage in September: The first sell-out of 2025 at Meijer Gardens. (Photo/Steve Baran)
Within a little more than two hours on April 19, tickets for 11 of the 34 concerts in the 2025 amphitheater series at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park sold out to members, starting with the Sept. 5 concert featuring bluegrass star Alison Krauss & Union Station (featuring Jerry Douglas with Willie Watson), with those tickets selling out within a half-hour.
Other first-day sellouts for shows at the 1,900-capacity amphitheater include the opening May 30 concert featuring The Head and The Heart, Train and Edwin McCain on Aug. 3, Cheap Trick on Aug. 11, Rick Springfield on June 15, The Revivalists on June 18, CAKE on Aug. 17, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue on July 13, O.A.R. on July 16, Andy Grammer on Aug. 18, and Vance Joy on Sept. 11.
Online comments from ticket buyers were mostly positive this year, with concertgoers saying things proceeded far more smoothly this year via the AXS.com ticketing system.
“I will say, process super smooth,” Jack Clark wrote on Facebook. “One show at a time, but otherwise AXS was great this time.”
Added Laurie Schaal: “This was so much easier this year. Thanks for working out the kinks.”
“Improvements in the ticket purchase process allowed more members to have access to purchase tickets this year by switching to a show-by-show checkout process,” said John VanderHaagen, Meijer Gardens’ director of communications, “and total sales are on par with previous years averages. There were 11,000 members in the AXS queue when it opened at 9 a.m., and traffic flowed smoothly considering our limited inventory and high demand.” Full story here.
Of course, once the season started, the concerts themselves in Meijer Gardens’ biggest season in history attracted enthusiastic responses from attendees and readers with the 1,900-capacity amphitheater ultimately selling out 21 of 34 summer shows. View reviews and photo galleries from all of the shows online here, from the “perfect soundtrack” opening concert starring The Head and The Heart to the final, nostalgic, mid-September soiree featuring Rilo Kiley.
Even Meijer Gardens’ fall lineup of Tuesday night concerts featuring Michigan artists drew plenty of attention from readers and visitors, from the rock of Pretoria to the indie-folk of Phil Stancil & Friends. View that lineup here.
And stay tuned come April for the announcement of the 2026 summer series.
Copyright 2025, Spins on Music LLC
