http://www.freep.com/ente...040621.htm

Prince revs up a retro jam session

Energetic artist puts new twist on old hits
June 21, 2004


BY BRIAN MCCOLLUM
FREE PRESS POP MUSIC CRITIC




There are a couple of different ways to revisit the past.

If you're an artist riding on a moldy body of old hits, you can run through the motions as you cash in and get ready to cash out. If, on the other hand, you're somebody like Prince -- clearly enjoying a second wind Sunday night at a capacity Palace of Auburn Hills -- you can wrangle your history and turn it into something still beaming with life.

In the first of four Detroit-area summer shows, including a Palace reprisal tonight, the longtime Motor City fave ran through a 140-minute set stocked with timeless energy. Looking far more engaged than he had in recent visits to the place he likes to call a second hometown, Prince and his eight-piece band provided less of a show made up of a bunch of songs than a bunch of songs twisted together into a show.

Playing on a simple stage in the round, Prince punched in the pizzazz early. "I don't know about ya'll," he told the crowd of about 20,000, "but I've come to jam."

Purple streamers and confetti descended from the Palace rafters, and the band launched into a lithe, lively jam that set the night's mood. Recalling other recent tours, many of the hits were compressed into a medley from bits of "I Would Die 4 U" segueing into a tweaked-up "When Doves Cry."

One reason this "Musicology" tour has garnered ample attention is that Prince has vowed to retire many of the Top 40 songs that made him a superstar two decades ago. If he's honestly intent on letting them go, he's obviously sending them out to pasture with a swift kick in the rump. Picking up licks from across the 20-year spectrum, a positively playful Prince lit into the material with a determined passion -- even when he was stripping it down solo-style ("Little Red Corvette," "Cream," "Raspberry Beret"), lending a bluesy panache to the attack.

With sax man Maceo Parker leading a three-piece horn section, the night's performance was tight but loose, a structure that allowed funky jams to break down into slinky sex ballads. Nobody else in pop history has found such a comfortable spot to work among funk, metal, soul and jazz, and Prince revealed why he earned his laurels long ago.

"We've got to go back," the diminutive star said as the show neared its end. He wasn't just talking about leaving the stage. He was talking about recapturing his past -- and in the process, pointing toward what enticingly lies ahead for an artist who's rarely stopped moving.




Contact BRIAN MCCOLLUM at 313-223-4450 or mccollum@freepress.com.