More like a ramble, cuz it's 7am and I just got in from the HOB aftershow (and my first aftershow experience ever!) and my brain prolly ain't the best at putting together a full review. Certainly some quick-witted attendee will have a full set list, but in the meantime y'all will just have to do with what I can recall:

*The show started at 3:30ish and ended at oh, I'd say 5:15.

*Larry Graham was there, as was Tina with her amazing towel waving talents.

*Chance Howard played bass at one point, and he was really damn good. At one point, Prince grabbed a towel and did a Tina Graham impersonation in front of Chance.

*Prince and the band did The Ride, Bambi, Whole Lotta Love, and a really long long LONG jam-band version of Controversy. They started the show with a couple of Sly songs - "Everyday People" started the show off.

*There were sound issues throughout the show, particularly with the sound on Prince's mic, guitar and keyboard. At one point, in a lovely tantrum reminiscent of ol' cranky Purple Rain Prince, he knocked over his amp and stomped off to the keyboard.

*When Prince brought up people to dance on stage, it was an Orger extravaganza - I'll let the lucky participants ID themselves, but it was a hoot and a half to see 'em shaking their stuff.

*Mike Scott was given a chance to really show out on guitar, and the man is amazing.

*The band did an instrumental version of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition", with Prince on keys.

There's more that can be said about this aftershow - plenty more, in fact - but those are the things my sleep deprived mind can remember at the moment. Now I'm going to hit the sack, and hopefully not have too many disturbing dreams about pizza.







daylight edit
[This message was edited Sun Jul 25 10:30:34 2004 by Anxiety]

sounds interesting. Now i wanna know who made it on-stage

well, all i'm gonna say for starters is that redzryder and incognito had better post on this thread.

Anxiety, you seem pretty accurate on your review!! I really liked the Aftershow, except for one thing. I'm an OLD SCHOOL P fan and I know he is a music legend and all, but I DO NOT LIKE LARRY GRAHAM. I'm just not a fan,sorry folks. Since P began his musical (and spiritual) collaborations with Graham, I just tune out when Graham is around

At the beginning of the show, It seems the crowd was not reacting as much to the Graham songs and such until he played a few good solos and got some props. The die-hard P fans and orgers applauded, but I was just happy when he backed up and Candy played her solos, P's keys, P's guitar solos, John's solos,Renato etc. They rocked. The Ride, Controversy,and Superstition were my favorites.

The show started at 3:30(2 1/2 hours late in typical P fashion), and many fans were booing because the show started so late. Then they came out and played some Larry stuff.. I wanted to boo again.

All in all.. last night was AWESOME!!! Except for a few minor delays and problems.

I know some of you orgers wil jump on me to defend Larry Graham.. I'm sorry but it is just my opinion. With All due respect , Larry is an awesome musician, just not for me.

And his wife really needed to sit down with that towel...IMO
[This message was edited Sun Jul 25 10:46:54 2004 by jamiestarrsgirl]

jamiestarrsgirl said:

lllarry is a legend....he is a one in a million brother....much better bass player and singer than prince

ya know, this is the first time since seeing prince/larry/chaka perform for the today show back in '98 that i've experienced a show w/ larry, and it's my first time encountering the toweluptuous horror of tina graham...and ya know, i'm not saying i'm a big fan of the man or that i think he brings something amazing and crucial to prince's live sets, but i really don't have a problem with larry. i don't see what the big deal is.

he plays a mean bass, he's a walking history book, and watching him play off maceo was kinda amazing to me. could i have done without him being there? sure. did i enjoy it that he was there? yeah. are my feet killing me today? HELL YES.

Anxiety said:

I JUST got the 411 from a friend of those who went on stage, one happens to be the one who unlocked the final key for me being the fan I am now.

Huh.

Well, there was a large crowd of us who were booing through much of the aftershow at Chance Howard's All-Star Bar Band featuring Larry Graham. It felt good to voice our displeasure in this way, although a few of us honestly felt that the stage coulda been pelted with a tomato or two. Surveying the crowd (aside from the NPGMC group in the middle front) there were many, many pissed off faces last night.

I had a great time because of the people I went with, and because of the people I hung out with before and after the main concert, and because the main concert was phenomenal, as always.

That being said, I will absolutely never waste my time and money on another aftershow. I've seen what the man can do....I don't need to hang around a club until 5 a.m. hoping he'll decide to give us a little peek. He didn't even start to play a Prince song until quarter to fucking 5. At some point, it's just not worth it, and I guess I've reached my limit.

bluey, i am there with ya. yeah, at 5am i was salty, lol. but after working all day at the restaurant and telling people about it, i realized one thing: i've seen some great prince performances. i am actually lucky enough to have seen the good ones in order to know these are the bad ones, lol. its all good.

and i'm so f'n glad you came out for this!!!

Sassy, it was one of the best nights of the summer. I need to hang with y'all more often...

theblueangel said:

i'm sayin'!!!

Sounds like a Good show to me . I am Sorry I Couldn't Attend. I LOVE when Prince Does his LATE NIGHT SOIREES cause I"M a VAMPIRE WOMAN. But I WOULD also Be Mad if he Didn't Start playing until nearly 5am and I Was WAITING . Ya Weren't Told Graham and Chance were Gonna Play? Ya Thought it was gonna be 100% Prince? See, I STILL Woulda ENJOYED That Show. But See I Like Larry and Chance as Performers. I Know others just want Prince. Maybe Prince Was Too Tired and Didn't Wanna Cancel .... Remember Prince has a VERY BUSY SCHEDULE and PROBABLY feels EXHAUSTED. He NEEDS to REST a BIT.

Some folks need to quit with all the Larry hatin, get over it, & just enjoy the music & musicians that Prince brings to the table.

i clearly have crappy taste in music, cuz i had a hoot at the aftershow.






ah well, viva la crap!

Anxiety said:

Clearly.






You know that isn't true.

GangstaFam said:

i know, tastes are subjective. still and all, it was a good time and i loved seeing the musicology line-up of the NPG performing in a different setting. i have a hard time with the fact that some folks reacted to it so passionately unfavorable. i really didn't think it was that bad. but then again, there's stuff i hate that some people love, so it's a case of diff'rent strokes, j'suppose...

Anxiety said:

See, I had a rough time at the last Prince show. The sound was WAY too loud, I didn't get to sit anywhere near my family, my head was near exploding, I threw my back out, and I couldn't stop thinking about my Dad the entire time. But I can still concede that it was a brilliant performance. Individual experiences aside, I think it would next to impossible for Prince to all-out suck.

I guess a lot of the disturbance around Larry is due to the fact that nowadays, he only seems to be able to repeat a batch
of about three songs. Sly-songs. I don't know if he stuck around any longer in Chicago, playing on other jams, but I
recall that he could appropriately hold the bottom in the Rave-era. That is his era in the band, so no-one can argue
that he isn't welcome on those songs.

They seem so determined to insist on not letting people forget about the great Larry and the Sly songs, but I think that's
worn out to the level that it's just plain stupid.

Having people pay 75 bucks for a 2,5 hour delayed 1,5 hour show, and then not even hiding one diamond among the beans
is awful craftsmanship. Indeed, it very well could have been billed as the ongoing sidemen-revue.

Oh well, I wasn't there.

Disturbed had a sold out show at House of Blues that was scheduled to start at 8. So I figured people wouldn't be able to start lining up for the Prince aftershow until around 8-8:30. I decided to get to the venue around 9. There were only maybe 10 people there ahead of me. Not bad.

What was strange was that the line was not officially starting until 10pm but we weren't allowed to get our tickets from will-call until 11pm. So a lot of us had to leave the line at 11, travel over to will-call, and then jump back into the line afterwards. Luckily, that all went pretty smoothly. Weird policy though.

Earlier I had heard some people further up in the line talk about holding spaces for their friends who were coming in late from the Allstate show. They had already let a few people in as it was. After 10pm however, Security made sure that people were not allowed to jump the line. I'm glad for that.

This was my first Prince Aftershow and my 5th Prince concert in general. I'm a fan but a casual one, not to the level of some of the other people who were at the show. I overheard people discussing whether Prince had on underwear at Allstate the night before, his hairstyles over the years and stuff like that. I thought to myself, WHATEVER. And hoped the doors would open sooner rather than later.

There was a mad bum rush to get up the steps into the concert hall once everyone had shown ID and been padded down by Security (they had men on the left and women on the right, "against the wall"). Next, they told us to split into 4 lines, which allowed me to ease my way closer to the front, but then for some dumb reason all 4 lines merged into one as you got up a few steps to the woman who was scanning tickets. I'm pretty sure more than a few people got trampled in the rush.

I made it up the steps and in a mad dash, staked out a spot on the front row. There was a padded barricade setup, which is something I had never seen before at any of the many shows I have been to at House of Blues.

From then it was all a matter of waiting. 9...10...11....12....1....2.... finally 3am

Oh I forgot to mention, around 2am the curtain mistakenly opened to a naked stage. Major faux pas that. Only served to make the masses more restless than we already were.

I'd had a light beer for $6. They were selling small bottles of water for $5 each. I was hoping the show would start soon cuz I knew I would have to go pee within a few hours, and I didn't wanna give up my spot.

ANyway, finally the show started at 3 and I had a great time. One thing that stuck out to me was the woman with the towel fanning Larry Graham. I now know she is his wife, but at the time I was like, who is this woman and why is she out here with that towel?? It was like a Sandman moment, if anyone remembers Sandman from Showtime at the Appollo, who only would come out to force people to get offstage. Except this lady didnt get Larry offstage. She was just there. It was very odd.

That's all for now. I may post more comments later...
[This message was edited Mon Jul 26 8:14:27 2004 by boukie69]

JesseJohnson said:

larry is more than likely a better bass player than prince. but what would possess you to say that he is a better singer. larry has such a limited range. he's got great style and i like his technique, but p is the better singer easily.

larry ain't a better singer than prince. i would put money on the probability that even mr. graham would tell ya that.

pretty mean on the bass, though - obviously a huge influence on p's own playing.

deMatthijs said:

without reading farther, without asking anyone at all for details lemme guess which two songs mr larry graham played:

thank you for letting me be myself again and everyday people.


am i right or am i right?

he's been playing these whenever he's onstage around prince since 1997, and he hasn't changed the menu once since then. i remember back at the jam of the year tour, when graham opened for prince and played those two songs i thought it was great! fantastic. i actually cheered the guy on!

little did i know larry'd still be playing the exact same two songs seven years later

THIS is why the fans 'hate' larry graham. IF HE'D PLAY NEW MUSIC PEOPLE MIGHT LIKE SEEING HIM

eldog98 said:

Larry's bass playing was off the chain.

boukie69 said:

this is the infamous tina graham. she does that at concerts whenever larry is onstage and, as you probably know, mystifies the audience each and every time with her uncontrolled antics

it's amazing that they allow her to do this - but it's larry and prince's show after all and i guess they think she's funky. imo she brings down the vibe and sort of makes a mockery of the shows prince USED to do with sparkling, brilliant stage moves. and now? tina graham?


ah well.

sounds like y'sall had a blast. maybe i should have popped down from mpls.. ... naw.

XxAxX said:

...how'd ya guess?

Ya know, to be really honest, I think much of the reason I had such a positive reaction to the aftershow was because it was my first experience at one. I've read about 'em for years, and for one reason or another, the opportunity to go to one has always eluded me...until last weekend.

I wanted the full experience...and I feel like I got it. I wanted to wait for hours, cuz from all I've read and heard, that's part of the experience. It might sound terribly masochistic, but I wanted to know what it felt like to be three blinks from falling over from fatigue before the show even thinks about starting, and by cracky, that's what I got! I wanted a show with ragged edges, because even though I've loved every Musicology show I've been to, they're so polished and perfect that it was a relief to see the band grooving out and not playing like the stakes are as high (and I'm sure to other people, this smacks of a negligent and irresponsible attitude).

I wanted to enjoy the vibe with the people I know from the Org and the club and the Berlin nights, and they were all around me, and up on stage dancing. I wanted to walk outside of a Prince show and see the sun come up, and I finally got to experience that weird, wonderful, off-kilter moment.

So other people weren't happy with the night for whatever reasons that are of course completely valid for them, and maybe if I'd been to aftershows in the past, I might also have the luxury of being picky enough to discriminate between a "Cafe de Paris" and a tin-pan alley flea circus. But my green lil' inexperienced ass doesn't know from seeing aftershows, so I loved what I got. And yeah, people were booing and there were evil drunk drama queen bitches trying to start shit all around me, and there were a few folks in my corner of the throngs who simply Did Not Know How To Behave...but ya know what? I didn't pay to see or hear them, so I didn't really let any wafts of that fart-like energy seep in. It was about Prince and the band, the friends around me, and having a good time.

Will I go to another aftershow in the future? You bet your disposable lawn chair and orthopedic shoe inserts I will.

Anxiety said:

Hey Anx!! Sorry, I just woke up... and I'm STILL Tired!!

P wore me OUT!! From Thursday night through Sunday morning, The Man WORE ME OUT!!

Okay... let's talk about the aftershow! I know a lot of people had major problems it. The really late start time, the waiting, the standing, the crowded room... all the things that I have come to expect at a P aftershow. Not the best situation to deal with yet, all Prince fans should know that these negatives are also GIVENS... YOU have to be the one to decide if you can deal with it. And if you decide that you want to be on the front line and be exposed firsthand to all the fabulousness that is Prince and feel his energy, there's definitely a price to pay! Yes, I was mad tired but as soon as the brotha hit the stage, all the negatives become moot and I was re-energized!!

Another reviewer of the show who was not too happy about it said that Prince seemed uninspired. I NEVER got that impression!! If you were as close as I was, you could see in his face that he was ready to PLAY!!! He was all smiles and expressions! His band was TITE, he knew it and he wanted us to know it too!! The only problem was when he was ready to play his guitar, he couldn't because of a malfunctioning amp! P got so ticked off that he angrily threw down his guitar and knocked the amp to the floor !! I was intrigued!! It was GREAT to see him lose it like that! You would've thought that somebody's head was gonna roll after that , yet the smile never left his face!

I was the 3rd dancer he picked to come onstage... that vantage point was awesome! Seeing the wave of people and having to keep moving out of P's way every time he hopped and/or skipped in my direction was priceless!

Even though I don't have a problem with Uncle Larry, I think that if the amp hadn't malfunctioned, P would've played more guitar and we probably would've gotten more of just him rather than Larry, Chance and the other bandmembers however, I'm cool with and love seeing all of them!

I know a lot of people sh*t on this aftershow. But from my perspective and to paraphrase one of the songs he played, I Had A Whole Lotta Fun!!

Big ups and much love goes out to my Chi-Town NPG Music Club Members and Berlin Clubheads: Anxiety, Incognito, Karla, Leighsa (thanks for that cool picture on the NPGMC site!), CDaryl, Elo, Maiya, crowd stopper Marcus, Dre & Motley and the one New Yorker in the house, Tonia (I flew out for Club Black and you flew out for HOB... I say we must bleed Purple)!! And lastly, a special slice of love goes out to my hearts April, Ree-Ree and Rammer for making a long night also a Beautiful Night (y'all say!)

[Apparent accidental duplicate post snipped. --Matt]
[This message was edited Tue Aug 3 2:02:25 2004 by matt]

Anxiety said:

i'm glad you had fun. in the end, that's what it's all about