I was very fortunate to attend the private party at the Belmont in Austin, TX on Saturday June 2. It was an amazing, electrifying performance of Prince with Grupo Fantasma in a small club for 300 people.

I arrived at 9:30pm and right at 10pm Grupo Fantasma took to the stage. They were all dressed in white suits, with horn players on the left and percussionists in the middle. The 1st song played was one of their originals sung in Spanish. All of a sudden a piercing guitar solo ripped through the air and out from the back stepped Prince. Even though I knew he was going to be there my first reaction was "Holy F-ing S!" It was too good to be true.

I was standing midway back by the soundboard but decided to weave through the crowd for a place up closer. I got about 15 feet back from the center mike and watched Prince do his magic.

After that song Prince disappeared from the stage. That was the course of things for the evening; he would play a song or two, disappear, and then reappear 3-4 songs later.

During a later appearance they played Santana's "Oye Como Va." Prince's guitar seemed twice as loud as everybody else's and twice as impressive. After leaving again he came back and began a mini-set of solo electric songs. First up was "Little Red Corvette", just the 1st verse and then he let the crowd sing the chorus. I especially noticed the line "well it was Saturday night, I guess that makes it alright" as this intimate performance indeed made for an alright Saturday night.

He then segued into "Raspberry Beret", again doing just the 1st verse and letting the crowd sing the chorus. When the response was weak Prince said "that's about what I thought", a funny remark since he knew this wasn't a typical concert of die-hard fans.

At that point he threw a major curveball and played "Sometimes it Snows in April." It was almost like his way of saying "if you don't know those two songs, good luck with this one." We got a longer version of this song than the 1st two, most likely a complete version. Then a keyboard player not part of Grupo came out and accompanied Prince on "Nothing Compares 2 U." It was a nice version except for this drunk idiot standing ahead of me that decided to shout out "2 U" right before Prince sang that. He then preceded to high five others around him like he had accomplished something important. There's idiots in every crowd I suppose.

For that part of the show I had moved even closer to the stage, maybe 5 feet away from Prince. He then brought the band back out and they did a killer version of James Brown's "Soul Power", getting the crowd to sing along and dance to the funk. At the point the party was indeed on again as only he can do.

At various times throughout the evening Prince stood at the back of the stage admiring the band. Then he would just stroll on stage, pick up his guitar and begin to jam. It seemed very loose and spontaneous, and I figured that must have been like at his Rio show in Las Vegas when Grupo was the house band on Thursday nights.

The band left the stage and after much cheering by the small crowd they came back and Prince joined them for "Get on the Boat." Again it turned the room into a dance party and everyone was singing along and having a good time. I doubt many people knew the song but they enjoyed it just the same.

The show was over at 11:40 so I experienced a 100 minute concert with Prince onstage roughly half of the time. As soon as it was over Prince left the venue and reportedly flew back to Las Vegas.

I met some of the band members and congratulated them on their success. They seemed very honored to be Prince's favorite new band. They had just backed him the night before in Pasadena at the ALMA awards and were playing with him the next night in their hometown. The week before that they did a taping of Austin City Limits. It doesn't get much better than that.

It was very special to see him in such an intimate setting, and I was very fortunate to be a part of it.

Thanks for reading!

Thank YOU for writing it!
Must have been a helluva night.
I'm not jealous at all..

What an xperience! Thanx 4 sharing.

Congrats on such an awesome experience!!! I'm from Austin too and even tho I live in Dallas now, I feel an odd sense of pride that Prince was in my hometown turning it out with a local band.

[Edited 6/13/07 11:53am]

wow! thanks for the report. seems like an awesome night.

AHHHHH I'M SOOOOO JEALOUS!!!

Thnk you for sharing this! How cool! If I ever had a private party, where
Prince was the artist, it would be full of fans....or at least people that
knew his hits! It must have been incredible! Do you think Prince would offer
a substantial discount, for a true fans 40th? [lol] That would give me a few
years to prepare.Or if he would give me a 75% discount 250 of us, could have
a private party for a cool grand each. Anyone with me on this?

Thank you for taking the time to describe your experience thistrain!

Sounds like a WONDERFUL night!!

WOW! That is a great story, I bet you are sitll on cloud 9..I so want to see him in a setting like that. Thanks for the story.
[Edited 6/13/07 14:31pm]