7roses said:

mjscarousal said:

Just came back from the show, it was AMAZING OH MY GOD I have never screamed so loud.

post your pics!!!! please?

Thousands turn out for Prince's 'Rally 4 Peace' benefit concert

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http://www.baltimoresun.c...story.html

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By Yvonne Wenger and Wesley Case The Baltimore Sun

3rdeyekitty

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Just got up here in the uk, is the stream still available ?

lrn36 said:

A lot of people here were questioning Prince's motives for this concert or accusing him of being tone deaf. But it seems like he put all that to rest. The show was simply a place for people relax, enjoy and reinvigorate themselves.

[img:$uid]http://i59.tinypic.com/ngy4p0.jpg[/img:$uid]

.https://www.flickr.com/ph...0281710054

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[Edited 5/11/15 4:35am]

[img:$uid]http://i60.tinypic.com/eb23jt.jpg[/img:$uid]

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Prince turns from recluse to healer in Baltimore rally

• Shaun Tandon, AFP

2.5 hours? Nice!

7roses said:

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Prince turns from recluse to healer in Baltimore rally

• Shaun Tandon, AFP

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-prince-turns-from-recluse-to-healer-in-baltimore-rally-2015-5#ixzz3Zohlk3fv

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Baltimore (AFP) - Prince, the famously withdrawn and eccentric pop superstar, refashioned himself as a community healer as he led a peace concert in Baltimore...

Review: Prince, in Baltimore, Nods to Unrest in Song and Asides

By BEN RATLIFF MAY 11, 2015

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http://www.nytimes.com/20....html?_r=0

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BALTIMORE — “You look around, and the system is broken,” Prince said about two hours into his “Rally 4 Peace” concert at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore on Sunday night.

“It’s gonna take the young people to fix it this time,” he continued. “We need new ideas, new life. Most of all, we need new peace.

And the kind of peace I’m talking about is spelled p-i-e-c-e. Next time I come to Baltimore, I want to stay in a hotel owned by one of you.”....

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Was the concert sold out?? Good attendance??

feeluupp said:

Was the concert sold out?? Good attendance??

Looks like it was sold out (14,000 seats) according to several news sources.

http://baltimore.cbslocal...rms-arena/

viol8r said:

From The Guardian....

http://www.theguardian.co...gray-death

Baltimore
Prince in Baltimore: a chance to heal for a city riven by unrest

Musician’s intimate concert gives residents a boost after weeks of protests following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody


Raya Jalabi in Baltimore
@rayajalabi

Monday 11 May 2015 05.14 EDT
Last modified on Monday 11 May 2015 08.08 EDT



“For those who have lost loved ones, we are your servants. We are here for you tonight.”

It didn’t take much for Prince to win over the crowd of thousands in Baltimore, who showed up at the singer’s last-minute Rally 4 Peace concert. After all, many in the audience had turned up out of ardent devotion to their favourite artist. But with those two sentences, he may have sealed his position as one of Baltimore’s most exalted guests.

Prince was an hour late when he took to the stage at the nearly sold-out show a week after the end of the 10pm curfew imposed on the city following protests over the death of Freddie Gray.

Dressed in grey as a tribute to the 25-year-old who died in police custody, Prince’s presence was revealed to the thousands-strong crowd at Baltimore’s Royal Farms arena with the fall of a purple curtain and the first licks of a guitar.

“It’s gonna be OK, Baltimore,” the singer told the audience before jumping into a set full of crowd-pleasers, guitar solos and political statements.

The evening started off with an announcer telling the audience to put away their phones as what would happen on the stage “would be too big for you to capture”. In many ways, she was right. The evening was certainly big – with four encores, four guest performers including Miguel, Estelle and Questlove, and a video installation featuring footage from the protests as well as the original music video for Raspberry Beret.

But there was more to it. This felt like the boost the city deserved after weeks of unrest, in which nearly 150 vehicles were set on fire and at least 15 buildings were burned in a single night last month. Billed as an opportunity to heal – a “catalyst for pause and reflection” – every effort was made to make this a memorable evening for the citizens of a city wracked with protests and heartbreak in the wake of Gray’s death.

John Krakauer, a resident, said: “There’s so much more to Baltimore than just protests and riots … Concerts like this, and peaceful protests – that’s how the city really feels.”

Adrienne Alexander, from Maryland, saw the concert as an opportunity for the city to come together. “Fans may have been out there protesting, rioting, expressing their anger on the streets – but here this is a way to channel that into peace.”

The concert also had a intimacy that belied the numbers in the crowd. Maybe it was Prince’s personalised dedications to the city and the love he professed to feel in the room; or maybe it was because he had returned to Baltimore to perform for the first time in 14 years – but there was a palpable sense of excitement and hope that filled the arena.

The singer was joined on stage by Gray’s parents and Marilyn Mosby, the Baltimore chief prosecutor who announced charges against six police officers in relation to Gray’s death. The move was immediately seized upon by critics of Mosby – whose profile has sky-rocketed since 1 May when she announced the charges – who accused her of a conflict of interest by appearing on stage. The six officers have since asked Mosby to recuse herself from the case. But this did not seem to matter to the audience, who saved one of their loudest cheers for Mosby and her husband, Nick, whom Prince hugged and brought to centre-stage.

"The system is broken. It’s going to take the young people to fix it this time"
Prince

Also there were Lesley McFadden, the mother of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot dead last August, and Esaw Garner, whose husband Eric died last year after a police officer held him in a chokehold.

Many followed Prince’s call for everyone to wear grey. Concertgoers wore T-shirts with slogans in support of Gray or the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Despite the recent wave of discord, the audience was overwhelmingly joyful, dancing and singing along to classics like Little Red Corvette, 1999 and The Beautiful Ones.

After a rousing performance of Raspberry Beret, Prince eased into Baltimore, the song he wrote in tribute to Gray and other victims of police brutality. Prince told the crowd that this was their song. Its lyrics include the lines: “Does anybody hear us pray? /For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray?”

Krakauer said it was also important to view the concert within the prism of Prince’s politics. “Prince is such a superstar that people forget he’s black and forget that he cares about black America,” said Krakauer, a neurologist and professor at the city’s Johns Hopkins University. “He’s doing this because he’s fed up with how black Americans are being treated.” It is a sentiment Krakauer said is echoed by Baltimore residents, who are fed-up with rampant inequality in their city.

When Prince first announced the concert, there were mixed reactions from residents and activists, some of whom were concerned that ticket prices (ranging between $22-$497) would prevent the concert from reaching people in the community most affected by recent protests. But the first hour was streamed for free on Tidal – Jay-Z’s latest music enterprise. According to activists, Prince also had about 170 people moved from the arena’s $22 seats to the front row.

Prince has said that a portion of the tickets sales will be donated to Baltimore youth charities, but it is not yet clear how much. Tidal committed to match funds donated through its website to the Baltimore Justice Fund.

Three near-acoustic encores and several refrains of No Curfew later, Prince tried closing the evening with a rousing and emotional performance of Purple Rain with Estelle. During a deliberate lull in the song, the singer made his most overt statement of the evening, linking the recent spate of unrest with the lack of economic opportunities for African Americans in the city.

“The system is broken. It’s going to take the young people to fix it this time,” he said. “We need new ideas, new life. … Next time I come to Baltimore, I want to stay at a hotel owned by one of you. I want to get out the airport in a car service owned by one of you. I want to play in an arena owned by one of you.”

After more chants of No Curfew by the crowd, Prince made one last return to the stage before the evening was through. Asking the audience to take out their phones and light up the arena, the singer said: “Tonight, there’s nothing greater than you and me, Baltimore.”

Bambi82 said:

feeluupp said:

Was the concert sold out?? Good attendance??

Looks like it was sold out (14,000 seats) according to several news sources.

http://baltimore.cbslocal...rms-arena/

Awesome. And people here were saying Prince can't sell out arenas anymore... With only 5 days notice he still packs in the crowds.

limoncello said:

Is this for real?

deray mckesson ‏@deray 12m12 minutes ago

And Prince moved the people who bought the $22 tickets from the top of he venue to directly in front of the stage. Awesome.

Guess we know why those big chunks of stage-front tix were blocked.

Yup it's true. My friend bought $22 tickets and ended up right in the pit and he walked right down in the pit.

Sounds like it was a huge success.

Being unable to stream it live, I hope the video is somehow viewable later.

Prince bent his own rules this time, allowing it to be streamed, so if its offered for download I'd be buying.

It's been really refreshing to hear pretty much unanimous praise for something that Prince has done. It's very hard to criticise somehthing like this. I missed the live broadcast as im in the UK so I'm really hoping that we'll be able to listen to it one way or another. I'm sort of regretting not getting up now

This makes me positively leap for joy and HOPE. That Prince lead the way is just an indescribably (sp) happy feeling!

Thank you Prince for shining the funky light

[Edited 5/11/15 6:42am]

kok said:

viol8r said:

me too

PLEASE...PLEASE....with my delightfully quirky Mom for Mother's Day and then with a friend who suddenly lost her beloved young husband I didn't see the or hear the live concert!! Could you bless me....please does anyone know when or if their is a re-airing!?! ... I've tried Tidal.com all night and I can't seem to get any sdditional information ...Thanks your love4oneanother would greatly appreciated!! ...but I Praise The Lord for all of you who were blessed to be there in person to experience this extraordinary benefit for peace .and those who were blessed to hear it and see it Tidal.com ...Thank you Prince and.Jay Z ...may the families of all be blessed move forward in peace maybe find answersand blessed to experience it live or on radio may peace be with us all [Edited 5/11/15 5:40am] [Edited 5/11/15 5:42am]

Deleted - langebleu - moderator

Kysmet said:

limoncello said:

Is this for real?

deray mckesson ‏@deray 12m12 minutes ago

And Prince moved the people who bought the $22 tickets from the top of he venue to directly in front of the stage. Awesome.

Guess we know why those big chunks of stage-front tix were blocked.

Yup it's true. My friend bought $22 tickets and ended up right in the pit and he walked right down in the pit.

So awesome. Really glad to hear it.

babynoz said:

dsapp said:

ejnbmore said:

dsapp said:

For those of you there, are there lots of empty seats? The arena holds 14,000, right?

Great attendance almost a sell out I'd say.

According to Prince Vault:

13,641 / 14,000

Was listening to the stream at lunch break, not a bad show. Just need to hear the complete show now!