Mentions the aftershow...but they forget to talk about the girl in the balcony who yelled "have sex with me!!!"


http://www.canada.com/ott...F8E05BD52}

Prince show was no greatest-hits revue
The Purple One holds surprise after-hours jam at Carleton U.


The Ottawa Citizen


Tuesday, June 18, 2002

On the first few dates of Prince's current tour, Canadian audiences had little idea of what to expect. They dug into their pockets anyway, but many were baffled by the Artist's new material.

"Is he going to play anything I'm going to recognize?" asked one concertgoer in Calgary earlier this month. She and her friend wanted hits, and they left early when there was only one familiar song in the first hour.

But by the time Prince's One Nite Alone excursion stopped at the National Arts Centre Sunday -- the second last date on the nine-city tour, and his first appearance in the nation's capital -- most people in the near-capacity audience seemed prepared for what wasn't going to be a greatest-hits show.

But he was still full of surprises: The biggest one Sunday was that Prince and his band continued their jamming for a small group of fans at a Carleton University pub after the concert.

Back at the NAC, it was an unusually boisterous crowd. At $100 and $150 for a ticket, they were darned determined to enjoy themselves. Fans were on their feet cheering before Prince came on stage -- calling for him even before the house lights went down.

For a few songs, it looked like they might be on their feet all night. Throughout the show, they danced, clapped, sang, waved their hands, lit up flashlights and lighters and shouted out their love at inappropriate moments.

"I love you, Prince," yelled one deep, male voice during a quiet interlude late in the performance, while Prince was alone at the piano. People laughed, and the Artist paused."Hey, I don't mind," he said. "I take the love any way it comes."

Love was definitely in the air between Prince and his Ottawa fans, but the Minnesota native made sure some of it was diverted toward his band, too. Saxman Maceo Parker, a James Brown alumnus, was the evening's co-star, launching the proceedings with a solo that he began at the back of the hall, continued down the aisle to the stage, and finally joining the band for a full-out jam on Rainbow Children, the title track from Prince's latest disc.

"Y'all don't mind if I play my guitar?" Prince teased during this warm-up session. Moving with the compact grace of a dancer, he was a sharp-dressed dude in his mauve suit and white shirt unbuttoned to the chest, the points of his collar standing at attention. So effortless was his playing that he seemed to become one with his instruments -- electric guitar or piano.

His band was a dream, and exceptionally well-rehearsed after squeezing some extra, between-show practice time in Hamilton last week. They were pros who followed every command from their little boss, but were also individually talented, each member able to take off in unexpected directions during solos. Keyboardist Renato Neto and drummer John Blackwell were particularly impressive.

At first, the set list looked much the same as his performances in other cities, including Muse 2 The Pharaoh, Mellow, Joni Mitchell's A Case of You and a blistering workout on the funk spectacle 1+1+1 is 3. Lights on so Prince could see into the audience, fans danced like it was 1999. The star picked seven lucky ones from the front rows to boogie on stage with him.

"We gonna treat it like the weekend tonight," Prince declared during the action-packed jam. "I don't care what you gotta do tomorrow."

But then he veered from other versions of his show to include some blues, some Sly and the Family Stone (with special guest, Family Stone original Larry Graham on bass), and James Taylor. His You Got A Friend transformed the easy-listening ballad into a crowd-pleasing spiritual.

And The Purple One did play some 1980s hits after all, including When You Were Mine, Take Me With U and Raspberry Beret, although the old material sounded simplistic and dated beside his newly evolved style.

As an encore, the gospel-drenched Purple Rain fared better, complete with a sermon on how we have to learn to live more harmoniously.

"Let's pretend we're the only people on the planet, just for a short time," he said. "Let's get everyone to agree to harmonize."

It became clear that he meant coming together in the sense of worshipping God, but the crowd responded to his cue by raising their voices on the "ooh, ooh's" in Purple Rain.

Prince's concerts have become celebrations of his artistic freedom. As an independent artist, unencumbered by the expectations of the music industry, he's free to combine blues, funk, jazz, rock and soul in his concerts, and free to express his sometimes convoluted views, from his revisionist idea that Abraham Lincoln was a racist, to his position that we'd all be better off if we called God by the same name.

And two-and-a-half hours wasn't enough for him to express himself musically in Ottawa. The artist organized an after-show party at Oliver's Pub at Carleton University, where about 250 fans were treated to two more sets of Prince and his band, at an extra charge of $30 a head.

The entourage showed up around 1 a.m. and played about 90 minutes of jazz, funk and rock -- including a cover of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. It was an "incredible" show, said Trevor Carson, 22, a commerce student at Carleton and member of the university's Students' Association.

For a superstar who's supposedly so reclusive, Prince was funny and charming in concert, and astoundingly generous with his music.

He can come back anytime.

© Copyright

Cool. Thank you very much

nice

Damn. Ottawa was lucky. Toronto's afterparty was total crap. Just a loud place, with drunk rude people dancing into you.

No setlist for the Ottawa aftershow? Canada orgers suck.

divo02 said:

What did I tell ya?

bkw - lol

bkw said: