I'm curious to know what y'all thought about the ATL performances. Post up here. First thought from attending the 1st show was that her 1st single completely misrepresents her. While BL&B is kind of a luke warm, contemporary r&b radio yawn, her stage presentation has an energetic vintage soul revue feel. There's no well known current artist to compare her to. She goes HARD. I appreciate that. For those familiar with Atlanta's local music scene, she's a lotta Christine Horn with a dash of Phillippia. I only wish Tamar had the ability to rock a crowd with original material like a Phillippia. Because I see so many amazing indie soul artists (most recently, The Rebirth from Los Angeles), I realize my standards are high. But an endorsement from Prince will give you high expectations. That was my only disappointment but for what she does, she rocks.

While her covers almost always rocked, her original material just wasn't at all captivating. Luckily, her show was mostly covers. The band rocked. Mike Philips was a fantastic surprise. I enjoyed the impovisational element he brought. He seemed unfamiliar with the songs but took his direction from Prince and killed it. Drums, keys, and of course, guitar were all stellar.

It was fascinating to see Prince play side man for most of the show. Granted, he was obviously the bandleader and mentor, but for much of the show, he humbly played the part of guitarist on the side. When he stepped out front, he always tore sh!t down. He performed Party Man... which happens to be my least favorite song from that album... oh wait, I almost forgot about Arms of Orion. But Electric Chair or The Future would have been my preferred Batman Sdtrk songs. Anotherlover... is an all-time favorite and that performance made my night. Listening to the chatter in the crowd after the show, a lot of people were disappointed. My girlfriend really dug the show (or was trying to make me feel like she did since I spent nearly $150 on tiks. It was her 1st time seeing Prince. It was my 8th time seein' him. For me, it was a good night out but not quite up to expectation. Bruh has set the bar high and last night didn't hit the mark as I'd expect anything with his name attached to do. Guess I'm sayin', fir me, it was really good but not stellar.
[Edited 3/16/06 7:48am]

I enjoyed the show. I also enjoyed her originals and look forward to the cd comming out. Good show, not great. It was so funny to see the dissappointed look from some of vthe attendees that Prince didn't do but two of his songs. I knew that would happend as the radio called it a PRINCE show with know mention of Tamar.

bsmooth732001 said:

Yeah, from talkin' to people before the show, I knew some heads had false expectations. But after the show, I was surprised at how many people had expected an all out Prince show. Also, many knew it was a Tamar show but expected Prince to give concert goers a little more of his stuff anyway.

it was also interesting to see Prince playing and singing songs penned by Rick James and Michael Jackson. Knowing how much hate Rick had for Prince, I thought it was a cool gesture. Seeing Prince play Michael was odd too. Cool but kinda surreal.

One more question, who was the DJ? Said she was originally from ATL. She needs work. Song transitions, beat matching, song selection and sequencing were all kinda amateurish. There's an art to DJing. Sista was fly and I dug her style. I love to see a woman who can handle the wheels. Hope she take the time to sharpen the sword a little bit. Both her look and personality were great.

bsmooth732001 said:

I agree. The funniest part of the night was as I was leaving the Tabernacle, I saw Big Boi from Outkast walking out from the backstage door. He was cracking up, yelling to all of the disappointed fans, "Man, he GOT all y'all ni**as!"

I felt bad for those people that paid $70 for tickets, stood in line for 4 or 5 hours, all with the expectation that this was going to be a Prince show. I blame the local radio, because public word from the Prince camp has always been that this is a Tamar show.

jcfii said:

I'm sorry, but after reading your post it seems that Atlanta fans have nobody to blame but themselves. Do they not READ. We have a good number of reviews from previous shows for folks to get an idea and they still go there expecting a Prince show. The title says Tamar featuring Prince....they should already know that this was a Tamar gig. To go there hoping this was a Prince show, well that's on them.

wonder505 said:

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Co-Sign I am begining to wonder if people know how to read. You go by what it on the ticket and the adveristed annoucment. Since when does radio no anything.

wonder505 said:

What percentage of attendees are gonna read reviews on an artist message board... for any concert or artist? Average concert goer ain't involved with an artist to that level. You know that. They aren't following reports of shows from night to night, city to city.

Many of the people there got word of the show from the radio. Because so many of them had the same false expectations, I'm inclined to think it wasn't their fault. And let's be real, "Tamar feat. Prince" can be interpreted in many ways... especially when tiks are priced as if it were a Prince show rather than the concert featuring a new, unknown artist who has no releases, no reputation, no name and no celebrity. I was informed only cuz I frequent this site, npgmc, housequake and okp. but I can't point a finger at people like you're doing and blame them for all having the same misunderstanding.

Thanks for posting!!

something must be in the water down in ATL. you guys couldn't have seen the same show we did up here in DC, or Houston, or anywhere else he's already been. the energy from doing an "cover" heavy show was phenomenal--instant recognition of the songs, and they were well performed/played. Tamar's orginal songs were also quite good, if not great. i would MUCH rather have seen a show like this, watching Prince play without the boundaries and burdens of expectations (gotta play purple rain, when doves cry, kiss, etc)..he seemed genuinely HAPPY up there with all that energy that the ladies provided, along with a great 3- pice band. the man let loose, gave you MJ JJ and RJ covers..you might never see THAT again, but you will see Prince again, so take it for what it was--A GREAT FUGGIN SHOW!!

Meltwithu, I totally agree. If it was the same show that they played here in Phila, how could it not be good.

meltwithu said:

I absolutely agree...the shows were freakin' amazing here in DC. The excitement level of the audience and everyone on stage was phenomenal. Prince looked to be having a great time and I think Tamar was received very well here. I've only heard great things from the shows before as well. Hmmm...

I did'nt go to the show but, i got an e-mail about an after-party at Club 1150....did it happen and did anyone go????

meltwithu said:

I'm pretty confident ATL got the same show Houston and DC got. Not quite sure why you misunderstood me. You're talkin' about how great it was "watching Prince play without the boundaries..." as if I said otherwise. I acknowledged that in my original post. It was great to see him in a totally different role and still holdin' sh!t down. I've been blessed to see him rock a coupla intimate jam sessions and those are easily my fav live Prince experiences. I also acknowledge how seeing Prince cover Michael and Rick James (Mary Jane Girls) tunes was both surreal and dope.

What I talked about in my review was the shows reliance on covers and I'm thinkin that what put you on the defensive. Covers are an artistic crutch of "instant recognition". It is a far less challenge to rock a crowd when performing songs the audience is familiar with, know the lyrics to and can participate in the performance by singing along. To rock an audience that doesn't know your songs isn't somethin' every artist can do. But I expect an artist under Prince's tutorlegde to be able to do that. Hell, I know local indie artists that would have done better with their original material. All and all, the show was good. I'm just giving an honest review rather than a fanboy review. That aspect of the show was disappointing. I expected to get to know Tamar as an artist, not just as a cover performer. Still enjoyed it. Dang.

I thought the show (the 15th) was incredible.
I had a blast. One of my fav's out of the 14 times I've seen him.
I saw NPGShane shakin his tailfeathers!!! LOL!

breezelove said:

i wasn't knocking you playa--you said you had an okay time, but was expecting more--the mood up here in DC and Philly was different--apparently we felt it more than you did--or you got a lesser caliber show than we did. either way, we're not mad up here, and NOBODY up here walked out disappointed. as far as covers, you call it lazy, i call it smart. for example, Erykah Badu's live CD Baduizm is chock full of cover songs, mixed with some of her own songs--and it works! when you are an unproven commodity, you can't just get up there and sing 15 songs nobody has ever heard of--that wouldn't work for Prince, and it damn sure wouldn't work for Tamar. So if you can get the crowd into the set by singing some old school songs that the majority of them know already, and you do a really good job on them as Tamar did, then that's a big bonus. I did notice that you wished Prince had played "something else" from Batman--IT WASN'T HIS SHOW! sounds like you went to see a Prince-heavy show and that's not what you got--and the fact that you're on the ORG and probably knew this going into the show (how many identical set lists have been posted already?)..well, it sounds like maybe you were hoping for a 3121 set and didn't get it.

meltwithu. Once again you hit the nail on the head. A couple of days before the Phila show there was talk in the air about people expecting this to be a Prince show and once the word got around people new what to expect. I took my brother with me and he's never been to a Prince show but loves his music. I made a point of telling him days before, Prince is playing backup don't expect him to be out in front. After the show he was blown away by both Prince and Tamar. And for the life of me I don't understand when people try to put her setlist down. Hell, like you said if Prince were to go out there and play his whole musicology CD straight through there would be people complaining that he only played songs from his CD. I guess you can't and never will please everyone.

Bull said:

as far as the 2nd Atl show, I enjoyed it. His DJ got things jumping the minute the doors opened. This was an amazing cover show with all of my fav's. From Rock, Steady, to I'm Not Gonna Cry, it was a show full of funk.
Ta'mar was wonderful. A security guard told me her Wednesday performance (the 1st show) was awful, and she wasn't hitting the right high-notes. He said she had a head-cold or something. Well, she must've certainly recovered b/c she hit all the high notes last night! And lawwwwwdd, that girl can dance!!!
The twins were okay. I see why they're not the headiners. They're pure energy though. Those girls can keep up with Ta'mar and they were cute and that seemed to be enough for the masses.
I loved the clothes. Prince started out in a Black & Red 2-piece with a black hat, and later changed into an all white 2-piece with a white hat. He kept his head wrapped under both hats all night and I'm guessing by the fact that he had a fan pulled out, that his hair wasn't able to stand the sweat/heat. But it was okay, towards the end he took his hat off and his bangs fell over the headwrap and I could see that his hair was *still did* but his kitchen was suffering.
The band was tight. I did miss the horns, but his keyboardist played the hors with the keys and that sufficed, given the space allocation.
Song choices were awesome, and again, I didn't write anything down b/c I was too busy dancing, but I enjoyed everything. His solo on Beautiful Strange was touching.
All in all, I was impressed by Ta'mar and Prince is a baaaaad little man...

He did Beautiful Strange last night? The bastard!

I thouroughly enjoyed the first show (didn't make the second) and was quite impressed by Tamar. If she had a head-cold and was "awful" on Wednesday then damn she must be friggin amazing. I can't tell yout he number of times I turned to my girl and mouthed the words "THAT GIRL CAN SANG." Yup...good times were had...

I had to come out lurking phase to reply. I thoroughly enjoyed last night's performance. Tamar can definitely sing and dance very well. Those twins were too crunk. I thought that they may break their neck or something! Prince put on a helluva performance. I couldn't believe that he performed Purple Rain and Let's Go Crazy. It was awesome!

GAPeach said:

what do you mean?

mochalox said:

I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the show in ATL...I have to agree when he played Beautiful Strange here in DC, I was absolutely floored!

man, they did an entire radio show about how dissapointed people were. I new it was coming though. The week before all over radio they were dubbing this a "Prince" show with no metion of Tamar.

mochalox said:

I meant that I wasn't expecting to hear those songs played based on my friend's review from the Wednesday night show.

bsmooth732001 said:

On V103, I clearly heard them, especially Ryan Cameron, say several times "Tamar featuring Prince." People hear what they want to hear.

GAPeach said:

oh okay. I got'cha!

GAPeach said:

On V103, I heard Frank Ski promoting tickets to the "Prince Show." At times he would say "featuring Tamar." They even went so far as to have Prince Wednesday or Purple Rain Wednesday (can't remember which) so that people could call in and win tickets to the "Prince show" when they heard a Prince song. The winners were then entered into a drawing to win $500 in *Diamonds and Pearls.*

Also, on 102.5, Syman Baby was promoting "Prince," "Prince featuring Tamar," and once he slipped up and got it in the right order. This was Thursday morning...meaning, after the Wednesday show.

I wasn't *hearing what I wanted to hear,* I heard what was said. Atlanta's radio stations clearly misrepresented this concert as a Prince show. Of course, being a hard-core, I knew what the situation was when I bought my tickets, but the casual fan isn't going to come to the Org before buying tickets to read a concert review.

GAPeach said:

Ryan did that because he's a huge Prince fan and he keeps up with the club. Frank Ski and Wanda are haters and I'm shocked that they gave it as much play (as I was told) that they did. I don't listen to then for that reason.

Whoa, I just had a surreal experience. I clicked to post a question and the Welcome to the org thing had lyrics to the song I was listening to!

Anyways, did he really play Rock Lobster??