Great, phenomenal concert. The only gripe - incredibly short! Prince came on a about 9:20 (band marched through the crowd playing jazz, then they broke into 3121) and left before his first encore at 10:35.

Only two encores, both just one song (Kiss and Let's Go Crazy)

Gripes aside, it was a fantastic gig. Lights were great, Prince seemed energised... but... if I read tomorrow that he played a 2 hour aftershow, I'll be annoyed.

Should I then complain to Ticketmaster??!

noshjewman said:

You won't be able to complain but it's becoming obvious that our main man is beginning to realise just what he has taken on - i'd say he's getting bored. Shows are getting shorter and shorter. I'm sorry but 9.25 start time for a 20000 seat arena is taking the piss. And don't say 'well it's only £35'.
You wait - it is now 1.50am and I would lay abet that in afew hours time, we will get reports of a 5 hour aftershow !
.

phils123 said:

well, it is only £35

im guessing if he realldoes get bored he will start really mixing the sets up and playing some very unexpected stuff!

My friends have told me he is a few songs into the aftershow and that its great. I think you might be reading reviews of an amazing aftershow tonight. Sorry

Well you can all calm down, the after show was only 1.5 hours. But what a superb 1.5 hours it was.

phils123 said:

It was only 1hr 35 mins after show I know wot u mean 'bout late start... But it was pretty packed... I do think the piano/sampler medley section is cheating!
On the whole an awesome night!

I gotta feeling they had some studio time booked somewhere..
I'd say start expecting some surprise releases..

Main show was 1 hr 23 minutes - aftershow was 1 hr 27 minutes.
Aftershow was better than the main show in many other ways too, even though only 3 Prince penned tracks were played.

TheEnglishGent said:

We got home at 4:30am last night and I'm still hyper about it. I loved the main show, but yes it was too short. If he hadn't TOTALLY made up for it with the aftershow I might have been disappointed. Pure luck on my part I guess because this was the only aftershow I had booked.

I spoke to some guy who was there on the Friday before and he said even though that was 2 hours, this one was better!! I LOVE Prince's outfit and hat, and the song about toilet seats... and that Baby Love song the girls sang (sorry, I didn't recognise it, but it was awesome). Then Prince doing what I think was calming down a girl in the front row who desperately wanted another drink, so he called the bartender

Oh, and near the end someone gave him something which he passed back. I was standing at the back to get the best overall view so I couldn't see. It looked like a biscuit to me.

----

Mya's support was so funny - mainly because my friend I went with was probably the only person there to know all of her songs to sing along with while everyone else looked dumbfounded. We kept laughing so hard at her OTT male back-up dancers. I loved it at the end when they threw some towels into the front rows and then one came flying back at them

Like I said, if I wasn't going to the aftershow and wasn't going to multiple dates, I may have been pissed about the running time of the main show, but we had a blast. My absolute favourite part was the blip of Housequake where Prince was just a few feet directly in front of us and jumping away like a maniac. I think we had the perfect seats, (106 row BB) cos it was raised up a bit compared to C2 but still only about 10 rows back from the point of the symbol.
[Edited 8/19/07 2:16am]

excessex said:

You seem to be in the know - please tell us more!!!!!

HARDCORE QUIZ:
Does anybody remember what it used to say on the wall opposite the New Power Generation shop on Chalk Farm Road?

One word y'all but what's the word?

IRISHFAN said:

noshjewman said:

You'll be annoyed!

Can anyone tell me what the name of the jazzy piece that the band came out to at the start of the show? It seemed really familiar.

noshjewman said:

I couldn't complain about a "fantastic" gig personally. Granted, it was short....but it sounds like he was on form.

DoctorMambo said:

cloudguitar said:

opps, something went wrong with my pc then...part of it was 'down by the riverside' but i think there was something else in there too

DoctorMambo said:

Someone posted that it was Down By The Riverside. Didn't sound like that to me, there was a hell of a lot of The Entertainer in there. Maybe Down By The Riverside riffs around The Entertainer and the title is accurate.

I don't know but I njoyed it anyway.

cloudguitar said:

This is bugging us too. Anyone???

Claire73 said:

I'm pretty sure that it was Scott Joplin's The Entertainer - there was more of that than Down By The Riverside.

By the way - my comment before about complaining to Ticketbastard - that was a joke.

A joke, people.

Jazz intro included Music Music Music/3121 horn riff/Alexander's Ragtime Band/The Entertainer

excessex said:

You know something or is it just a dream ?

excessex said:

Oops sorry, I had not seen this stupid ass quiz of yours. So I've got my answer : you know shit.

noshjewman said:

Sorry. I'm sure that was aimed at my comment.

Glad you enjoyed it and I'm sorry I misread your original post.

I'm still buzzing from of last nights show and afterparty!! If this email doesn't make sense its because I'm lacking sleep!
I managed to get D2 Row D seats for me and my huge Prince fan mate Sharon at the last minute and as I walked down the steps towards the floor area I couldn't believe that I was going to see Prince at such a close capacity. I've seen the shows from mainly the lower tiers, but its like a whole new experience when you see him do his thing feet away. He was the latest he's been ever starting.. think it was 9.25pm when he appeared... he kicked off with 3121 and coincidentally I was wearing my 3121 t-shirt again for the 2nd time. There was an electric vibe from the crowd which got Prince all hyped up and you could see he wanted to kick some ass with his tunes, unfortunately I think because he started so late, his flow and the planned set just didn't gel as well as it did to previous shows.. but I still had an electric time....I got so lost in the show that I can't list them off the top of my head now, anyway, I would say this was my 3rd best Prince gig so far during this tour.... I sensed that because he started late something was up.. a very talkative security lady said VIP say he isn't happy about something but didn't want to say what. I got a few 'newbies' around me asking why he kept cutting short all the songs when he teased the crowd with his hits... they wanted to hear the songs in full and seemed a bit disappointed with the show for that reason. He also finished about 10.50pm, so was the shortest show he's done to date... I still enjoyed the 90 mins of magic, though I did wish he was on from 9am to 11am but hey!

Nothing could have prepared me for the most amazing afterparty I have ever had last night... we managed to get to the front of stage even though we were near the back of the queue... there were real rose petals scattered all over the stage (the curtain was open) and the stage set was something from an Arabian nights design... when we saw his "Wah Wah" pedals we were very hopeful that Prince would be greeting us with his presence... when the stage hands were re-arranging the music instruments, taking away the "wah wah" pedals (at which point everyone else groaned too) and sweeping up the petals I thought "Oh no, Prince has changed his mind and maybe isn't coming to perform after all" but then 2 mins later... the engineer came back with a bigger set of "wah wah" pedals there was a huge cheer from the waiting crowd! A keyboard was positioned at the centre of the stage and we knew it was now a sure thing he would be coming....

... I was in this surreal, spiritual zone.. I can't explain it... it didn't seem long from standing there waiting that his band members one by one took to their instruments and began to jam a funky groove.... and as if by magic.. Prince appeared majestically in the finest, dandiest peach coloured suit and feather hat I have ever seen!! The crowd went nuts... and he just kicked things off with Steve Wonders "Superstition" which was sooooo funky..... it was just a continued funky jam... think he did another Stevie Wonder track.... Maceo Parker was there... Shelby was belting out some serious vocals...Things kicked off about 1am until about 2.30am ....Prince was onstage for almost the whole time on keyboard and vocals to start on several songs.. the backing singers did some great vocals when he disappeared for a couple of mins, but would always come back to join in the groove.. he played his guitar with style and walked the stage like he owned it as he does.... I got to high five Shelby twice as she played with the fans on my side of the stage... one of the backing singers was bringing the mic down to the fans in the first row to sing as we did the "Freaks on this side" chant and I got to sing on the mic for a line... totally amazing... I was so close to where Prince stood on the left of the stage, I could have touched Prince's leg, but just thought as respect that I wouldn't... he knew we could if we wanted to... I was just smiling the whole time.. and singing away.. and locking eyes with Prince and smiled as he smiled at me while he was on keyboards. So many memories... I will probably get flash backs later today as I take in the night.

The comedy revamped verse lyrics of "Satisfied" was the most hilarious part of the AP. He was talking about men keeping their women happy.. someone please remind me of the other comedy lines.. but the crowd were in stitches when he repeatedly sang lines like "If you put the toilet seat up... fella's you gotta put it down, to keep your woman satisfied" and getting the crowd to sing it back to him!! It was class.

This is the first time I can say the after party was even more incredible then the actual concert... it was if he was more happier and in his element doing cover and alternative songs of his own and being able to let rip on the keyboards and guitar free-styling, total relaxed and had so much energy. Looking forward to my next night at the O2!!

Ellie said:

blackbird9173 said:

sounds great, thanks for the review

blackbird9173 said:

The comedy lyrics were the opposite of what you just described. He was singing to the ladies, "Learn how to use the toilet seat, if it's up, put it down."

Other lines were, "To all the overweight brothers, if your woman says you should get in shape, tell her that round is a shape" and "Christopher Columbus didn't ask for directions and neither do we"

It would seem that somebody has emailed Prince a copy of an email that has been circulating called The Male Rules (or something like that), as the lines he was singing were taken from that.