http://www.philly.com/mld...472.htm?1c

Posted on Mon, Aug. 23, 2004

Music Review



Review | Prince succeeds in his mission

By Tom Moon

Inquirer Music Critic



"Right about now we need to do some shout-outs,” Prince told the capacity crowd in the middle of his show yesterday at the Wachovia Center, during a rare moment when the music wasn't roaring. “I'd like to shout out to all the lip-syncers ... NOT!” he said with a grin, to loud applause. “I'd like to shout out to MTV ... NOT!” “Like to shout out to radio ... NOT."

Finally the Minneapolis multi-instrumentalist and singer shouted for “real musicianship,” the endangered aesthetic he'd poured considerable energy into reviving all night long. This time he meant it, and to underscore his point, trombonist Greg Boyer and alto saxophonist Maceo Parker appeared by his side wearing caps and gowns, playing a sassy little horn phrase that dipped and swerved as if it had been cribbed from Louis Jordan's jump-blues playbook.

The message was clear: Prince is not happy with the status quo. This decorated veteran and new inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who's fought his share of battles with radio, MTV and large corporations, sees his current tour as an ideological mission, a door-to-door crusade to rescue core musical values he believes have lately been trampled in the pursuit of heavily marketed hits.

No individual on the planet is better equipped to make this point.

Yesterday's whiplash-intense performance - the first of a three-night run that ends with a show tomorrow night, for which some tickets are still available - was a striking contrast to typical pop-concert fare, those exercises in poseur pageantry in which the stars look super-fine, but lack the basic musical skills.

For more than two hours, Prince tripped back through his catalog, a trove of pop hits, funk curiosities and psychedelic experiments that in terms of sheer invention has no equal in recent pop history. Much of the show was done medley-style, with brief renditions of old favorites knit into a seamless assault: An early high-speed chase through material from Purple Rain pushed “Let's Go Crazy” into a jittery electronic “I Would Die 4 U” into “When Doves Cry” into a stunning new groove for “Baby I'm a Star."

The diminutive star sang with impressive flexibility - on several selections, including the pirouetting ballad “Adore,” his falsetto ad-libs were more elaborate, and more thrillingly demanding, than those on the original recordings. He routinely made the guitar talk, and sometimes what it said amounted to a dissertation on rock axemen as cliche peddlers. On Led Zeppelin's “Whole Lotta Love,” one of several bold covers sprinkled throughout the show, Prince transformed the undulating rhythm into a writhing, hypnotic journey that was equal parts spacey Brit-rock mysticism and relentlessly melodic post-Hendrix virtuosity.

First appearing in a natty suit that was black on his right side and white on his left, Prince hit the stage - which was configured like a plus sign in the center of the arena floor, with four ramps for cavorting - in a whirl of motion, and didn't let up for nearly an hour. He elongated the form of “When Doves Cry” to accommodate a new dance routine, which found him pantomiming a la Charlie Chaplin one minute and moving with robotic precision the next. He did his usual conductor thing, shouting to the band for stop-time sections and using commands like “kick drum” to build grooves from quietude to utter frenzy that kept the crowd in motion for virtually the entire show. Wiggling as if his spine were spaghetti, he made a James Brown medley (which included “Shake Your Money Maker” and “Pass the Peas") into a physical tour de force, with each move catching and celebrating a different syncopation.

There were many highlights -- the obligatory encore “Purple Rain,” the rumbling “Life O the Party” from the current Musicology, a treatment of “I Feel 4 U,” the Prince-penned Chaka Khan hit -- but perhaps the biggest surprise came during an “unplugged” set featuring just Prince and acoustic guitar. First he reimagined “Little Red Corvette” as a coffeehouse meditation. Then he dabbled in a bit of blues that featured a blistering guitar solo, then “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” then he interpreted “Cream,” a minor hit from his 1991 Diamonds and Pearls. This song, which included a mouth-percussion beatbox interlude and a rap about a beat “tight like a rimshot on a new Roots joint,” illustrated the depth of Prince's gift: Even working with material that's clearly in his second-tier, he was clever, uplifting, utterly transfixing.

Early in the evening, Prince made what seemed, at the time, to be a boast: “You are about to witness the tightest show of your life.” By the time he finished, that claim was an accurate assessment of the evening.

Those who have followed Prince through the rocky last decade probably weren't surprised. Because though he's riding a wave of “comeback” media attention, the fact is Prince never stopped performing at this relentless level of energy. He might have leaned too much on Bootsy Collins one-chord vamps during some shows, and been stingy with hits on others, but he never lost either the commitment or that increasingly exotic ability to galvanize listeners with “real musicianship."

"Those who have followed Prince through the rocky last decade"...great article but I disagree with this qoute...I think the past decade was quite fine myself...these people just weren't hip to it...


"Emancipation - free 2 do what I wanna
Emancipation - see U in the purple rain
Emancipation - free 2 do what I wanna
Emancipation - break the chain, break the chain..."

. Then he dabbled in a bit of blues that featured a blistering guitar solo, then “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” then he interpreted “Cream,” a minor hit from his 1991 Diamonds and Pearls.

since when is a #1 song a minor hit..sheesh

meltwithu said:

meltwithu said:

Note to journalists:

Do some research before writing a review.

Minor Hit? , ! I think who ever does these interviews and articles should be a prince fan.. like me for instance, at least the the wording would be correct

Are there any reviews which don't use the epithet: "diminutive" or "despite his 5'2" etc?

wasitgood4u said:

Yeah, I agree. That's way past old.