Cleveland Concert & Soundcheck

Soundcheck: As we entered for the soundcheck Prince was running thru Strange Relationship. I sat down in the fourth row from the stage. I remember Prince telling us that Maceo, nor Candy would be performing at this concert. But we did have Najee performing tonight. While Prince practiced with the band a few questions and comments were asked by the NPGMC members.

I didn't hear the question but I did hear Prince's response. He said back in the day I would have said Yo Mama, but I'm trying to clean that up.

Someone asked why John was seated behind plexi glass and Prince replied Breath. It was 2 funny.

Someone asked Prince if Batman was his superhero and Prince said that he never had any superheros. That led to Prince telling us about the soundtrack for the Batman movie. He told us that half was to be recorded by him and the other half to be recorded by Michael Jackson. At that point someone asked him if there was any problem between him and Michael. Prince replied, no that he has Michael's telephone number and that they have spoken together. So it's all good between the two. [icon_smile.gif]

At one point Prince made the comment, she just came from Hawaii. I didn't realize that he was speaking to me even though he seemed to be looking towards me. So I look around and psychodelicide whispered he's talking to you. I guess I forgot about the white fringe loopy boa I had around my neck. It resembled a Hawaiian lei, and it hit me about 3 seconds later. It was really a cute,clever comment. I was trying to take it off to give it to him. I think I uttered the words, Do U want it? I meant the lei, and then I thought that just didn't sound right at all. LOL I thought it would like good with one of his jackets. Anyways I think I was a bit embarrassed and said that's not what I mean and scrapped my original idea. LOL

Concert: Prince performed an absolutely amazing concert. I won't post the set list because that has already been done.
His voice was absoulutely heavenly, and the band was tight.
I was in front of the speakers and before the show started I thought to myself, that octopus on crack is gonna kill me with the sound of the drums comming thru the speakers. To my surprise it didn't bother me at all. It sounded perfect , not too loud at all.

Prince asked a few people the question are you a leader or a follower. A woman replied leader, a man replied follower and Prince told him to follow him up to the stage. Prince led him to a grouping of pillows and had him sit down to enjoy the next song. Prince asked the man, can I get you anything, a beverage,soda. It was so cute. [icon_smile.gif]

I do remember at one point when Prince decided to sit down and relax on another grouping of pillows on the stage. I was thinking that looks really comfortable, more comfortable than the tiny chairs we were sitting in. 4 real! lol

Prince asked people their last names and then asked if he could change them to Rosemblum and Lynch. The sister in my row didn't look to thrilled about having her name changed to lynch. To which Prince said I feel U. Prince is the only man I know that can incorporate powerful,meaninful messages in his concerts with a diverse crowd and the crowd being very receptive to it. I didn't hear any negative comments about it, but it does make a good illustration of race and how people have been looked at,treated,seperated all these years.

Towards the end of the concert Prince asked the crowd have you ever lost someone that you loved. He said did you tell them everything you wanted to say to them. I started thinking about Prince loosing both of his parents so recently and I started to cry. Even as I type this my eyes are tearing. It just hit me so hard. I thank God that I still have my loved ones with me, that I haven't lost any of them yet. My mom tells me she loves me at least twice a day and I know that I need to tell her more than I do that I love her. I know my mom knows that I love her, but I need to tell her more. So today I'm gonna tell her how lucky I am to have her as my mother and that I blessed to have been born to her.

Prince was saying that we live in a troubled world, and of course he said we know this. Seriously, I think Prince is on point with TRC and it all boils down to we, The Rainbow Children loving one another. One day we are going to leave this earth, but we will be entering another dimension. When we do, I hope we will all be able to say that we lived the best life we could according to how God wants us to live. Peace and much love 2 all.

Great review, 7kisses! It was funny when Prince made that comment about you just coming back from Hawaii, because you didn't even know that he was talking to you -- lol!! I think he probably looked your way because I was hollering out for him to play "Everywhere", since that is my favorite track off TRC (I absolutely love that song!). When he looked at me, he looked at you sitting right next to me and noticed the white lei around your neck, and that was when he made that comment -- too cute! It wasn't until I laughed and said, "He's talking to you", and kind of shook the lei that was around your neck that you realized what was happening.

What a great concert, huh? Totally blew me away, just as other people told me it would. I was seated in the fourth row right behind the big tower of speakers on the far left of the stage,which made it hard for me to see Prince when he was seated at the piano. That was the only thing that I would have changed about the concert, being seated without anything blocking my view. Other than that,the concert was great! I'm still high on adrenaline from it, it's 5:00 in the morning and I'm still up (and I have to go to work in a few hours -- yikes!). Prince, I hope you come back to Cleveland soon!

I cannot say enough of how much I enjoyed the concert. I was really surprised at how many knew the words to the Rainbow Children. All I can say is AMAZING. But when Prince stopped his band in the middle of the song because a lady in the front was sitting down....I just lost it. Truly amazing. Hopefully we all heard the message in the music and remember.....

That was me that got on stage!! It turns out I was the only NPGMC member that got front row seats. I asked the people around me, 4 won their seats on the radio, 2 somehow managed to buy them friday (apparently those seats were just realeased for sale friday, maybe they had been reserved for a giveaway), and 2 got them becuase they knew someone who I guess works for tickets.com. Those were the ones Prince stopped the song for because they weren't participating. They need to work a way to get these seats for NPGMC members - I was the only one in the front row who even had the Rainbow Children.

alandail said:

Were you the "follower" or the guy with the cow bell?

- Matt C.

MatthewCho said:

The "follower" - I knew that was the answer he wanted from reading other reports.

How cool. I hadn't read that in other reports.

What did you tell Prince on stage?

I was right by him when he walked out to the crowd. Has he done this recently?

Are you from Cleveland?

I was suprised to hear "Purple Rain," although I thought the crowd was much more into "Adore" and a few of his other older non-single tracks. I was looking forward to "Starfish and Coffee" and "Free" but have absolutely no complaints about the setlist whatsoever.

A few obnoxious girls behind me (talked non-stop) stole my CD. How ridiculous considering the overall message of the concert.

Regards,
Matt

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[This message was edited Fri Apr 19 7:48:03 PDT 2002 by luvy]

all i know is, i wanna send a big F-U to the asshole in front of me who kept getting up (and climbing over his seat, nonetheless) to get beers, and tripping over his seat and used me and my girlfriend to keep himself propped up. then he started taking pictures, and when security caught him, he started freaking out, screaming, making a total scene. i mean, i was in Row R - seat 207 (15th row, stage right), and this night-at-the-roxbury acting motherfucker was just annoying! i couldn't see the goddamned show. dancing is one thing, but if you're drunk, and can't dance, DON'T FUCKING DANCE. sit.

i am really somewhat upset that they were serving alcohol there, too. i mean, i loves my liquor, but there were plenty of drunks there, and you know what? if this was a metallica concert, thats fine. but this was meant to be an intelligent, laid-back kinda show. why spend $125 a ticket to go and get so drunk that you won't remember the show? save the money, get drunk at home, and listen to Hits 1/Hits 2. save us all the aggravation.

Wow Sleazy I'm so sorry U had to experience that. I can totally feel what U are saying. When I saw Prince at CSU a few years ago, I had seats on the main floor. The chairs move and the people in front of us were drinking beer non-stop. While they were drinking it they were dancing spilling the beer all over the floor which spilled back by my seat and my shoes. Then the guy kept knocking the row of chairs into my legs. I was getting a bit pissed off, excuse me. I wanted to let this guy have it. I think I pushed the entire row of chairs into him at one point because I had no place to stand. Then he finally turned around and appologized. I accepted his appology, but I told him to please stop doing that and I didn't appreciate his behavior. I found out that this guy had won the tickets from a radio station, which for some reason made me more upset. I've had a lot of negative experiences at Prince's concerts due to concet goers that have NO friggin' manners and can easily spoil your enjoyement of the concert.

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[This message was edited Fri Apr 19 7:47:37 PDT 2002 by luvy]

hey sleazy: was that guy taking pictures the one who was acting like a total jerk and kept telling people he was a journalist, and then tried to pass his camera to someone else? a journalist with no credentials and no notepad or anything. yeahhh. ahem. what a scene!

OMG Sleazy and Luvy, I'm sorry to hear about your unpleasant experiences. I hate it when other people ruin it for you at a Prince concert when you're there to have a good time and enjoy yourself.

I had an unpleasant experience at a concert once, I believe it was back in 1997. I was supposed to meet my friend from Detroit at a Prince concert in a suburb of Detroit. I sent her the money for my ticket Western Union, and she bought the ticket and had them held it for me at the box office for pickup. I get to the concert, park my car, then practically get hit twice by people driving in the parking lot.

I was supposed to meet my friend at the concert venue, but we never really discussed a meeting place, which in retrospect was dumb, because we didn't know where to find each other. My friend did tell me that she was going to have balloons and told me what color they were going to be. So I'm looking all over for these balloons, but don't see them anywhere. I see someone with balloons, but they're not the color that my friend said that they were going to be. So I wind up standing in the walkway, which separates the seats in the pavillion from the lawnseats, still trying to find my friend, which is hard because there were so many people there (the place was packed!).

To make matters worse, there were security guards everywhere, and they were very very nasty!!! They told us to sit on top of the hill instead of standing in the walkway (which I was not about to do, since I paid so much money for my ticket!). So I continue to stand in the walkway, and then the security guards are telling us that we need to stand behind the line that is painted on the walkway. LOL - how degrading, it was like being in school again and being given orders by the teacher or your principal. The one security guard was young, but she was a real pain in the neck, barking orders at people and just being nasty. Some people got mad at her attitude and left, and I should have done the same, but I kept standing where I was.

What was funny was that every time this security guard walked away, people would sneak up behind the last row of seats in the pavillion to watch the show. So I started sneaking up there as well, and wouldn't you know, as soon as I do,that witch comes back and tells us to move back behind the line. I move back, and then as soon as she leaves, she sees people standing there and again tells us to move back. I get irritated with her at this point and salute at her just to be sarcastic, because I'm sick of being treated like a little kid She sees me doing this and says something to the effect of, "What are you doing? You know you're not supposed to be up there!" At this point, I snap, and I look at her and say, "Shut up!!" and walk away from her, totally angry.

They had monitors up over the stage where you could watch the concert, so I decide to just kind of catch the concert from there, since I have missed most of the show at this point. I'm standing there trying to watch the show, and this same security guard comes over to me and says something. Now I'm not sure what she said, but I think she said something about if I didn't watch my attitude I would be escorted from the property -- rofl!!!!! I ignore her and don't say a word, I just move into a crowd of people and stand there. I glance back at her and she is still running her mouth, who the heck knows what it was, I wasn't going to get into it anymore with her at this point.

So that is my story. I can laugh at it now, but when it happened, I was totally upset because nothing worked out right. I never did hook up with my friend, I drove three hours to get to the concert venue and never did get a seat that was decent, I missed almost all of the concert, plus I had that witch to contend with. I was so upset that I cried the whole way back to Cleveland (literally!). What a friggin nightmare!! I hope I never have to go thru that again!

Well, I only shared this with Luvy and Psychodelicide but since Luvy told what happended to her I guess I'll tell the the small part I left out at the Cleveland ONA show.

It was at the end of the evening and I walked over to the merchandise table to purchase a tourbook. There was a woman and man behind the table selling tourbooks. The woman said to me, "I can help you." Well, it was the way she looked me up and down and smiled as she said you(sort of seductively). All I wanted was the tourbook, not that extra smile and her trying her best to come on to me. Must have been that boa that looked like a lei around my neck,but then again I did look good.

Okay, here are some POSITIVE memories from the recent Prince concert in Cleveland on March 10th. (Trying to steer this thread back in a positive direction, since we all know that Prince reads what we post here).

1. Prince's congeniality and willingness at the soundcheck to answer any and all questions that people asked him. He really is a great guy and has a wonderful sense of humor, something that a lot of people are not even aware of.

2. At the soundcheck, when Prince told people if they were going to come up on stage, to do so at their own risk. He then imitated someone losing their balance on stage -- too funny! The reason why he told us that was because he said that he had no insurance.

3. Prince playing and singing Calhoun Square at the soundcheck. He brought the house down, the Palace was rocking!! Had me singing the song even after it was finished. I couldn't get that song out of my head.

4. At the beginning of the concert, during "Rainbow Children", when Prince sat down on the edge of the stage and played that amazing guitar solo. Wow! He plays that guitar with such passion, he looks like he's making love to it (no offense Prince). You can tell by watching Prince onstage that he really enjoys being a performer and that he loves what he does.

5. Prince made eye contact with me several times during the show. An embarrassing moment was when Prince was on the side of the stage right in front of me, playing his guitar, and I'm in the audience dancing and playing air guitar. I happen to look up and see Prince looking right at me. Needless to say, I felt shy and stopped doing that as soon as I realized he was watching me. Pretty funny!

6. Singing along to the music and dancing until I my feet were sore, but feeling very happy to be watching the greatest performer ever!

There were other favorite moments as well, but they were already mentioned by other posters, and I'm trying to be original and to not copy what other people have already said. I'm ready to go see Prince again, once is never enough! Seeing Prince in concert is like eating your favorite foods, you can never get enough. I am seriously considering, at this point, to see him in Pittburgh, if there is a show. I have been feeling a little sad since the concert ended, I can't believe it is over already! I'm ready to go and do it all again, and to experience all the joy that I felt at the Cleveland concert once again.

I love you Prince!!

Yeah, that was pretty disgusting, 7kisses. I've had other women come on to me before, and it never is a good feeling.

oneYes, thats exactly what happened. you see it too?

sleazy: yeah, it was pretty ridiculous. i've never seen somebody raise so much fuss over something when they KNOW they were doing something they weren't supposed to. There were signs all over the place that no cameras were allowed. At least security caught him. The house security was fierce!

Another Prince memory from the Cleveland concert that I forgot to post earlier: At the soundcheck, when Prince and the band were rehearsing the song "Everlasting Now". When the band played that salsa part of the song, and Prince was standing at the microphone saying, "George, George, George of the jungle". Made me laugh, because that music does sound like the same music from that cartoon that was on TV many years ago.

Psych, I was more shocked than anything else when that happended. lol I wasn't expecting that, it came out of the blue and I think I looked like