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Prince concert a homecoming


By ALAN NIESTER
Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - Page A8

Musicology tour

Prince, the Air Canada Centre, last night

In an odd way, the appearance by Prince (a.k.a. The Artist Formerly Known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince) last night at the Air Canada Centre was a sort of a homecoming.

After all, he is still the best-known resident (well, part-time resident) of The Bridle Path, and his latest album Musicology was recorded in Toronto. But while he may not exactly merit Favourite Son status here, (that old Minneapolis connection and all) it was a jubilant full house that greeted him for the first of his two night stint, anyway.

While it's popularly being referred to as the Musicology tour, the official name is the Prince: Musicology Tour: School's In Per4ming His Hits Live 4 The Last Time, an awkward handle, but at least one that gets the point across.

After leading off with the title cut from the new album (incidentally, all concert goers were given copies of the discs as they entered, Prince's gift to offset high ticket prices), Prince and the band immediately broke into a handful of songs from the 20-year-old Purple Rain album. This, of course, ensured a certain amount of crowd hysteria from the outset. Let's Go Crazy, I Would Die 4 You, When Doves Cry and Baby I'm A Star were delivered in machine-gun style, almost as a medley, as the songs or song segments segued into each other.

This was a roaring start, which allowed his magnificent band to strut its stuff right from the outset. About mid-performance, Prince noted: "This is not MTV. There will be no lip-synching on this stage tonight. These are real musicians playing real music."

With a three-piece horn section featuring veterans Maceo Parker (James Brown), Greg Boyer (Parliament-Funkadelic) and Candy Dulfer, this was immediately apparent. The band slid seamlessly from seventies-style funk to roadhouse R&B to nineties dance grooves in the blink of an eye.

Mid-show, after some soloing from Parker (performing a soulful take on Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World) and Renato Neto on synthesizer, Prince appeared on the X-shaped stage (this was a theatre-in-the-round performance) to perform an acoustic solo set.

This was the first time that Prince really connected with the crowd on a personal level. Leading with a slowed-down version of Little Red Corvette, and bracketing the acoustic middle with hits such as Raspberry Beret, Cream and Peach, Prince spent a good 25 minutes or so performing in an intimate, personal and very accessible style. While not referring directly to his own Toronto connection, he did offer up a credible Canadian accent during a blues riff (Telemarketer's Blues?) that he seemed to be making up as he went along.

In classic style, the band returned to finish off the last 40 minutes or so of the concert in much the same way the evening began - with a powerful and very slick approximation of the greatest roadhouse R&B band there ever was.

Prince performs the second of two shows at The Air Canada Centre tonight.