So it should be no surprise to report that the Prince show at MSG was absolutely phenomenal and that I was practically jumping out of my skin the entire time. Without a doubt, there has been no other artist whose had such a profound affect and influence on the music I listen to to this very day.
I'm trying to remember the number of times I've seen him in concert. The first time was the Lovesexy concert (in 1989?) which absolutely BLEW MY MIND. It was completely over the top, focusing on the light/dark dualities of his personality (and his music) at the time, with The Black Album content happening in Act I (yes, there was an intermission), and the sunnier Lovesexy material in Act II.
I saw him at least twice more in NYC. The New Power Soul Tour was dissapointing but his 2004 NYC gig was absolutely mind-blowing and probably one of my favorite concert experiences.
He didn't dissapoint this time either. He performed in-the-round, with the stage in the shape of that strange male/female glyph thing that.he's been using for so long, The show began (at 8:45, btw, which we all thought was very early) with him using the piano like an enormous sampler (thankfully, we were on this side of the stage, which he seemed to favor throughout the night). He zipped back and forth between his songs, sampling the "NO!" squeal from "Alphabet Street" throughout (a la Kanye's VMA "Runaway" performance). "I got too many hits," he boasted, as we went from "When Doves Cry" to "Sign o' the Times" (this seemed to be a good time for him to dispatch those tracks with lots of drum programming.)
The sheer volume and number of hits is always breathtaking. And although the show didn't quite have the far-reaching feeling of his '04 show (which also featured him playing entire sets on piano and acoustic guitar) the vocal and guitar power (WOW!) of this little man is, as always, impressive as hell.
The requisite duo of comely light brown ladies danced about throughout the show (he called them "The Twins"), and I actually thought his attire was a little less insane than normal. I did notice that his days of leaping off the piano to do the splits seems to have passed. And his trademarks stilettos seemed to be more of a wedge. But who can blame him - the dude's 52!
Here's a snap of the setlist (which I've 'borrowed' from another site):
I was tickled to hear "Take Me With U," which I feel he doesn't do in concert very much. And he pulled up Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester during the ballad section that started with "Angel" and ended with "I Love U But I Don't Trust U Anymore" (I missed it as I was in the world's longest bathroom line).
There were LOTS of encores. Which always grows a bit tedious, especially when - with an artist list Prince - the encore list becomes nearly as long as the show itself. But this was really when the show went off into the stratosphere. "Purple Rain" was the first one (as listed above) which was Absolutely dynamite. Sharon Jones came out to sing "A Love Bizarre" -- AMAZING! (especially since we missed her as the opening act --when did she go on 6PM? I mean, really) though her mic was down WAY too low. The 1-2-3-4 punch of "Girlfriend" "Insatiable" "Scandalous" and "Adore" was almost too much too take. And the motley crowd assembled at the garden - aging black women fanning themselves, goofy jersey fratboys, dandies of indeterminate gender -were going absolutely wild.
Following that, the encores started up again with the band playing Sylvester's "Dance Disco Heat" (a surprise) as some of the folks seated at the cocktail tables by the stage (yes, people did this. And yes it cost $5,0000. And yes I considered it) were brought up to dance about onstage (hi, Jimmy Fallon!). This led to "Baby, I'm A Star," "Let's Go Crazy," "Delerious," an awesome version of "1999," and then "Peach" which was a Europe-only single off the Hits/B-Side package from the 90s. Very guitar heary and he slashed away before descending, once again, underneath the stage. The lights stayed down for a long time afterwards. Surely, staff backstage weretrying to figure out whether he was going back on. After what seemed like an eternity, the lights snapped on (then flickered down? then went back up again) as the crowd groaned and everyone made their way out of the theater.
So the operation was maybe a bit sloppier than it's been in his more tightly constructed tours of the past --- but, still, what an absolute treat. We had purple colored drinks afterwards to celebrate, and I traded Prince stories with a mother/daughter duo at the bar. Everyone blissed out and revelling inthe post-racial, post-sexuality utopia afterglow. (So much of Prince's early material focused on this. And I think he's had a profound affect on people because of it. Though I'm not sure how connected he is to that message anymore, sadly). And as the night concluced, we looked up into the sky - freezing and bright - andI was so thankful to have had another amazing "only in NYC" moment.
