Having spent one of the best weekends ever watching the man do his thing and sticking 2 digits up at the press as well as his critics he produced one of the best stage shows I have ever seen.Taking time out to involve his fams (and never seen him live before'virgin'fams) telling these people to 'come on down the front' to the dismay of
security who had it fairly easy until then (real Prince fams let him be and do not mob him or give him a hard time) he produced so much NRG that the Apollo was electric...
Saturday night he ripped the place apart,he was hot, the band were tight and I think that London had the man at his best. Famous people were in the audience, from Lauren Hill to Bill Oddie (The Goodies) What other artist could command a more diverse following.
A couple of things needed to be sorted, like the seating of the NPGClub members, what a shambles. We got to the Apollo before lunch to find about 15 to 20 people sitting on the steps, there was this LIST that was supposed to give the people who turned up early and waited the longest first crack at getting to the front. When I looked on the list there were at lest 50 names, these people were
not outside waiting like we were so, how fair was this list? not very fair at all, the same people (although very loyal fams and very supportive) occupied the same front row seats at EVERY concert. Even Prince said 'hey! why don't you guys let the women have the front seats?...Well guys? you know who you are, why don't you do what Prince asked you to do and let some of the ladies to the front.

Having said that, they are a good bunch of guys and very well behaved, Prince trusts these people, which says alot. Once inside the Apollo the number system fell apart because the Apollo staff made us queue again before letting us in and so a mad rush to get to the best seats ensued.

What amazed me is that on Friday nite he removed his tie and tossed it into the first row, the guy who caught the tie handed it to Prince's guitar man (the guy who hands Prince his guitar...what a great job eh?)
unless i missed something here and it was staged, where else would you find that?
The second thing is the aftershow fiasco, those fams in the 'cheap seats' Ha! there's a joke, didn't get told on Friday nite that it was for the fortunate one's with laminates and wrist bands who could stand for 3 hours in a hot, smoky, small, London club having spent an hour outside seeing all the non NPG members turned away. I was
told that Prince was in the building and then Prince has gone home, well hey! it would have been nice to be told...I left the club around 3 in the morning and spent a fortune getting home to Essex and finally getting to bed at 6.30. You non members were the lucky ones that nite!!!
Prince made up for it on Saturday by playing an extra hour of cool jazz. We all went home feeling warm and satisfied and anyone going to Manchester is in for a treat...anyone got a spare ticket or two!!!

crystalc said:

THOSE are the people I hate. How can you hold a place & you're not even there??? If you wanna be in the front, KEEP YOUR ASS ON LINE!!!

Same old faces on front row every night, just selfish obsessed fans who need to make sure he sees them, I did notice he made a comment about it

It's the same ones who organised the absolutely pathetic queuing system on Thursday and Saturday, when I asked one of their names he would not give me it, how sad is that, some people seriously need lives.

You know who you are!

EVERYONE who was at the front half of the queue had turned up early. This was in fact audited by Apollo security in order to ensure it was a fair system.

If the system was "pathetic" why didn't you turn up a bit earlier ?

I have to say, I like the 'show up early and get your name on the list' system. It worked very well at the shows I went to (Seattle/Vancouver). I still spent time in line talking to people, and SOMEbody always had to be in line to maintain the system, but I thought it was very civilized to be able to leave the line to grab some coffee or whatnot and be able to trust that I would still have my spot.

Embrace it, it works!

Doves,
Mel!ssa

tackam said:

Well I must say in principal it is a good idea, BUT in actuality London was not organised at all. We were there EARLY, the fans already there were organising the LIST. Who is to know for sure whether they were being fair to all fams or more fair to their friends that they knew were coming to the show. I think it would have been better for the Apollo staff or even Prince's staff to organise the LIST on a strictly first come first served basis. The line when it was called was not maintained at all, and we watched loads of people just saunter across and push in. This just caused more unnecessary stress amongst everyone waiting in line. I know that the line was called again and eventually it was sorted but it was just badly organised by people that really shouldn't have been doing it.

starbass said:

You're spot on there mate! When you ask who they are they say 'nobody'. Quite apt really. Nice bingo style tickets. Very professional.

Prince made it quite clear on Friday's soundcheck that he disliked one of them. He asked Prince if he could play guitar and Prince snapped 'Absolutely not!. That's my job. Come on now'. I had to laugh.

These people were'nt official at all. They just got there the earliest in the morning and took it upon themselves to organise things. What a great job they did.

Next time Prince comes I'm going to get to the venue at 7am and say 'the queue starts behind me'. That's all the damned organisation required.

freakyfeet said:

I have to totally disagree with you, you probably mean that one person which then decided to organise the whole queing outside the Apollo got there early and then he lets all his mates to get to the front of the queue with him.

I haven't got a problem with someone organising the queue, but what it's not on is when people are not being fair and what they are doing is for their own interest so they get to the front for another day.

I've never seen a queuing system anywhere where you put your name in a list then you can go and have a drink down the pub for two or three hours and then when you come back you walk down to the front and your place still there.

There was no need for any organising there, all that was needed was someone to say: the queue starts here and that's it.

Then this saddos who tried to organise the queue wouln't of been able to abuse the system like they did, otherwise sh*t would of happened.