The Yormeister (both of us) is just back from Oberhausen :

The things we could hear while waiting in the corridor : there was a lot of talking
while we were waiting, many more was played, but we couldn't hear it clearly

- familiar guitar riff (can't quite place it)
- Let's Go Crazy outro
- Honky Tonk Woman
- What I'd Say (on piano)
- Lean On Me (on piano)

While the members were entering the hall in groups, Prince was already awaiting us

- Piano Jam + drums
- With U (instrumental)
- Housequake on keyboard + drums
- Prince fooling around on the keyboard with sounds
- 1+1+1=3 beat on keyboard
- Prince fooling around some more on the keyboard, with a 'death metal' imitation and somebody
in the audience providing the deep voice to go with it (very funny, Prince was amused, he even
replied in a death metal voice 'What Ya Wanna Hear'
- Prince asking who played the venue before him, somebody said Chris Deburgh and Prince wanted
to play a funky version of Lady In Red, but the people didn't let him
- Something In The Water with Superstition lyric line, it also contained a solo by sax solo by Candy,
a drum solo and a sax solo by Eric Leeds
- People Without which turned into All The Critics Love You In NY (with solo by Renato and Eric)
- Prince fooled around on the keyboard which eventually led into a very nice uptempo piano improvisation
with a Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic chant
- Prince starts a loop and gives the mic to somebody in the audience, somebody said 18 & Over, but
Prince didn't want to, he began The Greatest Romance Ever Sold instead (very short), the loop con-
tinued, Candy did a solo, Prince played some piano, Eric did a solo, Prince then took the tour book
by JeePee (a Dutch member), Prince showed the pictures to the band and the audience and seemed
to be very amused, he eventually called JeePee on the stage to tell a story (that didn't work to good -
we guess you were a bit nervous JeePee)

Then somebody popped the big question : 'Why Are The Paris Tickets So Expensive ?', the sound-
check was put on hold and Prince started to reply to questions from the audience. He explained very
vaguely why the tickets for the Bataclan late night concert were so expensive (bonus for the crew),
there was a discussion why people shouldn't go and see more than just 1 show (Prince doesn't seem
to realise that some people go to more than 1 concert - (Prince, FYI : The Yormeister will have seen 11
concerts of the current European Tour and if we could we would have gone to more)
The Q&A lasted about 15 minutes I think (might have been a bit less though)
Near the end Prince talked to somebody's girlfriend on a cellular phone

The soundcheck continued :

- Santana Medley
- (?) They Don't Know, Like I Know (don't know the title of this one, sounded Jimi Hendrix like)
- She's Always In My Hair
- Santana Medley

Prince walked over to the soundboard in the middle of the hall and looked at the band playing :

- The Rainbow Children
- Delirious
- Prince did some 'Check 1-2's' from the soundboard and then walked back

End of soundcheck

The Concert :

- Drum solo
- Eric Leeds solo
- The Rainbow Children
- Pop Life
- The Work with Greg Boyer solo
- Purple Rain
- 1+1+1=3 with Candy solo, then he did the Housequake thing, Grey Boyer did a solo and the horn
players played a bit from It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night, Eric did a solo and then followed
Love Rollercoaster, near the end Candy did another solo
- Money Don't Matter 2Nite with a solo by Eric
- Peach with the very beautiful horns section on a nice beat, Prince also led the audience into a
'Oberhausen We Like To Funk' chant
- The Question Of U
- The One with solo by Renato - Falling - Take 5
- Strange Relationship with bass solo by Rhonda (she did another one earlier, but I forgot where)
- Pass The Peas (Grey Boyer on vocals)
- When You Were Mine
- Sign O The Times
- Take Me With U
- Raspberry Beret
- The Everlasting Now with solos by Renato, Candy, Greg and Eric

pause : ten minutes of loud shouting

Prince returns on the piano

- (?) I Love U Baby, Like You Have Never Known (or something like that, don't know the title)
- 'Oberhausen We Get Down' improvisation with Eric Leeds solo
- Strollin' with Renato, Candy & Greg solo
- U & Me with another Candy solo
- Gotta Broken Heart Again with Eric Leeds solo
- Diamonds & Pearls (on piano)
- The Beautiful Ones
- Nothing Compares 2 U with a Candy and Eric soloe + he threw his hanky in the front row
- The Ladder with a bit of preaching and a solo by Eric
- Days Of Wild with a solo by Eric, 'Oberhausen We Get Down' chant, Greg and Renato solo,
an 'It Ain't Over' chant
- Outro

No afterparty/show announcement was made

CU all in Paris 2morrow

Tom and Joris
The Yormeister
http://users.skynet.be/yormeister

"Prince started to reply to questions from the audience. He explained very vaguely why the tickets for the Bataclan late night concert were so expensive (bonus for the crew)"

Then ok we got the answer, can everyone shutup now. If you don't want to support Prince and his great band and crew, then don't come go to the Bataclan/Nighttown gigs.

FunkyStrange said:

Your opinion on this matter is well documented, your upfront no-holds-barred method of sharing it with us made it somewhat hard to overlook. You really drove it home for us, so I think no additional clarification from you is needed at this time.

Additionally, I propose that people make up their own minds about what and what not to shut up about.

yormeister said:

I Love U (More Than U'll Ever Know) by Donny Hathaway?

Somebody tell me 'no' before i fall out of my chair.
[This message was edited Sun Oct 27 22:18:07 PST 2002 by aspera773]

Thanks Yormeister!

udo

(?) I Love U Baby, Like You Have Never Known (or something like that, don't know the title)
yeah it'd B nice to know if it's a new song or just a cover ... anyone?

yormeister said:

PLEEZE, he was fooling y'all. He knows how addicted we all are...

Great report, thanks!

The show was nice! The soundcheck was OK. Detail: during the `discussion part` (started by someone, not me, asking about the French $100 prices) Prince went off the mic.
I think this is a bit sad, this way it looks like he doesn't want to openly discuss simple, serious questions.
From what I could understand he just wants a bonus for his band and himself. I think this reason is a bit lame and not the real reason.
Anyone here got to hear this part better?

But I didn't let this passage spoil last evening. The show was worth going to (although it was a bit difficult getting there due to the 'extreme' weather)!

udo

Hendrix-Song during the Soundcheck was "Machine Gun" with different lyrics. Right?

aspera773 said:

No ! Don't be afraid...

It was Adore.

FunkyStrange said:

I am sure that we'll get gifts for these two late night jams , see these are members only shows, maybe we'll have the ONA cd with it!!! Or something else, Eye know Prince never treated his audience wrong before so, i think i will follow my fiancé's advice (she cannot come but wishes me to go and try to chat with the man!!!) and go to holland!!!

11 shows? Lucky you...poor bank account.

Great report Yormeister, thanks, but the Jimi Hendrix song is who knows i guess

Udo said:

I was able to hear him a bit better and i'll try to recap what he said on the issue. Albeit not neccesarily in the correct order, i'm doing it from the top of my head.

First someone shouted out "Why is Paris so expensive?"
At this point This J.P.-dude was on stage (making quite a fool of himself) Prince heard the question from the audience and said: "I better take this one. What was the question?"
The guy who asked the question again said: "Why is Paris so expensive, The aftershow?"
Prince: What Aftershow? There IS no aftershow."
crowd: "The Second show in Paris!"
Prince: "Ahhh! the SECOND show!"

He didn't seem THAT aware of the fact those tix were $100, let alone of the fact the Zenith tix were sold for (only) $39. He asked how much the Oberhausen tix were and when the crowd said $43, he asked if that were the clubmember tix or the rest...

Prince then went on to explain the Bataclan show was added for ppl who didn't have a chance to catch the Zenith show.
He asked the crowd how many saw him earlier in the tour and how many would be going to Paris.
He said people were NUTS to go see his show multiple times.
And that he couldn't imagine ANY artist who he would go see four times.
He said whenever he had an issue he always tried to apply it to another situation, continueing: "If i gave a kid four sandwiches but then the kid wants seven... what should i do?"

At some point someone from the crowd argueed: "But you're a drug!!!", which had Prince say something like: "That sounds like you have a medical problem. i can't help that."

He also asked how many bought tix for the second Rotterdam
Show and ppl went on to tell him it was not on sale yet.
Then when someone asked how much those tickets would be he replied: I guess about $3. and chuckled.

He then asked if we didn't feel Rhonda needed a bonus and if they saw Takumi work, and if he didn't deserve a bonus.
And asked the crowd if they knew how many ppl were in his crew, adding the reply himself: 35.

He also said that with the money for the Nighttown show Candy would buy the place and make it an NPG Music Club.

After all this someone aksed him if he would play "When Will We B Paid", which made him crack up.
Someone else then yelled "Money Don't Matter 2 Nite", which made him reply: "But it WILL tomorrow"

That's about all i remember that was said on the issue.
Anyone remember more/something esle?
[This message was edited Mon Oct 28 3:57:09 PST 2002 by jooZt]
[This message was edited Mon Oct 28 8:08:05 PST 2002 by jooZt]

Since he's obviously willing to talk to us, PLEASE somebody ask him VERY politely if he can release some downloads of some (after)shows!

udo said:

Actually, I think that by NOT using the mic Prince tried and managed to create a more equal base to talk to the fans who were asking about the ticket prices. Since I was way in the back I didn't manage to hear everything either but P appered to be honest when he was talking about the bonus. I DIDN'T hear ANYTHING about a bonus for himself though..
What I liked about it that he was open to all people and actually interacting. It was nice to see after reading about this a lot.


Other things not mentioned before:

- Prince asked us at the soundcheck whether we wanted a 'jazzy' or a dance show. He got a mixed response, we got a mixed show...

- The phonecall Prince made was to a sick girlfriend of one of the fans. She hang up on him which caused him to remark ' HE hang up on me' with disgust in his face. Homophobia.

- This was only my 2nd show and where in Rotterdam I didn't like the 'one religion/interpretation only' part, he was now actually saying that there are a lot of interpretations and that they are fine. ALthough, there is only one god..

- Eric Leeds: I'm gonna get flamed for this but I think he didn't fit in very well. He actually seemed to NOT like the concert at all where Candy and Greg were really into it

-during the soundcheck P made some remarks about Candy opening for him in Nighttown so that after that he would have an easy job, only having to play for half an hour then. I was good 'tongue in cheek' regarding the discussion about the price of the extra concerts

In the end I had a much better time in Rotterdam were P seemed a bit stressed/upset, both at the soundcheck and the concert.

BTW I heard there were some NPGMC members walking around with ONA live there. Anyone seen it/them?

What the...!!! Ahhh!

calldapplwondery83 said:

Before this gets out of hand: non-members had seen ONE (member-) girl walking around with this cd but she wouldn't show it. SO, it's probably just someone who was trying to impress someone else.

I'm sorry for not putting this in correctly the first time..

Something else:

Grewg Boyer actually had a hard time finding five girls to dance onstage, he only found three. I guess that's because we were 95% male in there...

I think it's just his nature. He never looked all that happy somehow. But I think he must like this show because it has some jazz elements and Prince changes the set list quite a lot, something that Eric Leeds loved about the Parade tour like he said.

But you're right, Candy really shines of happyness! Amazing to watch!
[This message was edited Mon Oct 28 4:25:12 PST 2002 by calldapplwondery83]

yormeister said:

I wasn't nervous at all. The main reason for that is that I WAS AT HOME WATCHING TV!!! The only show I've been to so far is the october 15th in Rotterdam. You've got me confused (as many seem to do) with JP, another Dutch guy who likes to organise queue's before concerts, travels all over Europe to watch the little moneymaker and makes everybody confuse me with him.

TweetyV6 said:

Whew! Now that i've regained consciousness...thank U.
PEACE

calldapplwondery83 said:

See, this is what I was saying...Maceo is a better fit for Prince than Eric Leeds.

jooZt, thanks for the clarification!!

eelco said:

Is it at all possible that he was joking? Is it at all possible that he may have been making fun of her voice?? Perhaps it was low b/c she was sick??? Just some guesses, you're awfully quick to accuse him of being homophobic...

yormeister said:

Lean On Me 4 real? i LOVE that song!!!
[This message was edited Mon Oct 28 21:02:29 PST 2002 by Erendira]

Just 4 ur info:

The Hendrix Song during the Soundcheck was "Machine Gun"

100% sure...


Peace

joecoco said:

Nope it is "Who Knows"

zannalee said:

Maybe you are right. But I have an official CD at home with that song and it is listed as "Machine Gun". Anyway it is cool...

- (?) I Love U Baby, Like You Have Never Known (or something like that, don't know the title

No ! Don't be afraid...

It was Adore.[/quote]

No it wasn't! He started by singing the line 'i love u baby' etc and then he continued this with the 'Oberhausen, we want to get down' chant (pretty cool actually). No idea if he made the first line up on the spot or if it is an actual song...

GoldNigga said:

Sorry? What? ERIC LEEDS IS GOD ON THE SAXOFONE! And I was too happy to see him again on stage, after all those years...Much respect for Eric!