Mac 
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Mac's review of ONA 4/29/02 at Paramount - Seattle, WA (very long!) THIS SHOW KICKED ASS! I only wish I could write for you all a review of such technical detail of some that I have read here about the recent shows in other cities, sadly I am but a "casual enthusiast" of Prince (although for many many years) and so I am not able to make a photographic recital of the 3 hours (!) set list nor am I going to be able to recount to the more hardcore fanatical types whether Prince scratches his ass with a different hand during the second set when he is in Seattle! What I can do is tell you about my experience, from my perspective, and do my best to convey what details I can for you and hopefully not forget anything important! I am writing all this from memory, so I will be paraphrasing in places. Let's start at the beginning...
The Paramount Theater is a badass place, soaring art deco architecture, just a really fantastic and interesting venue to begin with. To see someone like Prince here is really an experience, the building inside is very reminiscent of something right out of a Prince daydream anyway, so whoever arranged this venue gets a big thumbs up from me -- EXCEPT that it gets DAMN HOT in there when it's filled to capacity - SO hot that Prince was cracking jokes not even 15 minutes into the show about sweating out of his suit and planning to book a barbeque in there, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself...
We (my girlfriend and I) entered the Paramount shortly before 8pm (yes hardcores I am not a music club member so sorry I can tell you nothing about the sound check). The line at the doors for men took about 5 seconds to get through. Pat down, NEXT. The line for women went almost around the block, which created a hilarious lobby scene of dozens and dozens of men, all shapes sizes and colors (if anyone saw me I was the lanky blond white boy in silver silk shirt with TAFKAP symbol collar pin), all of us standing around with folded arms, watching every woman trickle into the venue one by one. A group of a few ladies (as I was awaiting my gf's entrance) came up to me and asked "what are you all waiting for??" to which I replied, "we're just supposed to LOOK like we're waiting, really we're all just checkin you out!" Okay enough about me. My gf finally got in the door, just as the house lights were dimming...
The Xenophobia (I presume) album was playing as we hit our seats, main floor center aisle, just in time for the crowd to start screaming like maniacs at the thought of Prince and the band members appearing at any moment. Someone on the darkened stage started up a couple of smoke machines, a couple of spotlights aimed into the darkened house kicked on, everybody freaked, these 3 huge screens on stage started showing something resembling red lava lamp over black space, I looked at my girlfriend and suddenly realized that Candy Dulfer was right beside her (aisle seats), already blowing her horn (cordless mic naturally) and sauntering toward the stage... I saw Maceo heading, in a like fashion, down another aisle toward stage.
Everyone in the house was scanning for Prince and where he would enter from, which must have been backstage, because suddenly everyone was screaming and there he was, already on stage, guitar in hand, hat on, with the house lights out, surrounded by smoke, spots on behind him, it cast an incredible sillouhette of him out into the crowd, which looked very very reminiscent of the end of Purple Rain, and of course everybody just freaked. He basked there for a moment and just let everyone scream their asses off before he spoke. "Seattle!" and we all just about popped our lungs screaming in response. Y'all come to get your Purple Rain on?" and the already fevered pitch of screams rose incredibly! I live virtually across the street from Boeing Field and I tell you, I have never heard a jet engine so loud as this. Screaming like that at JOTY in the Gorge, out in the open, was one thing, box a crowd up in the Paramount and all that sound just pummels you. It was SO LOUD after that question that not very many in the crowd could even tell what he said next "you come to the wrong building tonight" - the screams were so loud, even I would not have known what the hell he added if not for my having read reviews of other cities here on Prince.org in advance. No matter, without further preamble, they busted into song and the crowd continued to just go berzerk...
They opened with "Rainbow Children" and (sorry hardcores for lack of proper set list, my memory is just not good enough and I did not think to write it down at the time) spent the first "set" for lack of a better term doing mostly songs from that album, peppered with a few covers such as "Roller coaster" and a "la la la means I love you" that seemed to go over well with the crowd. The Seattle crowd, despite the amazing decibels which they could reach with screams, otherwise became rather laid back for most of the show. After the first song they did a musical introduction of all the band members, each doing a brief yet impressive solo, John Blackwell's stick antics a real crowd pleaser, then Prince spoke for a moment.
He mentioned some things about being in Seattle, and mainly, the "Experience Music Project" over at the Seattle Center, mentioning Jimi Hendrix among other things and saying, "I'll have to go over there and check the place out" (at this very moment I knew, if there would be an aftershow, it would surely be there, later this turned out in fact to be the case). He then commented, "Non profit, hm? Hm. Twenty bucks a head, SOMEBODY'S makin a profit!" to which the audience gave big laughs. On the topic of the (only drawback of the night) intolerable level of body heat building in the (apparently poorly ventilated) theater, he quipped, "I'm gonna book me a big ol barbeque up in here - bring me a change of clothes cause I'm bout to sweat this suit right off!" and then right into the next number of course! This man has got some incredible stamina! He's been at this for so long, and he still is in there kicking ass - he's got to be more fit than most atheletes to keep doing these kind of shows, say what you will about him or his life or his choices but as a sheer talent my hat is deinitely off to the guy!
The security staff was friendly but very firm and kept all the aisles clear at all times, very orderly, everyone stood in their seating location, dancing in place of course, and most everyone would sit down during slow numbers, often at Prince's request, "y'all sit down and relax we have a long nite ahead so save your energy" or "kick back now and let me sing this one to you" and everyone would chill out etc.) There was NO rushing the stage or people doing anything incredibly stupid. Some might have said the crowd was not "hyped" enough thereby implying we were not into it enough (except maybe during his grand entrance) but Prince did not appear to feel that way at all. He actually seemed to enjoy it, apart from a couple instances where he had to repeat himself to get the audience to really sing a line with enough sheer volume, he seemed content playing to a crowd that more or less wanted to kick back and enjoy whatever he cared to play.
During this "set" the only real "oldies" he did that I noticed were (to my surprise) "A Case Of U", "Take Me With U", both of which the crowd just loved, followed by "Raspberry Beret" which of course also went over very well. They went on playing cuts from the new album intermingled with a cover here or there, or some weirdass impromptu breakdown jam thrown in. The first "set" came to a close about 90-ish minutes in, with the crowd dazzled at the entire band (each had done their turn at brief solos in their obligatory band member introductions number earlier on), the tunes well received, and no real cringes at all in terms of overtly religious content. The Dream-Factory-Like voicebox effect he was using to narrate the religious storyline here and there was somewhat muffled thanks to the sound guys and no one really seemed to even understand, let alone be bothered by, any preaching...
Honestly Prince did not really even DO all that much overt preaching until near the very end of the show, and even then only for a modest moment, he did not try to pound this down on anyone too hard, I was struck by his seeming intent of NOT wanting to come across too forcefully with his few religious words, which was a relief I suppose, but in the mood the crowd was in I really think even that would not have bothered them, if he had chose to do so. I am still glad he didn't haha! The only other note of possible religious interest was that there was some dumbass running the house lights whose name was apparently "GW" and so often this guy was turning the house lights down at moments when Prince wanted them up - he would say in lyrical tones mid-song "GW turn the house lights up I wanna see these people now" or "GW bring the lights back up" and a few times I distinctly noticed a lot of people around me thinking he said "JW" not "GW" which got some folks' puzzled attention but most who are aware of his most recent religious inclinations just chuckled at the coincidence.
He did throw in most of the same schtick as at the other shows, such as dancing around like the "drunk uncle" and all that. Most of those antics got laughs from the audience but it also was clear that people really were just glad to have him in Seattle for a night, and would have been happy with him with or without the prefabbed clowning around... The only thing he did all night that got (what I thought was) a less than stellar reaction was when he did the "who likes your Seattle radio stations?" bit, the precursor to saying these are all corporate monsters etc and to take the radio back, segueing into the chant "WNPG" - well, too many of the audience members cheered instead of booing at his "who likes" question, cause a lot of the folks in there were either local radio station employees or folks who won tickets from this or that radio station contest. So that did not really have the desired effect on the crowd, just confused them mostly, until he went on to explain with the list of corporations flashing on the big screens. When he tried to get the crowd to chant "WNPG" it just turned out incredibly weak. I guess you just can't get a Seattle crowd to chant for call letters that start with W haha, anyway it was a very minor snafu and even Prince did not seem too concerned about it, we all just went right on to the next number...
During the "intermission" the house was dark, the only real light being the candle atop Prince's piano on stage (the way the piano was rolled center stage at the end of the set just after lights went out was the big giveaway that he was not really finished) - Again this crowd knows how to scream! Damn I never heard anything quite like that combination of shreaking voices boxed up in the Paramount. It went on and on for what must have been close to 15 minutes. It got so my mind drifted and the screams took on some other form, a sort of cacophony of sounds in flux, like saying one word again and again until it makes no sense. Just when I thought it would make me crazy, the sound rose to an incredible pitch - Prince was sneaking back out onto the stage by himself...
What followed was a medley of Prince at the keys, much like what has been described by other show reviews, lots of just snippets of many of his past songs, personas, chunks of dancing fingers on keys that create an unidentifiable but utterly beautiful melody fluidly morphing into a passage from some well known song. This fluid motion rolled from song to song in a blissful melodic way and without any real break in the action from Prince, except that he had some fake sheet music set up near him (like he needs that! haha he never even looked at it) that he would occasionally pause between tunes to toss a couple sheets aside as if he were really using them. The first real break in the music here that I recall was when he set into his one man piano/vocal of the truly magnificent song "Adore". He played it through with a tinkling-keys style very very reminiscent of the Cherry Moon era, all the while melting every woman in the audience (and half the men hahaha) with the sweet vocal line, until he reached the famous point of "crash up my ride" where he stopped dead before the last word, jumped up, and walked toward stage right. The crowd freaked! Apparently everyone knew that line, and they were eating out of his hand at this point...
He came back to the spotlight and the mic. With no music, or only the occasional sprinkle of fingers across the keys, he played the scene out, "no baby - not THE RIDE" "ahw bab- LOOK AT THE GRILLE" (big laugh from crowd) "who - who was u ridin wit--Bill GATES???" (huge laughs) "well - uhm,.. is HE OKAY??" (more laughs) "wha? you - HIS GRILLE'S BUSTED TOO?" Amid the crowds response he went on, "ahw baby don't cry, don't cry, I'll buy you another car..." "what -" "baby" "can't you pick somethin a little less expensive??" (huge laughs) "okay okay baby don't cry I'll buy it for you (to which he got a tremendous cheering response from all the women in the audience) - "what, hm - maybe Bill Gates could buy us a new ride?" (more laughter) and he went back into the song. As a side note, during another song, Prince had swung his mic stand out over the crowd for someone (apparently it was 'christophertracy1986') to sing a note - way off key, sorry! - Prince cleared his throat and said, "Bill Gates everybody!" to a lot of laughs before asking "you gonna be alright?" and finally going on with the number...
After Adore he did many amazing renditions (some bits, some more or less complete) including the "How Come You Don't Call Me" that had the crowd on the ropes. Later, intro-ing to another tune, he said something to the effect of, " with all goin on in the world today we have a lot more important things to care about than whether some sucker gonna call u on the phone" to which he got a big round of applause. He then went back into some more tunes I wish I could recount for you but can not. I sincerely wish I could give an accurate set list (I know a lot of you would wish I could too) but there was just too damn much for me to keep track of off the top of my head. I can add that he meandered into a sparse rendition of "Nothing Compares 2 U" that sent the whole damn audience absolutely crazy with cheers, having the whole band come back onstage to accompany him just through that number before going back to him solo at the keys. I can also say that, to his great credit, he DID NOT PLAY PURPLE RAIN AT ALL. He had the band back onstage again and ended the encore set (or at least it was set up to hit like the finale) with a really good rendition of "Anna Stesia" and when we all thought for sure the show was done, they spun straight from that into a song I had not heard before (but I am sure some of you must know) called "RISE" or "Rise up" perhaps, and they closed out the night on an extensive jam based on this number, with the word "RISE" flashed across the huge screens behind them. The song wound out, the band members sort of evaporated into the unlit portions of the stage, vanishing out one by one, with prince exiting stage left, one hand on his hat, the other pointing toward the other keyboardist, Ranato (?), who was the last one on stage, playing a bizarre key finale. With the song over and people cheering as folks started to exit the venue, the giant screens flashed an ad for NPGMUSICCLUB.COM. I did not get to go to the aftershow (there was one!) that apparently took place at EMP, so if any one here knows about that, or has anything to add to my report, please pipe up and do so!
I have to say this, THANK YOU PRINCE! Thank you for including Seattle. Thank you for including ME. I have listened to you for many long years. Thank you, you incredible mofo, for proving once more that I just can never be sure about what you will do next, and thank you dearly for only rapping twice all night! My faith (in a religious sense) may not have been swayed by the show, but my faith in enjoyment of NEW music from you has been largely restored. I will from this point on laugh heartily at any person who tries to convince me Prince has either "lost his talent" or has no right to whatever religious beliefs he may choose.
So that is about all (!!!) I can think to say at the moment. It was a lot to write so if I have missed or forgotten anything noteworthy, or if my info is inaccurate, feel free to post a reply... and for you hardcore types, if I have made any grievous errors (such as interchanging the terms aftershow with afterparty or having not mentioned some detail that YOU may consider obvious to tell) please forgive me, despite the length of the report, I am but a casual type. If anyone has something to ask/say/add please feel free to post a reply!
For anyone who would like to see it, I have set up a few links below, detailing the Seattle Times insert that came out in the paper just before the show. If you want to keep copies of these files, save them to your drive now, while you have the chance, cause I will not be leaving them on the server indefinitely. Enjoy, and to you Prince, THANK YOU again for rockin my world one more time 
Links:
http://www.seattlex19.org/onasea1.jpg
http://www.seattlex19.org/onasea2.jpg
http://www.seattlex19.org/onasea3.jpg ¶ēą¢ė, Måĉ |
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