http://www.nytimes.com/20...;ref=music

True Guitar Hero, With More Love and Less Leer

By JON PARELES

Published: December 16, 2010

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — “Do you want me?” Prince sang shortly into his concert at the Izod Center, his first of two shows here before he performs on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. He knew the answer would be an affirmative roar. And his opening song was a boast: “Laydown,” from his most recent album, “20Ten” (NPG), announced, “From the heart of Minnesota/Here come the purple Yoda” and matter-of-factly asserted, “Everybody wanna be me.”

Well, if not, then to have something like his vitality. Prince Rogers Nelson, 52, has been a star for more than 30 years, and a prolific one, releasing more than 30 studio albums, with many of them recorded by Prince on all instruments and vocals. Before “20Ten” this year — a CD that was distributed with newspapers and magazines across Europe, presumably getting him paid upfront — he released two albums in 2009; he has generally released an album or two each year since 1978.

That gives him an enormous number of songs to draw on for a concert, and in a set that ran nearly two hours, he did, including some to be expected — “Purple Rain” — and others that were certainly not, like “She’s Always in My Hair,” the B side of the 1985 single “Raspberry Beret” (which was also in the set), or “Sometimes It Snows in April,” from his 1986 album, “Parade.”

The current tour is billed as “Welcome 2 America,” which Prince announced with a brief taunt to the economy: “Welcome to America, y’all,” Prince said, “where you can fail at your job, get fired, rehired and get a $700 billion tip.” But that was the concert’s only political moment. Although he has waxed philosophical on recent albums, Prince devoted the show to songs about love and desire.

When Prince and his band were onstage, it didn’t matter if his material was stellar — like “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which he sang with Shelby J., turning a cry of loneliness into a couple’s reunion — or merely adequate, like “Cool.” His funk songs virtually required dancing; his amorous ballads, in and out of falsetto, lived up to titles like “Scandalous” and “Insatiable.” He savored every line he sang.

And Prince’s rockers featured guitar solos as expressive as his voice, whether he was playing hard-bitten, bluesy jabs or anthemic long lines. He toured rock and soul history, harking back to Chuck Berry in “Cream,” hinting at Memphis soul with staccato licks at the beginning of “Purple Rain,” summoning the vocal harmonies of smooth 1970s soul in “Adore,” dipping into jazz for one interlude, approaching metal for another. It was all proudly played in real time by a well-rehearsed band; Prince is a holdout that way.

While he’s not as acrobatic as he once was, Prince is still a showman, though his foundation is music, not spectacle. Compared with his younger self, he was more loving and less leering (though hardly chaste) and more a guitarist than a dancer (not a bad tradeoff in the end). He paced himself on Wednesday, handing off two full songs to his female backup singers while he changed costumes. Prince also shared duets with his opening acts, the jazz bassist and airborne scat singer Esperanza Spalding and the sultry R&B ballad crooner Lalah Hathaway.

As Prince performed on a stage shaped like his trademarked glyph, he was in constant motion: starting a song on the piano and then climbing on top of it, or strutting all around the stage, again and again. He punctuated his guitar solos with twirls and gestures. Among rock guitar heroes, Prince is not only one of the masters; he is also by far the best dancer. But he saved his flashiest moves for “Kiss”: hip twitches, shoulder shakes and moments of poised near-stillness when the drumbeat moved just an elbow or a wrist. It’s easy to envision Prince as another Chuck Berry or James Brown, barnstorming for decades to come.

Thanks for this ...

nice review

purplemookiebut said:

nice review

Ditto...and thanks for posting!