Calgarian pays tribute to Prince at Minneapolis club where he filmed Purple Rain

It didn't hit her until they started playing Purple Rain over the intercom at the LaGuardia Airport.

That's when Lisa Jacobs lost it.

"I just burst into tears," said the bass player about her emotional reaction yesterday to the death of Prince.

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Jacobs was minutes away from boarding a flight home to Calgary from New York City a flight that just happened to be stopping in Minneapolis.

"I had a one-and-a-half-hour layover. So I jumped on a train."

Her destination was the historic First Avenue nightclub, the setting for Prince's 1984 movie Purple Rain.

Jacobs said the moment she got off the trainthe skies opened.

"It just started pouring."

Mobile app users can see video tribute to Prince atFirst Avenue nightclub here.

She said the weather fit the mood of the city and the hundreds of fans loitering "quietly" outside leaving behind cards, flowers, balloons and even a guitar.

Champion for female musicians

Jacobs, who tours with Calgary musicians Michael Bernard Fitzgerald and Jocelyn Alice, will remember Prince as a champion for female musicians everywhere.

"Rhonda Smith was the first female bass player I ever saw," she said.

Smith, who hails from Halifax, played alongside Prince for more than a decade.

Princeemployed and helped build the careers of many talented women such as percussionist Shelia E. and singerAndy Allo.

Jacobs calls him a huge inspiration and feels lucky to have caught one of his moreintimate Calgary performances.

After playing theSaddledome in 2011, Princeput on a late-night show for fans at the Japanese restaurant Ki.

"And he starts playing The MostBeautiful Girl In the World, and I swear he's staring at me singing," Jacobs told the Calgary Eyeopener on Friday.

"And he had sunglasses on so I'm 90 per cent sure he was looking at me."

Calgary Eyeopener9:25Remembering Prince

Three Calgary musicians share their personal memories of Prince, the legendary musician who died on Thursday at the age of 57.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener