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12/31/06-01/01/07


So here I am at 3121 Las Vegas on New Years Eve. How lucky am I? I still kind of take it all in. The club is now non-smoking and the incense lit healed my cough for most of the show. I saw old friends, met new ones, and became friendly with those around me that I would be sharing the experience with.

For the few hours leading up to Prince and the band taking the stage, DJ Rashida kept us entertained with Prince classics, old school classics, and new jams in the mix. Nothing new from Prince was played like at other shows where "The Word" (House Mix) and "Beautiful, Loved, & Blessed" (House Mix) were played before and a different newly recorded version of "Musicology" was played after the show. Gone also was the footage from the Musicology tour of "DMSR" from Houston, which was pro shot. If there exists a Musicology DVD and that is on it, all I can say is that really needs to be released. I also love the images put on the screen during the music mix. 3121, the experience. We were pondering if Prince would take the stage before midnight, after midnight, or even if he would have Rashida lead us into the New Year. After a musical and visual tribute to the late, great, James Brown, we would soon have our answer.

At 11:56 in kicked the intro to 3121. The curtain was still up but here came the Twinz, one to each side of the stage and the place was going nuts. Prince kicked into the first verse while the curtains were still down and as they started to raise, he backed away from the mic and ripped into a short solo on his guitar. Prince and the band were dressed in white suits, while he wore an orange shirt underneath and an NPG necklace showing thru at times. There was a lady behind them wearing a white hat dancing in the far back who's identity would be revealed later on in the show. He went back into the first verse of 3121 and it was on. The Twinz came down from the side of the stage wearing their Japanese robes and they were ready to move. They did the dance scene where they get on the floor where Nandy is on the ground and Maya goes on top of her and they do the caterpillar. Nice. Prince ends the song by saying "It's going down y'all.....2007...2008....2000-whatever. We don't need no countdown, this is how we do." I looked at my watch and it was now 12:01. Happy New Year. Prince then took off the hohner and threw it in the air and the tech caught it. It got much air on the way up and a very nice grab which caused a few fans to go "whew" as it was caught.

Prince then kicked into "Girls and Boys" and he was being free and loose and was all over the stage, left to right, right to left. The stage by the front middle now is a little bit further as the barricade gives more space between the techs and the fans. As every Prince show, this song had major audience participation.

The next song was one they have been doing at the cuisine after shows, "Down By The Riverside" I believe and was a straight instrumental with Maceo Parker and Mike Phillips soloing while Prince went thru the crowd to our right where he would give high fives, stop at tables, and even get up on chairs, while band members and tech's would clap thier hands like back in the days of when the choir would sing at church. To add a more church like effect, Morris Hayes put on a church hat kind of like what Auntie would wear back in the day. Too funny. Prince took his time getting through the crowd and got on stage with towel in hand to signal the band to stop.

Prince then walked over to where C.C. and Josh are set up and said something quick and a few moments later while Prince was towards the back of the stage, Cora went into a small kick drum as Mr. Hayes played the boards and Maceo did a short solo. Prince took his time getting to the mic and wiped it down with the towel he still had in his hand. "Before we get this thing started, I am about to get open hearted". The tune is "Satisfied", but now sounds jazzy with his vocal delivery. I must say, I liked the way this was sung and the instrumentation as well over the studio version on 3121. Prince had Maceo come out for a solo after the 2nd verse and Maceo showed why no last name is needed when talking about him. Prince danced around the back of the stage and was clearly having fun. He came back up to the mic as Maceo walked away and he said "Maceo, you bout to get someone pregnant up in here." Prince was about to go into the third verse when someone from the crowd yelled "Sing it Prince!" Prince stopped and said "What's my name?" and the crowd yelled back "Prince!" and he replied, "That's what I thought you said." and then went into the third verse and now he made it gospel like. I cannot stress enough how great this version of "Satisified" was.

Next came "Purple Rain" early in the show as it has lately. Still a crowd pleaser and he kicked the solo with the hohner and got the crowd singing in unison for the end and waving thier hands side to side.

Purple Rain followed with Lolita and the Twinz retaking the stage in short black outfits with a white trim and silver shiny shoes. For a moment, I missed the black tights they were wearing lately, but quickly came to appreciate thier dance moves and the way the new outfits complemented both thier beautiful bodies, I did not miss it as much. When Prince sang the line about fancy cars, he added "Stop playing, you all know what car I drive." When Prince sings "fellas, how bad is that girl?" Man, both of them are bad. I swear, when they are both on stage and Prince is doing a guitar solo, I almost wish I had a 3rd eye, so I can watch all three at once.

Prince then says in his funky voice, "I know I say it, but it's true, I do have so many hits, but I also have so little time. So you know what I have to do right?" The lights are completely out at this time aside from a dim light on top of him and he points to Morris Hayes and here comes the synth riff to "Black Sweat". Prince is handed his black bass, which I first saw at the show Saturday night of Thanksgiving weekend. He put it on and just started thumping on it, he walked by Cora and continued to play and now in the second keyboard set up was Renato Neto. While Prince was walking towards the middle of the stage with his back turned, he quickly turned around and was thumping on the bass but going up and down the head of it very quickly. One time, a metal head friend of mine who never thought anything of Prince, saw him do that move with the bass and was so awestruck with the easiness Prince played it, quickly respected Prince from then on out. He had the crowd singing "Working, working up a black sweat" as he just continued playing the bass. He then handed the bass back and kicked off the vocals with the twinz and him doing thier routine. Perhaps I like this version of Black Sweat because of the way it sounds, but I also like how he extends it and it is just so funky.

After Black Sweat, he says, "I am so funky, I can't even sleep with myself" before saying quickly, "So many hits, so little time" and the intro to "Kiss" starts. Prince did a quick dance step as the Twinz danced behind him and switched spots quickly from right to left and then left to right just as fast as Nandy is handed the hohner while Maya is behind Prince holding him. Nandy puts the guitar over him as he says "Think I wanna dance" and reminds us that it is "Little girl Nandy's parade".

Prince goes into Shhh with the baby blue guitar strat. The beating of the drums, the solo leading up to the climax before the vocals, the boards keying in over it. I really wonder when Prince was recording this in the studio that this jam is gonna get so many undeserving guys some mad play for years to come. Prince's solo in the middle of Shhh was just mad crazy. At the end of the song where Cora went off on the drums, Prince went into another solo where he made one of those funky guitar faces.

Next came "Musicology" where the horn players, Maceo, Mike Phillips, and Greg Boyer, came down the balcony that they are usually on, to the main stage area. Prince continued to dance and was just cutting it up. It was a full version, as every song was up to this point aside from two. He really extended it and gave Maceo several solos in the middle. Towards the end, he started saying; "My band is tight y'll."

While still playing the kick groove to Musicology, it was sped up and then slowed down with Prince coming to the mic and singing "Like a rim shot on a new Roots joint, my band is tight, yea anointed " No way! He is singing "Prince & The Band". "Just clap yo hands, clap yo hands for Prince & The Band." Each time he would sing that, the band would go back into Musicology and keep it there for a moment to where it went back to the kick groove, sped up, and then slowed down again. All three verses were sung and he had to repeat this line twice; "Record labels used to be a friend of mine but now are just a monumental waste of time." This song has been referred to as " Prince & The Band" as well as "Calibama". Regardless, call it unreleased. Several times I have heard it live and almost every time, it sounds different.

With the way the jam was progressing from "Musicology" to "Prince & The Band" and back again, up came several dancers onto the stage as Prince called Maceo up and it was now time to "Pass The Peas". As the band backed him up on this loose jam as Prince would grab different dancers and give them a chance to shake it and entertain the crowd on a platform to audience left.

As the dancers made their way off stage, Prince left as well. "Joy In Repetition" was started by the band as Prince came out a few moments later wearing a bright pink shirt and a lighter shade of pink pants with the huge bling encrusted with more diamonds than your local mall jeweler has for display. Full version with smoke for effect while they are towards the back of the stage. When Prince rips into the guitar solo, he uses the orange crush guitar complete with whammy bar (was used in SNL performance of Fury) and ends it with a short effect and then hands it to one of the tech's.

Maceo solo'd over a keyboard pattern while Prince was off stage. Prince came back out with a black 3121 hand towel (now sold at the 3121 store FYI) and wiped down the mic stand before going into "Gotta Broken Heart Again" complete with Maceo solo in the middle. In the end, he ad-libbed but still gave the line "All the things you said..all the things...you said...the little things you did to me in bed.." which caused a few squeals and screams from the girls in the crowd and a couple of guys too.

As Prince threw the hand towel into the crowd with a smile, the intro to "If I Was Your Girlfriend" kicked in. Regular version with the mention of pancakes and staying up til 5 a.m. which was mentioned earlier in the show but he added, "You think I am kidding but we are gonna jam til 5 a.m." I didn't see anyone take off around me then to head towards the after show, but I was thinking how hard would it be to take off now and miss the rest of the show. The temptation was there, but when push came to shove, I could not leave.

Next came Cream with Prince back on the hohner for a full version. Somewhere around the 2nd chorus, one of the strings broke on the hohner but there he was, continuing to play and even following it up with "U Got The Look". I was pointed out, a tech did offer him a different guitar during the performance but Prince shook him off basically saying there is nothing I can do with this guitar being one string short I couldn't do with the other. When the song was over, he handed it back to a tech and less than 2 minutes later, the string was taken off and replaced.

Prince then said "I would like to bring to the stage one of my favorite singers right now, please welcome Shelby." This is the girl who was in the back during "3121" in the beginning of the show. This girl can sing and I don't know if she is still in Larry Graham's band but she has stage presence and can belt it like nobody's business. Still dressed in white and with an NPG necklace on, the crowd seemed very accepting of her, which to me was a surprise, not because this girl is not talented, which she is beyond a shadow of a doubt, but perhaps a female singer so shortly after Tamar shared the stage with him might cause a backlash. I was proven wrong for the night as Prince added "This is not American Idol up in here tonight. Go on sing it Shelby!" As she left with the crowd in obvious approval, Prince asked her to come back out and do one more as she did "Love Changes". As the song ended, Prince said "Thank you, Vegas. Good night. I Love you."

Prince came back out shortly with a change of shirt to a lighter pink one. The Twinz followed wearing shirts that looked like what Prince wore in the video for "Te Amo Corazon" and they looked amazing in it. "You know it is isn't ending like that Vegas.", Prince said. He then asked for the house lights to be brought up and was asking if there was any funky white boys in the house tonight? He asked someone from the middle of the crowd to come up but seemed like he lost his way with alcohol consumption. "Not one funky white boy?" And the legend of THE darklotus gets bigger. Prince said we are all funky white boys tonight and sing this song with me as he went into "Play That Funky Music White Boy" . He had fun with this one and stayed on stage right for most of it. The song changed into "Rollercoaster" as the horn players took center stage again with Prince as this was mostly instrumental with crowd participation.

They went into a cover of Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done For Me Lately" which Prince for years and years has sometimes said "who wrote that?" because he feels the main groove takes from his hit "Controversy" and at the start you can hear the riff from which the song was lifted from. The Twinz mostly sing this one with twirling dance moves in those heels. Yikes! It now turns quickly into "Partyman" and it seems this party is just getting started about an hour and 40 minutes into it. About 5 minutes later, Prince said; "Thank you Vegas. We got to go" and with his hands, spelled out 3121. We stayed around and within 2 minutes, DJ Rashida started spinning as the curtain was lowered.

We then made our way to the after show but it was fairly obvious by where we were in line that we were not going to make it into the room where they played, but for the third time, be in the other room where you cannot really see anything except for the top of people's heads for most of the 90 minutes. Prince did make his way into our room once playing the hohner but it was very short visited. I heard from several who attended it was better than the actual show. Wish I could have chimed in. As much as I love jazz music, I am not a student of it and it is harder to appreciate the musicianship when it is not in front of you being played live. To see Maceo, Mike Phillips, Greg Boyer, Renato Neto, Mr. Hayes, Josh, Cora, Shelby and Prince in that small of a room would be amazing and hopefully next time, I will be in there.

Was this show the best I have seen at 3121? Perhaps not the longest, but sometimes people judge by quantity instead of quality. He was dancing quite a lot at this one. He's still got it and I never would ever think he lost it. My favorite show so far that I have been lucky to attend was the one where Sheila E. was there Thanksgiving weekend. I am sure there have been even better that I have not attended. But for those that have seen Prince in a club setting or those that wish to, how could you go wrong?

A couple of years ago during an interview, Prince said "I am music" and let me tell you, one of the moments where that is very appropriate was during one of his solos during "Shhh". With the way he was playing and the faces he was making and the squeals of the females in the crowd and the men in awe of his skills, he is absolutely right and who would question him? Prince is music.

j7

Http://www.thebumpsquad.com

http://myspace.com/thebumpsquad

Terrific review, thanks J7!!

J7 said:


Nice review J7.

So they sang "Down by the Riverside".. an old spiritual song..wow..nice...I bet he took everybody to church on that one...or should I say "Chuch!"
[Edited 1/11/07 6:57am]

Wow j7 you have great reviews, you make me feel like I am there. I was also there Nov. 25th, I was the one that got the tambourine from Prince, I was at the front by the stairs, don't know if you saw me but that was such a great show, it just left me wanting more and more. You are very lucky that you get to go so many times to see Prince. I hope to make it back real soon, sometimes I swear I just want to buy a plane ticket and fly over there, it's hard being so close and not going. Well Congrat again on another great review keep them coming I don't think I read anything from you for the Nov. 25th show?

Thanks, J7 for a very thorough review...the best one so far.

Incredible! This is the best review so far. Thanks J7

That was a great review. I feel like I'm there all over again

veronikka said:

Thanks everyone 4 the compliments. I need 2 write a review 4 the November 25th show. Very long show. Very good show. I had a lot of personal drama going on round that time so it was very hard 2 write it then.

In time, it will surface, perhaps on a 3121 off week. I do not go every week and I have been more often than I thought I would.

jseven said:

I look forward to it, I was there that night and would love a 'refresher'!

Thank you for sharing that detailed review Jseven ! I totaly felt like I was there and was jammin along with it as if I was seeing it for myself. Think I wanna dance now