What has everyone thought?

After so much talk of rehearsing 300 songs, i have to say I'm a little disappointed with the consistency of the setlists. There really hasn't been much variation at all, apart from the opening 4or5 songs either the jam of the year..$..etc medley or a bunch of hits he has played at every show anyway...

There are also a number of usual tracks that are yet to make an appearance on this tour (or have been played only once) After seeing the 2 melb shows which were largely the same, it seems the only variation i have to look forward to is maybe the piano medley...

People might have a different opinion, but Im really hoping for something extra

I agree, I was expecting much more variation between the shows but like you say, the two Melbourne shows had some minor changes (they were great changes though) but certainly the majority of the show was the same.

Even between the the different states, the setlists look pretty similiar.

Compared to any other big name band or artist, the spontaneity of these gigs should be applauded. Whether it be extending or varying the songs, or changing the order around all together based on the vibe of the crowd, only a tight run band can pull that stuff off in front of 20,000 people.

Setlists are always a lot more fun when we attend the shows

I've been pretty happy. The whole "300 songs" thing is always a bit of an exaggeration - like when it's reported he plays "27 instruments" or whatever. Just good promo really. The reality is he probably has 2.5 or 3 shows worth of material ready to go at any given time, but mainly only draws from about 1.5 of those. But anyone going to these shows expecting not to hear "Purple Rain", "Let's Go Crazy" or "Kiss" are deluding themselves. C'mon - it's billed as a 'Hits' show - if that's not enough of a give away about what the setlists are going to look like, then there's not much more to say

Overrall quite happy. Initially I thought the show I saw was a bit hit heavy rather than his real genius stuff, I was a bit annoyed there was no stuff off Dirty Mind, Lovesexy or anything after the Gold Experience sans Days of Wild and Dance 4 Me (A snippet). But then I relaised he was playing for the "Purple Rain and Cream" crowd and his versions of the hits were great anyway, he livened them up. Plus he did at least play Days of Wild, Love Thy will be done and sexy dancer which are more obscure tracks (In his versions at least).

But the set list was predictable, whereas the showmanship was an A+ the set list was a B. Still I was just thankful to see my idol perform live. Its one of those things that was on my bucket list!

Was expecting the same sort of show he put on for W2Europe and W2America/Canada!!

Witnessing these shows live back to back you get the feeling they are similar in many ways, but the minor changes really stand out.

It may have been different if Maceo and Sheila were here.

Adorecream said:

Overrall quite happy. Initially I thought the show I saw was a bit hit heavy rather than his real genius stuff, I was a bit annoyed there was no stuff off Dirty Mind, Lovesexy or anything after the Gold Experience sans Days of Wild and Dance 4 Me (A snippet). But then I relaised he was playing for the "Purple Rain and Cream" crowd and his versions of the hits were great anyway, he livened them up. Plus he did at least play Days of Wild, Love Thy will be done and sexy dancer which are more obscure tracks (In his versions at least).

But the set list was predictable, whereas the showmanship was an A+ the set list was a B. Still I was just thankful to see my idol perform live. Its one of those things that was on my bucket list!

$ was played......

dreamer was played...both well after the 90's

many would consider 'kiss' "sign o the times" 'raspberry beret" "purple rain" "controversy" as GENIUS

just saying.............

As I said in another thread, there has been nothing played from the Symbol album yet, which was a commercial hit in Australia. That said, I can't see him doing either Sexy MF or My Name is Prince anyway.

There seems to be plenty of hits, and some obsure stuff that is not off released albums too.

[Edited 5/24/12 16:15pm]

Rustyrek said:

As I said in another thread, there has been nothing played from the Symbol album yet, which was a commercial hit in Australia. That said, I can't see him doing either Sexy MF or My Name is Prince anyway.

There seems to be plenty of hits, and some obsure stuff that is not off released albums too.

[Edited 5/24/12 16:15pm]

Didn't he play blue light? That is from the Symbol album.

[Edited 5/24/12 18:02pm]

Didn't he play blue light? That is from the Symbol album.

If he did, it's not listed in the PrinceVault setlists.

ruready said:

Rustyrek said:

As I said in another thread, there has been nothing played from the Symbol album yet, which was a commercial hit in Australia. That said, I can't see him doing either Sexy MF or My Name is Prince anyway.

There seems to be plenty of hits, and some obsure stuff that is not off released albums too.

[Edited 5/24/12 16:15pm]

Didn't he play blue light? That is from the Symbol album.

[Edited 5/24/12 18:02pm]

no blue light

jonylawson said:

Adorecream said:

Overrall quite happy. Initially I thought the show I saw was a bit hit heavy rather than his real genius stuff, I was a bit annoyed there was no stuff off Dirty Mind, Lovesexy or anything after the Gold Experience sans Days of Wild and Dance 4 Me (A snippet). But then I relaised he was playing for the "Purple Rain and Cream" crowd and his versions of the hits were great anyway, he livened them up. Plus he did at least play Days of Wild, Love Thy will be done and sexy dancer which are more obscure tracks (In his versions at least).

But the set list was predictable, whereas the showmanship was an A+ the set list was a B. Still I was just thankful to see my idol perform live. Its one of those things that was on my bucket list!

$ was played......

dreamer was played...both well after the 90's

many would consider 'kiss' "sign o the times" 'raspberry beret" "purple rain" "controversy" as GENIUS

just saying.............

For once I am not offended, you are right those songs are genius, I got the context of the word wrong. I was meaning to say genius as in songs like If I was ur girlfriend, Anna Stesia, Joy in Repetition, Colonized mind. He played some genius songs, but popular genius stuff rather than some obscure ditties. But I was glad he played Days of Wild, hearing that song, and especially as the last encore is an experience I will never forget. Its just a song that deserves to be heard. Forget him promoting Purple Rain live (Which is essential too), I think him saying "You must see Days of Wild live" would just appeal to all the hard core fans like most of us more.

Setlists will always be a hit or miss thing depending on who you are and how many shows you see.

Prince has to appeal to the diehard who gets excited about hearing GOLD or Days of Wild, while the majority of people attending (casual fans to curious onlookers) will be like "What are these songs?"

At the same time you might get some die hard fans who will be all "Cream, again really?" but the casuals lap it up.

To try and cater for a bigger audience - and one that hasn't seen him in 9 years - the setlists reflect the "must play" songs with a few wow moments for the more die hard.

I always viewed the "300 songs" quotes in the same way as the "hits for the last time" tour of 2003, hype to build up anticipation of a concert tour and clever marketing.

days of wild for me was THE moment and worth all the cash i forked out

I've been listening to Lotusflow3r and 2010 recently and think it's a shame most of these tracks will probably not be performed live in a venue in Australia. If an unknown artist released these as a 1st and 2nd album then people might get a chance to see them performed live (meaning just the tracks from these albums). So the old "musical journey contained within an album" is lost.)

I think this reason above is the downside of the stadium concerts where they want the general public to go and see Prince (because he was once a driving force in popular music - that's how the marketers put it).

I'm happy Prince continues to try things and create new music. There is plenty of pop music that I wouldn't sit down and "listen" to.

I'm also happy Prince hasn't taken up the banjo or some annoying musical genre, cos I would stop listening. (eg I still have no idea what the name of the country album by Sting is - I'm just not interested in listening to country music.)

When I was a teenager I watched the live Sign o the times video and Lovesexy video hundreds of times. Being in Australia we knew it was unlikely he would visit. And since then I've seen him in the three tours he has done here.

But given the concerts are few and far between I would be interested to see a bluray disc for each album containing the tracks from that album - preferably a recording from shortly after that particular album was released, and then also the tracks from that album that he performs today - to be able to see how they've changed and evolved over the years.

Before deciding to buy tix to the latest tour I checked youtube video content to make sure Prince could still sing and play. (There are plenty who cannot sing like they used to eg Chris Cornell). I wouldn't watch youtube to see a good version of a Prince performance. It was just to make sure the concert would be worth it. Same reason I recorded the audio for the concert. So I could remind myself what was played. I've listened to it twice since and probably won't listen to it again. If I want to hear the song I'll listen to an official version so the sound quality is good.

{I wonder if Prince delays releasing live bluray discs, or good quality recordings of the live performances because he wants to spread his income out over many years. (Rather than be hit with a massive tax bill from releasing too many albums at once.)???}

Thanks Prince for visiting Australia. Hopefully you'll come back after your next album and play a few tracks from the new album.

Any chance you could release a good quality live recording of I could never take the place of your man? - that would be better than listening to the dodgy audio file on my phone.

he should have toured on lotusflower

its an amzing album

astone said:

{I wonder if Prince delays releasing live bluray discs, or good quality recordings of the live performances because he wants to spread his income out over many years. (Rather than be hit with a massive tax bill from releasing too many albums at once.)???}

This gave me a good laugh. People are buying DVD and Blu Ray to a point, but sales for aging Pop Artists continue to fall. Prince's fan base does get some new young members each year, but he is not gaining tons of consumers who will buy releases at will. His fan base with the most hunger for Live DVD are aging, and becoming less likely to fork out money for remasters and live dvds. His opportunity for making real money off his valut, uh I mean vault, decreases each passing day, as his average fan who would pay for such things gets older and older, and sadly, some are dying.

The really sad thing, is there is such a wealth of material rotting in a vault, but Prince likely has no interest in the past. He might remake a vault track like Extra Loveable or In A Large Room With No Light....but when it comes to past releases, Prince is In A Large Vault with NO Common Sense.

Sad, cuz it would be great to at least get the VHS releases on Blu-Ray or Standard DVD like Lovesexy Live, P& The Rev Live, etc.

[Edited 5/28/12 0:42am]

maballes said:

I agree, I was expecting much more variation between the shows but like you say, the two Melbourne shows had some minor changes (they were great changes though) but certainly the majority of the show was the same.

Even between the the different states, the setlists look pretty similiar.

With this tour, even though he is playing tons of different songs, many of them have very similar arrangements, like Prince feels the band can't stretch like the SOTT band, or the original NPG. It is also odd how some songs sound so amazing like Another Lover or Shh, but some sound lame with the girls on vocals (Mountains), or worse, just having Shelby shout with her crowd hype while the band just lazily grooves on a song.

Still, with Prince, you still get a legend with a good performance most nights. I just always want a great performance, and the man can sleepwalk some nights.

stillwaiting said:

This gave me a good laugh. People are buying DVD and Blu Ray to a point, but sales for aging Pop Artists continue to fall. Prince's fan base does get some new young members each year, but he is not gaining tons of consumers who will buy releases at will. His fan base with the most hunger for Live DVD are aging, and becoming less likely to fork out money for remasters and live dvds. His opportunity for making real money off his valut decreases each passing day, as his average fan who would pay for such things gets older and older, and sadly, some are dying.

The really sad thing, is there is such a wealth of material rotting in a vault, but Prince likely has no interest in the past. He might remake a vault track like Extra Loveable or In A Large Room With No Light....but when it comes to past releases, Prince is In A Large Vault with NO Common Sense.

Sad, cuz it would be great to at least get the VHS releases on Blu-Ray or Standard DVD like Lovesexy Live, P& The Rev Live, etc.

I think albums like Sade's last one and David Gilmours last one topped the sales charts because old people buy albums, while young people download only individual songs and often do so for free.

So the best chance to make a buck is to sell stuff now while the old people are still around.

So if the video quality on old live footage is poor, perhaps then release the audio sound. Shortly after Miles Davis dies heaps of live footage were released and his hardcore fans paid a lot of $ for each one.

I used to wish I could leave a concert and get the dvd right there so I could go away and re-live it. I understand these days you would not want the live footage out because it might undercut sales to the live show, but if Prince is giving his albums away with newspapers, then why not have a link for those who went to the show, to be able to buy the soundboard cd of the tracks he is playing on that tour - and it becomes available once he leaves the country.

Also he should get his tunes and arrangements out there so the tune is linked to him and his name. There are a few tunes on some of his recent albums that are similar to some local bands I used to go see 20 yrs ago. Prince would not have heard the local bands tunes, it's just inevitable that some people are going to come up with a tune that sounds similar to another person's tune. (eg a Prince tune on a recent track influenced by Jimi Hendrix that my local band came up with a long time ago).

I listen to other albums and think ok so they've got a song in the style of Prince (and another in style of A-ha or Duran Duran etc). Like once you have the recipe you can go off and write your own Prince-style tune (eg Britney's Slave to you).

But if Prince already has such a tune in his vault, then at least if released it publicly he could limit others from using the same tune, arrangement etc.

astone said:

stillwaiting said:

This gave me a good laugh. People are buying DVD and Blu Ray to a point, but sales for aging Pop Artists continue to fall. Prince's fan base does get some new young members each year, but he is not gaining tons of consumers who will buy releases at will. His fan base with the most hunger for Live DVD are aging, and becoming less likely to fork out money for remasters and live dvds. His opportunity for making real money off his valut decreases each passing day, as his average fan who would pay for such things gets older and older, and sadly, some are dying.

The really sad thing, is there is such a wealth of material rotting in a vault, but Prince likely has no interest in the past. He might remake a vault track like Extra Loveable or In A Large Room With No Light....but when it comes to past releases, Prince is In A Large Vault with NO Common Sense.

Sad, cuz it would be great to at least get the VHS releases on Blu-Ray or Standard DVD like Lovesexy Live, P& The Rev Live, etc.

I think albums like Sade's last one and David Gilmours last one topped the sales charts because old people buy albums, while young people download only individual songs and often do so for free.

So the best chance to make a buck is to sell stuff now while the old people are still around.

So if the video quality on old live footage is poor, perhaps then release the audio sound. Shortly after Miles Davis dies heaps of live footage were released and his hardcore fans paid a lot of $ for each one.

I used to wish I could leave a concert and get the dvd right there so I could go away and re-live it. I understand these days you would not want the live footage out because it might undercut sales to the live show, but if Prince is giving his albums away with newspapers, then why not have a link for those who went to the show, to be able to buy the soundboard cd of the tracks he is playing on that tour - and it becomes available once he leaves the country.

Also he should get his tunes and arrangements out there so the tune is linked to him and his name. There are a few tunes on some of his recent albums that are similar to some local bands I used to go see 20 yrs ago. Prince would not have heard the local bands tunes, it's just inevitable that some people are going to come up with a tune that sounds similar to another person's tune. (eg a Prince tune on a recent track influenced by Jimi Hendrix that my local band came up with a long time ago).

I listen to other albums and think ok so they've got a song in the style of Prince (and another in style of A-ha or Duran Duran etc). Like once you have the recipe you can go off and write your own Prince-style tune (eg Britney's Slave to you).

But if Prince already has such a tune in his vault, then at least if released it publicly he could limit others from using the same tune, arrangement etc.

Hey, you make great points here. They are not valid, since Prince is not busting his ass trying to release anything. By the time he may get around to it, the fans that will pay for it will be ready to get their AARP cards in the mail. The time to do this was 2002 or before. Sure, if he did something by the end of 2012 or 2013, he might still get a few sales, but this is Prince we are talking about. He doesn't believe in or have any concept of what time is. By the time he considers it, there will be little interest out there.

stillwaiting said:

Hey, you make great points here. They are not valid, since Prince is not busting his ass trying to release anything. By the time he may get around to it, the fans that will pay for it will be ready to get their AARP cards in the mail. The time to do this was 2002 or before. Sure, if he did something by the end of 2012 or 2013, he might still get a few sales, but this is Prince we are talking about. He doesn't believe in or have any concept of what time is. By the time he considers it, there will be little interest out there.

Based on what you say it makes sense why the hardcore fans are so keen to exchange bootlegs - since they won't get what they want from Prince himself.

But surely failing to release official live recordings encourages people to go hunting youtube for footage of concerts. At least if he did it himself he'd be in control of it.

So the options are either:

1-hunt around for bootleg stuff and treasure it (the same way I treasured my copy of a copy of a copy... version of the Black Album, until it was officially released)

or

2-try to outlive Prince and hope his estate releases it all after he passes on. (But being a vegetarian who doesn't smoke and is pretty healthy, he's prbly got another 50 yrs in him).

Of course, I'll be pretty deaf by then (after all the ear piercing concerts) so I might have to go with option1.

jonylawson said:

he should have toured on lotusflower

its an amzing album

Lots of good tracks on that one. Valentina is hilarious.

He played Dreamer (guitar only) at the Ivy and $ at the main gig. Lucky me.

IM HAPPY HE PLAYED DREAMER AT 1st MELB SHOW . FURY WOULDVE BEEN TOPS 2.

I would have loved to hear him play Turn Me Loose too - that song rips it up.

Love it

ronaldo999 said:

What has everyone thought?

After so much talk of rehearsing 300 songs, i have to say I'm a little disappointed with the consistency of the setlists. There really hasn't been much variation at all, apart from the opening 4or5 songs either the jam of the year..$..etc medley or a bunch of hits he has played at every show anyway...

There are also a number of usual tracks that are yet to make an appearance on this tour (or have been played only once) After seeing the 2 melb shows which were largely the same, it seems the only variation i have to look forward to is maybe the piano medley...

People might have a different opinion, but Im really hoping for something extra

Being played only once or twice is what makes the songs unusual, now, isn't it?

bobbyperu said:

ronaldo999 said:

What has everyone thought?

After so much talk of rehearsing 300 songs, i have to say I'm a little disappointed with the consistency of the setlists. There really hasn't been much variation at all, apart from the opening 4or5 songs either the jam of the year..$..etc medley or a bunch of hits he has played at every show anyway...

There are also a number of usual tracks that are yet to make an appearance on this tour (or have been played only once) After seeing the 2 melb shows which were largely the same, it seems the only variation i have to look forward to is maybe the piano medley...

People might have a different opinion, but Im really hoping for something extra

Being played only once or twice is what makes the songs unusual, now, isn't it?

By 'usual' i meant songs frequently played on previous tours which have given way for a few songs to be played over and over on the Aus tour. dance electric and the sampler set with the same songs for exampled. (dance electric, great to see, but at every single show?)

The best example of why i started this post is.. prince playing almost the exact same sampler set at all 3 melb shows. its a sampler set, so the songs included could clearly be more varied. Also did not include a piano set at any of the 3 melb shows...

As a fan going to all 3 shows in one city, i was hoping to experience as many different songs as possible but somehow missed out on many!!

I have to kind of agree there - I was suprised with the piano sampler set that Prince did not vary that more - because he had the chance to do that as it was just him on piano and he could lead the music where he wanted it to go. But I was still very happy with what I heard from both the concerts I did go to.

DFUNK said:

He did play Crimson And Clover on the May 30 show in Melbourne.

That was a highlight for me