Essence Festival 2014. I'll be there. It's gonna be awesome. My first time to New Orleans and it's to see Prince. My fiance and I are meeting my two sisters for the festivities. BTW, being the oldest of 5 i've managed to turn all of my siblings on to Prince and it stuck. Even my youngest sister who is going to Nawlins loves her some Prince. She is 24. I'm from Denver but live in Albuquerque and have seen Prince perform in many cities where often it was my first time visiting. I've travelled to Arizona , Vegas twice, Denver mutliple times, Minneaplois for the 1st Celebration & NYC. I also saw him the one time he came to Albuquerque for the Jam of the Year tour. My most memorable shows were the following two. AZ for Musicology and had row 1 seats. It was my best concert experience ever. After watching the Musicology opener in LA at the movie theater I was telling everyone I was gonna get front row and get on stage. It all happened. Got to the arena, went to will call, tickets read row 1. The party was on from there. We arrived at our seats and noticed there was a door to the gate that separates the stage from the crowd. My girlfriend & I were on cloud nine. During parts of the show Greg Boyer would be on the floor in front of us and he was pretty cool. When it was time to let people on stage he picked a few people in our section and my girlfriend and I were allowed up. It was awesome to be on stage while Prince performed and the scene from the middle of the arena and watching the crowd just jumpin. We danced, I gave Prince a 5 on the side as he walked by, and I stepped on Rhonda's little pointed toe boot. No one was hurt but that may have been the last show where random people were selected to go on stage cuz later when we saw him in Denver, the fans allowed on stage were predetermined and all women. I'm not sure if Prince decided that they needed better quality control so his band members weren't injured or if he decided that having a tall sexy man like myself shaking my thing on stage might draw the attention away from him. Just kidding... but maybe. One note on this show. He skipped the acoustic set.

The Vegas aftershow was another extraordinary Prince experience. I made this trip with my girlfriend and my sister. A women who had travelled alone to Vegas for the show joined us at the show and the aftershow. We ended up sitting front and center for the aftershow because the band members girlfriends decided to sit at the back where we were going to sit. We went from thinking we wouldn't get in to, thinking someone took our seats once we were in to being seated at the table closest to the instruments. It was actually kind of awkward being in a small room so close to him. The hostess gives u the rules to sitting so close. They are Do not touch him, do not approach him or ask to shake his hand, hug him or anything like that. You almost feel like u can't even look at him cuz he doesn't give a lot of eye contact. My sister had a purse that she bought online that had a Parade era picture on it. Prince did keep looking at the Purse. Prince did not perform a whole lot but he ended up sitting on the lady's lap that sat with us while playing his guitar. Pretty cool but my sister was sooo jeolous.

I cannot wait for our Nawlins experience. Less than a week to go.

[Edited 6/29/14 13:55pm]

[Edited 6/29/14 14:04pm]

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