This just in .. Prince on stage @ bennetts lane jazz club <Melbourne 2nite! 200$ @ door *secret show* just starting .. ♥"

You lucky buggars!

2am on Tuesday here in Sydney (same as Melbourne) so I doubt anyone is awake to get the news!

Yeah it is strange to announce it this late!

But I'm in NZ, it's 4am here and you and I are both up, so hopefully some people get that are in the correct city are up for it at this time.

Looks like a very small club so a few fortunate people will have Prince and the band just about all to themselves!

I hope we get a setlist. I hope that the hardcore fans manage to get to this show and aren't sleeping.

Why am I awake in Sydney to see this news!!! Urggghhhhh

I'm flying down for the final show on Wednesday and hopefully more late night surprises...

Apparently he's played Love 2 The 9's, An Honest Man and Tamborine so far. Crazy, mindblowing stuff...

$200.00

i may go jump off a bridge...

he played TAMBOURINE!

WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh my god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was awake! I'm still awake! So very tired. But so very awake. Purple high. Can't come down.

Bennett's Lane is a tiny little jazz club. It was a really cool, very laid back, jazzy, funky gig. I got there just after 1am and the band was already jamming, with the girls taking turns on the mic. Not sure when Prince arrived, but it wasn't long after. Gig ended a few minutes shy of 4am.

He was sitting two seats down from me, in the dark and he called out "Tambourine" to John B, who immediately obliged. Prince didn't sing it - he said he was just "testing John's knowledge of Prince music"

Prince did play everything at least once. He had a lot of feedback problems throughout the night. At one stage, he said, "This is what I do for a living. I make feedback." I was standing next to the sound guy and I was scared!

Eventually he got the band grooving and crouched down by the controls himself. A minute later everything was stable and stayed that way until the end of that "set" (not sure you could call them encores).

I hope someone with a better memory can put together a setlist (you can definitely put IIWYG, Strange Relationship and Something In The Water in there). So sorry guys but I was just lost in the music. So. Much. Fun.

I might try and sleep now. Will try to remember more coherently in the morning.

Chiquetet said:

I was awake! I'm still awake! So very tired. But so very awake. Purple high. Can't come down.

Bennett's Lane is a tiny little jazz club. It was a really cool, very laid back, jazzy, funky gig. I got there just after 1am and the band was already jamming, with the girls taking turns on the mic. Not sure when Prince arrived, but it wasn't long after. Gig ended a few minutes shy of 4am.

He was sitting two seats down from me, in the dark and he called out "Tambourine" to John B, who immediately obliged. Prince didn't sing it - he said he was just "testing John's knowledge of Prince music"

Prince did play everything at least once. He had a lot of feedback problems throughout the night. At one stage, he said, "This is what I do for a living. I make feedback." I was standing next to the sound guy and I was scared!

Eventually he got the band grooving and crouched down by the controls himself. A minute later everything was stable and stayed that way until the end of that "set" (not sure you could call them encores).

I hope someone with a better memory can put together a setlist (you can definitely put IIWYG, Strange Relationship and Something In The Water in there). So sorry guys but I was just lost in the music. So. Much. Fun.

I might try and sleep now. Will try to remember more coherently in the morning.

Cool ! Thank you!

holy fuck

that is what i had dreamed of witnessing...bennets in melbourne.

*sigh*

having been to an aftershow i understand why people get so excited

(secretly i read the brisbane setlist and went..ho hum.too party hearty)

but DAMN!

a jazz club??

thats what i want.

to me this is what after shows are all about

secret and your lucky to get in..its almost like the halycon 80's aftershows

ZombieKitten said:

Crap!!!!

yes CRAP!!!!!!!

jonylawson said:

Phew....I'm so glad I missed that aftershow!

I hear the some of the seats at Bennets Lane are a not very comfortable and a friend of a friend of mine told me that his cousin bought a bag of peanuts from the bar there and they were two days past their used-by date. I mean, I'm a big Prince fan, but you've got to draw the line somewhere.....I just feel sorry for those that did attend.

(Please buy my new book: "Ways to Make Yourself Feel Better" by SDNafka, available now through Amazon)

SDNafka said:

Phew....I'm so glad I missed that aftershow!

So am I! I had a good night's sleep, feel all refreshed today and don't have to explain why I have a silly grin on my face. So glad I missed it.

sabaisabai said:

SDNafka said:

Phew....I'm so glad I missed that aftershow!

So am I! I had a good night's sleep, feel all refreshed today and don't have to explain why I have a silly grin on my face. So glad I missed it.

OMG! you guys have just put a big smile on my face, you are both so right of course!

.......... Yeah, and I heard he played Dizzy's Salt Peanuts in protest...on trumpet...for like 35 mins last night....and I like really hate that tune!

SDNafka said:

Phew....I'm so glad I missed that aftershow!

I hear the some of the seats at Bennets Lane are a not very comfortable and a friend of a friend of mine told me that his cousin bought a bag of peanuts from the bar there and they were two days past their used-by date. I mean, I'm a big Prince fan, but you've got to draw the line somewhere.....I just feel sorry for those that did attend.

(Please buy my new book: "Ways to Make Yourself Feel Better" by SDNafka, available now through Amazon)

FAAAARK YOUUUU BENNETS LANE!!!

THATS TWICE NOW!!!!!!!!!!

Chiquetet said:

I was awake! I'm still awake! So very tired. But so very awake. Purple high. Can't come down.

Bennett's Lane is a tiny little jazz club. It was a really cool, very laid back, jazzy, funky gig. I got there just after 1am and the band was already jamming, with the girls taking turns on the mic. Not sure when Prince arrived, but it wasn't long after. Gig ended a few minutes shy of 4am.

He was sitting two seats down from me, in the dark and he called out "Tambourine" to John B, who immediately obliged. Prince didn't sing it - he said he was just "testing John's knowledge of Prince music"

Prince did play everything at least once. He had a lot of feedback problems throughout the night. At one stage, he said, "This is what I do for a living. I make feedback." I was standing next to the sound guy and I was scared!

Eventually he got the band grooving and crouched down by the controls himself. A minute later everything was stable and stayed that way until the end of that "set" (not sure you could call them encores).

I hope someone with a better memory can put together a setlist (you can definitely put IIWYG, Strange Relationship and Something In The Water in there). So sorry guys but I was just lost in the music. So. Much. Fun.

I might try and sleep now. Will try to remember more coherently in the morning.

Can I ask how you found out about this?

Did you go immediately after the tweet!?

Melbourne, Bennetts Lane Jazz Club
29th May 2012 (am)

Something in the water (does not compute)
Love 2 The 9's
Tamborine
An Honest Man
Prince on drums (solo)
Strange relationship
Brown Skin
What have you done for me lately
Sexy
Rude boy
If i wa your girlfriend
Oustanding (gap band)
Don't stop till you get enough
Prince on piano
Jazzy Set (Charlie Parker & Miles Davis)

rince Takes To The Stage at Bennett’s Lane Jazz Club, Melboune
by TIM CASHMERE on MAY 29, 2012
After weeks of rumours, Prince gave a tiny and lucky Melbourne crowd a stellar and extremely intimate performance at Bennett’s Lane Jazz Club tonight.

The show was actually kept a genuine secret with much of the audience having stuck around after an earlier gig in the venue. The only other hints were a tweet from DJ Rashida saying: “This just in .. Prince on stage @ bennetts lane jazz club <Melbourne 2nite! 200$ @ door *secret show* just starting .. ♥″ and a futile mailout from the club to their mailing list which didn’t hit inboxes until long after the show had begun. In the end the crowd couldn’t have numbered more than about 70 or 80. It was a special moment.

The singer, who has one final stadium show on his tour in Melbourne on Wednesday, took to the tiny stage at around 2am and performed until almost 4 playing a string of funk and pop classics including Sexy Dancer (from Prince), Love 2 The 9s (from The Love Symbol Album) and covers of Parliament/Funkadelic’s Tear The Roof Off The Sucker and Up For The Downstroke as well as Rihanna’s Rude Boy. Oh, and there was funk. Lots and lots and lots of funk.

The lighting in the club is considerably more low-tech than the gadgety arena shows the purple one has been doing. At one point Prince’s minders could be heard mumbling to each other “How do we cut the lights?” before literally walking around to every light in the room switching them off manually until the only light that could be seen was coming from the office behind the bar, creating a very strange vibe, but what the hell? It’s not every day you get to dance whilst standing on top of a chair in pitch darkness while Prince and the NPG are playing right in front of you.

As is often the case with these ultra-late-night club shows, Prince is not the main focus. Long time NPG vocalist Shelby J took centre stage for a while and the crowd was even treated to some spectacular dance moves from The Twinz.

“I came off stage and heard about the gig. The next thing I know Prince is playing through my amp,” one band member who had played an earlier gig at the venue said as he lowered his now cherished amp into the boot of his car after the show. Others were calling friends at 4am just to express their excitement as to what they had just seen, and others were just standing there, speechless and letting it all sink in.

The tour so far has included one club show in Sydney and two in Brisbane. Both Sydney and Brisbane had ticketed club shows, while a second unannounced Brisbane show took place on Saturday. At this point the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince has managed to keep punters (and journalists) on their toes. Will there be another club show in Melbourne? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Prince had performed at Bennett’s Lane during his last visit to Australia in 2003, as well as The Metro (now The Palace) and a DJ set at the Prince of Wales.

Given the time the tweet went out, I'd like to think that people would have shown up in their pajamas!

kristar said:

Given the time the tweet went out, I'd like to think that people would have shown up in their pajamas!

I swear, had I known, that would've been me

Gutted I wasn't there