"The Kid" is the talented but troubled frontman of his Minneapolis-based band, The Revolution (band). To escape his difficult home life – his father is verbal abuse and physical abuse, and his mother is emotional abuse – he spends his days rehearsing and his nights performing at the First Avenue (nightclub). First Avenue's three house band slots are held by The Revolution, the flashy Morris Day and his group The Time (band), and Dez Dickerson and his group The Modernaires. Morris, aware that The Revolution's guitarist Wendy and keyboardist Lisa are frustrated by the Kid's unwillingness to play their compositions, lobbies Billy Sparks, the nightclub's owner, to replace The Revolution with a girl group which Morris is already forming. He targets the Kid's girlfriend Apollonia—an aspiring singer and new arrival in Minneapolis—to lead his group, and tries to persuade her that the Kid won't help her because he's too focused on himself. She eventually joins Morris's group, which Morris names Apollonia 6. When she reveals her partnership to the Kid, he becomes furious and slaps her, as his father had struck him earlier.