Sorry if this has already been reported. I did check the first two pages of topics.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi...01&sc=1000

REVIEW
His white-hot Purpleness and Sheila E. in concert? Priceless.
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic

Monday, May 21, 2007

Las Vegas has not been lost on Prince. When he walked onstage at the Orpheum Theatre on Saturday, as his huge, crunching band crashed down on the end of a walloping "Down by the Riverside," and as he tossed his dark glasses into the audience and took a deep bow, Prince made the place feel like the big room of a casino.

After a three-month run at the Rio Hotel and Casino, his Purpleness would appear to be a different entertainer. He brought his new revue-style show to town as part of a credit card promotion, "Traveling Through Life Presented by Citi/AAdvantage," where only people who signed up for credit card service could buy tickets to the concert. As a result, he gave this spectacular, intimate concert to a houseful of curious, upscale onlookers, not his rabid fans. There was barely a purple outfit in the house.

Prince is the artist currently at the absolute top of his game, the prime of his life, 20 years after all the hits. His breathtaking halftime performance at this year's Super Bowl served notice on the entire nation. With the death of James Brown and the banishment to Dubai of Michael Jackson, today Prince is Soul Brother No. 1.

At the Orpheum, he was a dazzling sight in all white. His falsetto swooped and soared. His guitar playing rivaled Hendrix. His crack band executed like a gleaming, supersonic machine. He drew his set list from the far corners of his songbook, everything except his hits -- despite him muttering, "So many hits, so little time," as he launched "Lolita" from the "3121" CD. Huh? But he never let up the intensity, even if he relied heavily on slow, syrupy ballads. He opened with a long, slow blues, "Satisfied," cutting straight to the smoldering eroticism that is his specialty. Before he even took the stage, he let the Escovedo family warm up the band with molten Latin percussion, followed by Sheila E. doing "The Glamorous Life," the song he wrote and produced for the Latina bombshell in 1984.

He used Brown's famous saxophonist Maceo Parker ("take me to the bridge ...") and brought out Sly and the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham for a couple of Sly Stone numbers.

By the time he brought back Sheila E. for "A Love Bizarre," he had the crowd exhausted, disoriented, delirious. If it had been a house of his people -- rather than the credit card company's customers -- they would have torn the walls down. The band is powered by bassist Josh Dunham and his amazing wife, drummer Cora Dunham-Coleman, who hands down wins most valuable player award for the night. Prince himself supplied the sensational lead guitar -- played an exquisite B.B. King on "Rock Me Baby" -- and when he wasn't doing that, he was dancing like Nureyev on speed.

Vocalist Shelby Johnson brought old-fashioned soul to the sound and, as if to make the point, even sang a heated version of Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man." Two additional background vocalists, all long legs and bottoms and very little skirt, brought a lot of motion to the show with the sort of dancing not often seen outside gentlemen's clubs. When Prince and Sheila E. dragged 15 or so goofballs out of the front rows to dance with the band, it was controlled chaos onstage and Prince made the most of it.

He used a lot of purple backlighting and frequently asked for the already dim lights to be dropped even lower. "Make it sexy," he would say, and the lights would go out. Not using spotlights may help preserve his delicious, mysterious image, but over-driving the sound -- another Prince concert hallmark -- just muddies the delivery. His band is so killer, his singing so great, it's a shame to lose all the nuances in the electric din.

By the end of the two and a half hour performance, when he finally gave them a hit, the inevitable "Purple Rain," he had taken these people on a trip -- a challenging, demanding, thrilling, dizzying ride. These credit card holders may have walked in wondering just who this guy was and what he was all about, but he let them know.

E-mail Joel Selvin at jselvin@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
[Edited 5/22/07 21:15pm]

It was an amazing show; a night I will never forget.

Sounded like an amazing show, damn I wish he'd tour here.

I like the part where it states Prince is "Soul Brother No.1 "...yes indeed! , but the author was a little hard on describing the Prince fans that were at the show.
[Edited 5/23/07 13:31pm]

Ya but alot of the ppl in the audience were not credit card holders and bought the tickets off card holders getting rid of the tickets for a very good profit this review makes it sound like most of the crowd were non fan credit card holders when I saw alot of hardcore fans, just because they did not look like fans. anyway, I was there and did not where purple and I have been a fan for over 20 years.

whatever, can't wait for the tour, plz come back to Cali Princey, we love U

babooshleeky said:

That's true, the author did make it sound like that, but hey at least you had a good time, right?