Oh man! It's been 3 days since the show, and I am still on cloud 9! I brought a little notebook with me to scribble down the setlist, but I'm glad it's already posted because my notes are pretty messy! The concert was awesome, but there a few other things that made the night a great one, so I'll talk about them too if you don't mind the long read. The entire experience was incredible because I got to meet so many wonderful people. I went to dinner with some fellow orgers which was the FIRST time I've ever talked to so many people who liked Prince as much as I do. No joke. For once, my love for Prince helped me fit in rather than stand out. It was a wonderful feeling.

Oh Sheila! That woman rocks my socks off! Not only is she totally bad ass, but she looks fantastic! I am truly in awe of her, and it was such a treat to see her perform with her family. Maceo's set was cool too, but I have to admit, I wanted to see me some Prince! When Prince casually walked onstage at the ends of Maceo's song, the crowd went nuts! He looked so happy, confident, relaxed, and smooth. He had on a white suit with a black shirt (barely buttoned, of couse) with white heels. He turned up the sex appeal with the slow bluesy version of Satisfied ( and the hilarious extras at the end). It cracked me up when he said "Good night Las Vegas!" at the end of Girls and Boys (I think). Vegas is a hard habit to break, I guess.

The highlight of the concert for me was when they called ladies to the front, so they could pick some dancers. Let me tell you, some of those women were FIERCE! I could have lost an eye or had my hair ripped out by those girls! I got to the front, but wasn't chosen. Some girls didn't wait to be invited, they just climbed up on stage. Well, I'm not agile or light enough for that, so I stayed on the ground. It was still a thrill to be that close to Prince. I was just a few feet away, watcing him play some smokin guitar. At one point, he looked at me, and my heart skipped a beat! He also walked to my end of the stage, and I practically came face to face with his awesome high heeled boot. (Sorry, it was truly fammy moment for me). I was sad when the security guy told us to go back to our seats, but I'll never forget the awesomeness of being that up close.

On a negative note, the sound guy at the gig deserved a big spanking! (and not the good kind) When the speaker started crackling during Shh, I knew there was going to be trouble. I wasn't too surprised when P stopped singing mid verse, and busted into an intense, angry, somewhat avant garde guitar solo. It was if he was saying, "Fix it. NOW." The sound still wasn't quite right for the remainder of the show, which was disappointing. The rest of the concert was still a lot of fun. Renato was cool as a cucumber, Shelby sang beautifully, and Prince thrilled me with Gotta Broken Heart Again, Pink Cashmere, and If I was Your Girlfriend. ("It's so sexy in here, somebody's gonna get pregnant! You don't understand, it's Ovulation Station right down here.") The encores were a lot of fun. Shelia and fam tore it up again, and one of the twins was on percussion during Love Bizarre. Prince changed clothes (if anyone cares) into a red shirt with black embroidery on the cuffs and on the front, and donned a red fedora. I snapped a couple photos at the end. They're not very good (I didn't use flash, because I didn't want to get caught), but I'll post them on Thursday (if it's ok with the mods).

I was sad to see the concert end. My ears could only hear at about 35% and my throat was pretty torn up. That meant I had a good time, right? When we left the theatre, we got some nice postcards that advertised the concert. I was happy to have a little souvenir. Before the show started, I had talked to 2 sweet girls on the concert staff about getting an event poster or even one of their staff t-shirts (which had a photo of Prince on the back). They didn't think they would be able to get me one, but they were going to try for me. I hung around the theatre for a good 45 minutes, and finally, my girls pulled through! They smuggled me a shirt that advertised the Traveling Through Life series, and it had a picture f Prince, Dave Matthews, and Christna Aguilera on the back. I gave the girls some money, because I didn't want them to get in trouble for giving the shirt away for free. They were so kind, I hugged them and told them I would never forget them.

The post-concert excitement continued when I met Shelby, The Twinz, and Mr. Hayes as they exited the theatre! I was so happy to meet Mr. Hayes, because he was in the NPG when I first became a fan. He gave me a big hug, and I told how I'd been a fan since 13, and that I was so excited to finally meet him. He is such a sweet guy. I took pictures with Shelby and Mr. Hayes, which I will also post soon. Shelby happened to mention which club the band was going for an afterparty, so some adventurous cohorts and I sort of, um, headed over there. It was a scene right out of "Night at the Roxbury" when the bouncer told us we couldn't get in if we weren't on the list! We hung around outside for a while, and even heard Erotic City playing inside the club. We saw one of the twins come outside, and she said she would let us in if it were up to her, but Trevor had to approve everyone. I was bummed, but then Renato came outside for a smoke, and I just had to shake the man's hand! Now he is one seriously cool dude. I told him how much I enjoyed his playing, and that I recently bought the same keyboard that he has. He told me it was a very good piano, so I'm glad I made the right choice buying it. He also said that the sound at the gig was not good, but he agreed with me when I told him that it's tough to play a rock concert in a theatre. He said, "I wish we could have played some jazz," and I wholeheartedly agreed. I talked to him a little more before my buddies and I decided to wrap it up. It was after 1am, but I still would have stayed up til dawn if it meant prolonging such a wonderful experience.

Thank you to Prince, his band, and my new friends for making this a night I will NEVER forget!



FINALLY! Here are some photos of the evening. Unfortunately, my camera was not behaving, and the flash didn't work half of the time. The concert photos are pretty blurry. I didn't want to move closer or use flash, because I didn't want to get caught. Enjoy!

Here is the outside of the beautiful Orpheum Theatre with the sign announcing Prince's performance. It was a welcome sight.


Here I am with fellow orgers Yabadabajudith, Babooshleeky, Jaynoonan, and Xplnyrslf. (Joanne and Phil, where were you guys?)


One of the many, MANY posters they had up at the event. Would it have killed them to give me one?


OK, blurry concert pic time. I hope you can an idea of what was going on. He looks lovely in red.


I think this one looks really cool.


Prince taking it off. Well, just the guitar.


Shelby and me!


Here I am with the fantastic Mr. Hayes! Why oh why wasn't my flash working?


Here is a scan of the super cool postcard they handed us on the way out.


And here is the t-shirt those girls smuggled for me. I am so grateful to them.



Ok, that's it!
[Edited 5/24/07 20:39pm]

Awwwww, Rani, I'm so glad you had such a wonderful experience and memorable night. Great review too

Right on, great review, Rani.

Do you mind if I tack on my story about getting onstage that night? I sent this out to friends of mine who don't know much about Prince, so a lot of it is Prince 101 level, sorry in advance:


"One of the greatest moments of my life...

Prince played in San Francisco last night at the Orpheum Theatre, a Broadway play venue that holds only 2200 seated patrons. It was part of the Citicard concert series, in which only people with Citicards could purchase tickets. Tickets were $225, so much of the crowd was in their 40's+ and of the yuppie/Marina-type. I ended up sitting in Row S, right side of the Orchestra section, but not for long.

The start time was listed as 8pm on the ticket, but nothing happened until 8:40, when Sheila E and her family took the stage to massive surprise and applause. They banged on their little drums for a bit, then played a rockin' version of "The Glamorous Life". Sheila looked great. Then, suddenly, they walked off the stage... weird start!

Prince's amazing band, the New Power Generation, then appeared, along with James Brown's sax player, Maceo Parker, and tore into a jazzy tune before Prince himself slowly walked onstage under blinding purple spotlights. Lots of screaming from the sizable female contingent in the crowd.

OK, cut to the chase... I knew from previous Prince shows at the Fillmore that he sometimes invites people to come up onstage to dance. There were a few empty seats up front, so I had long since made my way down to the 10th row middle (just to the right of Robin Williams), so I didn't have far to run when Prince asked people to come up and dance with him during "Sing A Simple Song".

I ran down the aisle and pushed my way to the front of the stage, where one of Prince's proteges, Shelby J, was on the right side picking people from the pack of fans that crowded around the front with their arms raised. She seemed really hesitant and didn't know whom to choose. At one point, she said, "Well, you have to get yourselves up here", so, fuck it, I just climbed up without any prompting and gave her a hug as she said, "OK, we'll let you up here this time". I thought, 'that ain't cool', but then I realized that Prince wanted only women onstage, no dudes. Consequently, I ended up being the only guy out of a dozen or so fans who made it up onstage.

As I walked toward the center of the stage, Prince turned around and acted scared to see me, feigning fear with his mouth open and eyes wide, bending backwards away from me. I mirrored his move and stuck my arms out, bending away from him then smiling. I know Prince has a playful sense of humor, so I was just glad that I reacted appropriately and didn't poop my pants or start crying or something.

At first, I felt like a total wanker because it was just me and three other women onstage standing behind Prince, kind of moving around trying to find a groove. We were all kind of looking at each other and freaking out at this point. Sheila E came over to me with a big smile and said, "You have to dance!", so I tried focusing on the booming drums behind me instead of thinking, "holy shit holy shit holy shit I'm up here look at the crowd Prince is right in front of me Sheila E is right next to me holy shit".

Thank goodness more fans came up onstage, so I was able to blend in a little better and stand behind everyone near the drumkit. I felt like a fucking idiot up there. What made it worse was that I didn't have time to iron my nice shirt at my office during the day, so I ended up wearing this crappy gray t-shirt underneath my tan jacket. It was hot up there under the lights, and I felt like a total dorky white guy wearing this heavy jacket while all these beautiful sexy girls are dancing all around me and Shelia E is bawling me out. So, I just tried to hide a bit in the back and take in the whole scene and try not to hyperventilate.

The lights were up at first and I could see the whole crowd in front of us, everyone standing and dancing with big smiles on their faces. What a trip. I even saw Neil Young down in the front rows below us, and I thought, "what the hell is Neil Young doing here?". Once the houselights went back down, I could only see maybe four rows into the audience because of the purple and red klieg lights shining in our eyes. That made me less self-conscious, thankfully, especially since I felt like such a dope jumping around in my big heavy jacket.

Prince invited his old friend Larry Graham (the legendary bass player for Sly And The Family Stone) onstage for "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", the old Sly Stone song from 1969. Halfway through, Prince stood away from the microphone and motioned us forward to sing. Nobody wanted to do it, so I grabbed this girl in front of me and we walked up to the mic and sang the chorus as Prince played his guitar ten feet away, looking at us encouragingly, his face lit up and his eyes locked on mine as I sang. I think I sounded terrible, but I couldn't hear myself. I sang just that one line and turned to go back to my spot in front of the drums. Afterwards, I wished that I had looked at Prince and asked him, "Hey Prince, how's my singing?", just to see the mock look of disapproval on his face.

I think we were up there for a good twenty minutes, all the way through "Alphabet St" and "Never Loved A Man". I started to feel like we overstayed our welcome at the end, and I actually didn't mind when security started ushering us offstage. Before I left, however, I asked the bass player, Josh Dunham, if I could have one of the setlists, to which he shrugged and nodded. On the way offstage, I reached out for one of "the twinz" (Prince's dancers) and kissed her hand, but as I got behind the curtains, one of Prince's security guards accosted me and bellowed "Where did you get this paper?!" I told him that the bass player gave it to me, but the guard didn't want to hear it, so he grabbed the setlist out of my hands, crumpled it up in my face and told me to leave. I know Prince is really strict about not allowing cameras at his shows, but I guess he's also tight about letting fans have setlists, too.

Needless to say, I'm still high thinking about it all. Some of the images are burned in my memory, being replayed over and over again today. After dancing onstage with Iggy Pop last month, and now with Prince this month, I shudder to think what's next. I haven't found any photos of the show, yet, so if you find any, please post the link, thanks."
[Edited 5/22/07 12:58pm]
[Edited 5/22/07 13:03pm]
[Edited 5/22/07 13:05pm]
[Edited 5/22/07 13:10pm]

Hey Rani

It was great meeting you!!! You were fun to hang with! And make sure you come down this way again next time P swings by

Rani,

you rock!!!! I felt so bad that I didn't know how to pronounce your name.

xxoo
M
[Edited 5/22/07 13:08pm]

TheRevolution said:

thank you so much, you have just made my night! your review is hilarious ( in a good way)

Hey Rani!!! Philip and Joanne here. It was great meeting you, the dinner, the fun ride back to your hotel and the talks about Prince. It was one heck of a night wasn't it. Sorry we didn't get to meet our man, but we tried! Next time!!

Great and accurate review of the show in SF. Prince's energy was so ON that night. Meeting The Twinz was great. They are gorgous (tiny). All of the band members we met were so nice and took a long time to talk to us. A night to remember.
[Edited 5/22/07 13:55pm]

Hi everybody, Rani, Joanne, Phil, Jason, Lisa and Judith!!

The night would have not been the same without all of U, I miss U guys already!!!! We have to do it again when he tours out here!!!!

for all of U!!!

Did you get pregnant Rani?

Great Review!

babooshleeky said:

Yeah we do, I wont forget us chasing the private afterparty at midnight and finding the club down the dark dingey alley on MAIDEN Next time, we are gettin in!!!

Jason, that was a riot driving through the streets of SF on a mission to go the club hoping they would let us in. Guess I am not surprised we weren't let in....this big group of fans trying soo hard to get in. But hey, we tried and that was the closest I have gotten yet to meeting him. At least we met many of the band members, that was great!! Next time he is here or anywhere we are all willing to travel, we will have to meet again!!

jaynoonan said:

Hey guys! I had a blast with all of you! I felt like a crazy person, but I don't regret any of it. And no LittleMissG I did not get pregnant! That would have been a miracle indeed!

I'll post pics tomorrow night, or Thursday morning. I'm flying back to Seattle tomorrow night.

jaynoonan said:

Oh, we will be on the list next time! We will!

TheRevolution said:

Hahaha I remember you, the only dude up there with like 13 other chicks. You were hanging in the back of the line most of the time.


My god, it was SUCH an aweosme concert. I will never forget that night. Grooving and singing the night away with a permanent grin platsered on my face. I'm still high off of it.

I got to meet a cool fan who had been going to Prince concerts since Purple Rain, I told him it was my first Prince concert. Afterwards, he asked me what I thought, and it took about 20 seconds to fully formulate a sentence. My mind had been blown to fuck all. It was freaking AMAZING. I would trade my left nut to relive it.

Thank you Prince, I will never forget that night.

and yes, anyone who has photos of anything regarding this event, please, post them or orgnote them to me. I would really, really appreciate it.
[Edited 5/23/07 0:49am]

I want to know why we didn't get the gift bags?????

xplnyrslf said:

what gift bags??

Was it from the VIP room we saw next door? The Citibank employee told me they were given something like wine or champagne and some little things in a bag, but nothing that was great sounding.

babooshleeky said:

babooshleeky said:

I think the gift bags were coming from the VIP bar area.

TheRevolution said:[quote]Right on, great review, Rani.

Do you mind if I tack on my story about getting onstage that night? I sent this out to friends of mine who don't know much about Prince, so a lot of it is Prince 101 level, sorry in advance:


"One of the greatest moments of my life...

Prince played in San Francisco last night at the Orpheum Theatre, a Broadway play venue that holds only 2200 seated patrons. It was part of the Citicard concert series, in which only people with Citicards could purchase tickets. Tickets were $225, so much of the crowd was in their 40's+ and of the yuppie/Marina-type. I ended up sitting in Row S, right side of the Orchestra section, but not for long.

The start time was listed as 8pm on the ticket, but nothing happened until 8:40, when Sheila E and her family took the stage to massive surprise and applause. They banged on their little drums for a bit, then played a rockin' version of "The Glamorous Life". Sheila looked great. Then, suddenly, they walked off the stage... weird start!

Prince's amazing band, the New Power Generation, then appeared, along with James Brown's sax player, Maceo Parker, and tore into a jazzy tune before Prince himself slowly walked onstage under blinding purple spotlights. Lots of screaming from the sizable female contingent in the crowd.

OK, cut to the chase... I knew from previous Prince shows at the Fillmore that he sometimes invites people to come up onstage to dance. There were a few empty seats up front, so I had long since made my way down to the 10th row middle (just to the right of Robin Williams), so I didn't have far to run when Prince asked people to come up and dance with him during "Sing A Simple Song".

I ran down the aisle and pushed my way to the front of the stage, where one of Prince's proteges, Shelby J, was on the right side picking people from the pack of fans that crowded around the front with their arms raised. She seemed really hesitant and didn't know whom to choose. At one point, she said, "Well, you have to get yourselves up here", so, fuck it, I just climbed up without any prompting and gave her a hug as she said, "OK, we'll let you up here this time". I thought, 'that ain't cool', but then I realized that Prince wanted only women onstage, no dudes. Consequently, I ended up being the only guy out of a dozen or so fans who made it up onstage.

As I walked toward the center of the stage, Prince turned around and acted scared to see me, feigning fear with his mouth open and eyes wide, bending backwards away from me. I mirrored his move and stuck my arms out, bending away from him then smiling. I know Prince has a playful sense of humor, so I was just glad that I reacted appropriately and didn't poop my pants or start crying or something.

At first, I felt like a total wanker because it was just me and three other women onstage standing behind Prince, kind of moving around trying to find a groove. We were all kind of looking at each other and freaking out at this point. Sheila E came over to me with a big smile and said, "You have to dance!", so I tried focusing on the booming drums behind me instead of thinking, "holy shit holy shit holy shit I'm up here look at the crowd Prince is right in front of me Sheila E is right next to me holy shit".

Thank goodness more fans came up onstage, so I was able to blend in a little better and stand behind everyone near the drumkit. I felt like a fucking idiot up there. What made it worse was that I didn't have time to iron my nice shirt at my office during the day, so I ended up wearing this crappy gray t-shirt underneath my tan jacket. It was hot up there under the lights, and I felt like a total dorky white guy wearing this heavy jacket while all these beautiful sexy girls are dancing all around me and Shelia E is bawling me out. So, I just tried to hide a bit in the back and take in the whole scene and try not to hyperventilate.

The lights were up at first and I could see the whole crowd in front of us, everyone standing and dancing with big smiles on their faces. What a trip. I even saw Neil Young down in the front rows below us, and I thought, "what the hell is Neil Young doing here?". Once the houselights went back down, I could only see maybe four rows into the audience because of the purple and red klieg lights shining in our eyes. That made me less self-conscious, thankfully, especially since I felt like such a dope jumping around in my big heavy jacket.

Prince invited his old friend Larry Graham (the legendary bass player for Sly And The Family Stone) onstage for "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", the old Sly Stone song from 1969. Halfway through, Prince stood away from the microphone and motioned us forward to sing. Nobody wanted to do it, so I grabbed this girl in front of me and we walked up to the mic and sang the chorus as Prince played his guitar ten feet away, looking at us encouragingly, his face lit up and his eyes locked on mine as I sang. I think I sounded terrible, but I couldn't hear myself. I sang just that one line and turned to go back to my spot in front of the drums. Afterwards, I wished that I had looked at Prince and asked him, "Hey Prince, how's my singing?", just to see the mock look of disapproval on his face.

I think we were up there for a good twenty minutes, all the way through "Alphabet St" and "Never Loved A Man". I started to feel like we overstayed our welcome at the end, and I actually didn't mind when security started ushering us offstage. Before I left, however, I asked the bass player, Josh Dunham, if I could have one of the setlists, to which he shrugged and nodded. On the way offstage, I reached out for one of "the twinz" (Prince's dancers) and kissed her hand, but as I got behind the curtains, one of Prince's security guards accosted me and bellowed "Where did you get this paper?!" I told him that the bass player gave it to me, but the guard didn't want to hear it, so he grabbed the setlist out of my hands, crumpled it up in my face and told me to leave. I know Prince is really strict about not allowing cameras at his shows, but I guess he's also tight about letting fans have setlists, too.

Needless to say, I'm still high thinking about it all. Some of the images are burned in my memory, being replayed over and over again today. After dancing onstage with Iggy Pop last month, and now with Prince this month, I shudder to think what's next. I haven't found any photos of the show, yet, so if you find any, please post the link, thanks."
[Edited 5/22/07 12:58pm]
[Edited 5/22/07 13:03pm]
[Edited 5/22/07 13:05pm]
[Edited 5/22/07 13:10pm]
[Okay so I was one of the girls on stage - wearing the satin red top, big curly brown hair, black long shorts and red heels. I danced and sang my ass off. My dream since I saw Prince with my mom 20 years ago when I wasn't old enough to go alone! Seen him so many times - Musicology and Vegas most recently but THIS TIME I brought my mom so she saw the whole thing. It was meant to be! I searched and searched and actually found someone who posted pictures they took at the concert. go to my blog http://360.yahoo.com/djoh...global.net to see the pictures AND - YES you are in it with your big brown coat!!!]

There was a point where one or two girls were talking to him onstage, and he goes "Yeah I love you back, now back up"

That got a lot of laughs

Cyra said:

Ya and alot of them probably did not even know about the dummy at the KOKO.

babooshleeky said:

Yeah, thankfully no towels were present on stage at any point.

pjeaston said:

Well, it would have been NICE! there was a cocktail party for VIP card holders in a room near the entrance. It was mentioned in another forum how the upscale yuppies got gift bags.....

DBJNZOL, you rock!

Thank you so much for providing your blog link with that photo of us dancing with Prince... now we have proof!

xplnyrslf said:

and they probably were not even fans

babooshleeky said:

I'm assuming it's something citibank put together for corporate card holders. Probably not Prince freebies. Maybe I should start a forum on "who knows what was in the gift bag??" HA!

xplnyrslf said:

I think YOU should (U mean a thread??)

Our very own SWEET was also on stage dancing. There was another girl that I saw at SUPERSPACEBOYS San Francisco Invasion but I forgot her name. Her and SWEET were dancing on the far left side of the stage. I've seen both on stage before so I'm sure Prince and his peeps recognize them.

M

Yay! I just added the photos!

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

I met Sweet and LadyFunkSoldier also. It was so awesome. Post our pic, Miguel!