it was so cool getting real time updates from the 21 nights shows...

hopefully someone will be kind enough to give an update soon...

what time do the shows start anyway?

Then you'll want to check back later...



Has it even started yet?

Then those there will have to get someplace where they can get on a computer and post.

And there's sleep...they might need some of that.

Seriously. 4:00 a.m. NYC time & nothing? What the hell?

thw 2nd show just ended 19 minutes ago.

Give us a little bit...we gotta find some words worthy of describing it...

just got home from the aftershow.

all i'll say was that Prince was really loose and fun. when he walked on stage, he looked FIERCE, i'm telling you, FIERCE. his shades scared me.
aftershow must have been a 3 hours long set, played lots of guitar. lots of covers - the opener crimson and clover was awesome. i thought the sound was really muddy in the first set. he played one slow song Shhh but then ripped it uptempo all night. Controversy was funky as hell! jesus i almost died. gave some dude with a harmonica lots of stage time, too much at one point.
second set - lots of funk! sound cleared up, well for me anyway. he let Shelby and Marva shine some. Cream, a few others, more covers (EWF, Janet, Cameo?) and ended with Jungle Love, The Bird, Glamorous Life and A Love Bizarre. too funky.

oh and he played Sexy Dancer - awesome! the first set was great but the second set was just sick.

Wow. wow. wow.

Dude I can't be the first one to report about this one, I can't do it justice. Come on people!

Aftershow started right at 1am NYC time. Ended just before 4am.

Dave Chappelle (huh?) played tambourine.

Shelby... wow... she had one of the highlights of the night.

She did Honky Tonk Woman vocals in the 1st half of the show... then killed on a ballad in the 2nd half.

Couldn't hear enough of the lead guitar in my opinion. But that was the only minor negative.

"Free Ride" ... was that in there? ("C'mon and take a free ride")

Yeah. I've never been worn out and stunned after a show. Usually I can write a fairly descriptive paragraph or two. Can't do it now. The show was good and all my energy is gone.

oh ya he also did Miss You by The Stones.....wow. dave chapelle was really funny and dorky. did a little stand up between sets.

Yeah I thought the sound was kinda muddled at first, but got better about halfway through..

Also I have to say there were more cornballs in the crowd than usual, who didn't know how to respect the funk, but they also cleared out before the second set thank goodness!

He played from approx. 12:45 to 3:45, with brief intermission in which dave chappelle randomly climbed on stage, grabbed a mic and started doing an impromptu standup set! classic haha..

This is the first time I've seen him since the Butter show (i'm ashamed to speak aloud of being lucky enough to see both, my apologies lol) and I was really impressed with this band, love the drummer and gotta say I dig Shelby more tha Tamar. The whole ensemble was TIGHT throughout!

Took my very good friend to this and it was her first Prince experience, so I was praying she'd get a true classic aftershow.. she definitely got it.

Someone please hit us with a set list! No way I'm gonna remember it all.

Some of my highlights real quick:

Starting the first set with "Crimson and Clover"(??)

Starting the encore with Shelby KILLING India Arie "Brown Skin", Ohio Players "I want to be free", Bily Cobham "Stratus" with P on guitar and Frederick killing the harmonica, EWF "can't hide love".. Miss You AND Honky Tonk Woman,. i could go on and on but i gotta get in the shower.. (can you tell i like when he does covers? this was pretty much my dream show in that regard)

The breadth of Black musical lineage that he covers in a show is just astonishing, it's like he embodies all of musical history in the course of a night..

Okay here’s our review from the early charity concert:

We are arrived at the Hotel Gansevoort around 7:15pm. There was a small crowd outside. At about 7:30pm we checked in at the will call outside the hotel and received our wrist bands. We then got in line to go inside. Once we entered the lobby, there were photographs from Randee St. Nicholas’ book about 21 nights displayed on easels.

We were ushered into an elevator to the penthouse level. On the top floor there was a bar and a DJ (DJ Lindsay), she was mostly spinning old school r & b. No Prince songs that I heard. There were seats around the perimeter with little cocktail tables. Each table had a square candle with a on it—they changed colors because they weren’t candles, but had LED lights inside.

To the south of this room was another area that was outdoors with a small pool (4 feet deep) and more seats around the perimeter. There were passed hors d’oeuvres (lobster pastry things, mini-burgers, beef tenderloin, and the only vegetarian option: bruschetta) and cocktails.

A little before nine they opened the doors on the north side of the main bar area—that is where the show would be. This room ran length-wise and the stage was set up on the east end, elevated at least 5 or six feet above the floor. The stage was fairly small—there were three microphones in the front/center, Cora’s drums were to the left (north), and Mr. Hayes keyboard was on the right. At about 9:15pm the entered from the security door just to the right of the stage and walked up the steps to the stage:
Shelby J.
Marva King
Mr. Hayes
Cora
Josh
Prince!

There were no horns at any point during the evening, and honestly I don’t know where they would have stood because it was really tight on stage and in the room.

Ladies, Prince was wearing all black—a black turtleneck sweater, black pants and shoes, and moon wraps on both ears. It looked like he just got a hair cut, it was short and more curly than in recent photos I have seen. He was wearing a huge gold(?), necklace—maybe hammered metal—it had a little bling to it, but I don’t think it was diamond encrusted. It didn’t have a definite shape really, but it was made up oval/circular shapes, hard to describe.

The first thing he said was, “Thanks for showing up” and made a comment about how it had been a strange day (stock market) and that we’d talk about it and feel better. He had the blue Stratocaster to begin. Rsp and I took copious notes about the setlist:

1. A new song! It was hard to make out all of the words, but it sounded like it was about the internet… I wrote it down as “Down Load.” It was kind of a mid-tempo bluesy. A couple little guitar solos.

He then switched to the Hohner for:

2. 1999 including the “don’t worry, I won’t hurt you” intro and the “Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb” lines. The crowd seemed to get into this. He also changed the “sky was all purple” line to “stock market crashin”.

3. I Feel For You: still singing “mainly a spiritual thing”

4. Controversy, including the “People call me rude, I wish we all were nude, I wish there was no black and white, I wish there were no rules” I was not expecting much crowd participation considering it was a richy-rich type of gig, but they surprised me and knew this part of the song. Then he melded than into a jam and guitar solo, at one point pulling out the “I’m so funky I can’t even sleep with myself” line.

5. Housequake!!! Only a few lines—“Tell me who in this house knows about the ‘Quake” I took this as a sign that he was acknowledging Jimmy and I’s winning presence. j/k

6. Controversy (outro)

7. Sexy Dancer/Le Freak. At this point a harmonica player, introduced as Frederick Young, came on stage and did a solo.

8. Miss You (Rolling Stones cover). Prince does a great Mick Jagger voice. Again featuring Frederick Young on harmonica. (I check my watch, it was about 9:45pm at this point.)

After Miss You they didn’t segue directly into another song, and Prince made a little about how when people see him at the airport they don’t yell, “Prince!” they say, “Purple Rain!” The audience thought this was quite funny.

9. Satisfied: very bluesy style, with Frederick Young doing another harmonica solo. Prince made a comment about how he was doing this old school, like “a hound dog wailing” and then went into

10. Begging Woman (or is it Cock-Eyed Woman). As most people in the crowd hadn’t already heard this, they laughed at all the funny lines. There was an organ solo by Mr. Hayes during this as well.

11. Purple Rain with the requisite guitar solo and funk faces. (Time check: 10:10pm)

12. A Love Bizarre the crowd really got into this as well. (Aside: overall the crowd was very responsive and seemed to be into the show, but I wouldn’t say they went completely wild over anything.) At the end, Cora did a great drum solo. I will admit that I have never been much of a fan of this band line up, but they have definitely improved since I last saw them at Nokia. They still aren’t my fave, but at least tonight I actually heard Josh’s bass and Cora’s solo was pretty good. (Still no Sheila E., but then who is? [Wink])

13. What is Hip (Tower of Power cover): Amazing. Harmonica solo, funky guitar playing. Rearranged with no horns, but it really worked.

14. Stratus (Billy Cobham cover) including a nice bass solo from Josh. He used his bass crybaby pedal on this and did some interesting rhythmic morphing. Cora fell right into it with him, Funky stuff!

15. Cream

16. U Got the Look

After this Prince left the stage.

17. Angel (Sarah McLachlan) Shelby sang this with Marva and she doing some churchy call and response towards the end. Also featured a harmonica solo by Frederick Young.

Prince returns

18. Nothing Compares 2 U

Even though the crowd milled around and cheered for an encore this was the last song. It ended at about 10:45pm. We hung around for awhile and they were ushered back out in the main bar area so the servers could clean up and prep for the Aftershow. We had another drink in the main bar area before we were asked to go downstairs and line up again (if we were coming back for the Aftershow, which we skipped).

Celebrity sightings throughout the evening:
Randee St. Nicholas
Howard Stern
Dave Chapelle
Anderson Cooper was getting off the elevator just as we got in to go downstairs and leave
Spike Lee

There were probably more, but as I am not really into celebrities, I didn’t notice.

On the way out we were giving a gift bag which included:
Lipstick Queen lipstick
A nice promo brochure for Randee’s 21 nights book
A Versace cut glass ornament

Overall it was a great night. Prince seemed to be in a very jovial mood and the crowd was into in as well. I have to say thanks again to Housequake and Prince for allowing us to be present at the show.

I didn’t go to the Prince Aftershow, but instead I went to hear Days of Wild play at the Bitter End. They always say you never know who might show up and jam with them. Well tonight it was the original drummer from Sly and the Family Stone, Greg Errico! He sat in with them all night and was awesome!! I feel very lucky to have seen Prince and him in the same night!

PS. Thanks to Rsp for helping me with the notetaking/setlist and "technical" music details.

EDIT: According to Funkteer's post at HQ, the harmonica players name is Fred Yonnet, not Frederick Young.


.
[Edited 10/11/08 11:35am]

312 4 the same thing we've heard these last few years?

glad i saved my money!!

smooth we need 2 talk lol

glad u had fun devoted


clint when u read this i hope ur sitting down at the table with a big plate of crow ...TOLD U nothing would change with his setlist

Some surprises, a few dead in the water covers...

Not that I have much choice, but I'll hold out for a proper show.

DevotedPuppy said:

Sounds like an amazing evening - glad you all enjoyed it

Though i don't get the decision to 'skip' a prince aftershow!

DevotedPuppy said:

Prince looks good with short hair, however I don't like the curly look. Did it look good? like UTCM look. never liked the curly look. It sounds like the look he had when he performed with Beyonce at the Grammys and I didn't like that look at all.

viewaskew said:

It ended at 4 am.

My allegiance is to this board, so I can't see the HQ photos.

Somebody asked about how close to the stage... you could almost get as close as you wanted. The room was small. Just a box, with everything cleared out - and at one end the stage - only about 4 feet off the ground. Just high enough so everybody could see.

For the start of the 2nd half Prince started a quiet guitar riff - from off stage. Everybody else came on and S started singing... Prince stayed off the stage.. and was actually in the front row of the audience playing guitar. I wasn't sure if he was sitting on the one of the steps to go up on stage or what. But I was about 6 people back in the audience, but only a few feet from Prince playing guitar. Pretty cool. Finally he went up on stage

i still can't believe the man is 50!

aubergine said:

Exactly, and Prince wore us out. He worked us hard...and it hurt good!

Excellent show. You can read my report here:

http://prince.org/msg/12/285264
[Edited 10/11/08 11:02am]

oh yeah...best line of the night (can't remember which song):

Prince: sometimes i do interviews....they always ask me where i'm from.....i always tell 'em "I'm from the 80s!".

hahah awesome, a total embrace of his era.


what song was that during?


oh and Cora.....phew, i dunno but Prince the best taste in drummers and she is a monster! amazing musician. she was smiling all damn night too.
[Edited 10/11/08 11:06am]

Kudra23 said:

Of course I would have loved to go, but free tickets were not included in my prize and I could not afford to pay $300.

Seeing Sly's drummer jam with my guest, Rsp, and all the other guys from Days of Wild--and getting to meet him was pretty fucking cool. I had a wonderful night both at Hotel Gansevoort and The Bitter End. (And the cover there was only $5! But since my guest was with the band I got in for free, there too! )

DevotedPuppy said:

Yeah i can understand that - sounds like you certainly made the most of your evening

2 great gigs in one night must be a difficult night to beat

4bjb said:

It looked alright...I don't know, I'm not that concerned about his hair, I just knew people would ask. It wasn't like UTCM. But I think there are pictures floating around one of these threads or over at HQ...

Haha well for the record I didn't buy a ticket, was able to get in through the kindness of my old friend Miss Info, to whom I am in eternal debt!

And I def still sympathize with complaints about the price, if it wasn't for my lucky break there's no way I could've afforded it.. AND I think these prices keep a lot of real fans out and brings in a less funky, less respectful crowd that affects the vibe.. so I hope they will learn from the failure to sell out last night and get more reasonable.

But that being said, I thought the show was off the hook and I def didn't feel like I was getting the "same old" by any means..!

L4OATheOriginal said:

[Edited 10/11/08 14:24pm]

jsmooth995 said:

we'll talk son

^if you getting ready to buy a boot with the same songs on it as the last boot you bought it's likely you won't buy it

salutetarian said:

Not a good analogy around here. You're talking to people who collected boots of all 21 nights in london... they won't settle until they have all 16 versions of fill in the blank.

Personally...as with every one else I would love to hear some of the lesser played songs... but if he wants to jam for three hours playing songs he likes (covers) and songs... I like(the hits)... I cannot see three hours of this as being a bad thing.

It was a great show and even better after show. Every one who went says it was... and many of them have seen more than their share of Prince after shows and rare sets to compare it too.

But you know what.. there were probably many fans there who may have never experienced anything like it. I can ony imagine how thrilled they would have been... because I know I've never had the pleasure and would love to experience it. Don't matter if it was the fifth or twenty fifth time he played a particular set list... if its the first time you heard it in that type of setting.

Some of you think Prince exist to satisfy just a few of your little worlds and anything out side of what you would want from him... you criticize and can't even let other fans enjoy a great experience with out being kill joys about it.