PRE SHOW MEETUP

First of all I'd like 2 apologise to all the people that headed to THE PUMPHOUSE TAVERN to discover it was shut down for renovations (the only renovated it a year ago!)

At the last minute, Meetup was relocated to JB's Bar & Grill, where I got to meet some people from ORG & NPGMC members. Everyone that I met there was really cool. Very nice people!

Because JB's was opposite the Sydney Entertainment Centre, we could see from about 2:45pm a small line starting to form, so we headed over and joined (about 30 people in front of us). After ticket collection, we had to form another line! (divided into three) and after a late door opening, we all started to move into:

SOUNDCHECK

17 Days
Instrumental Groove (featuring Chance Howard vocals)
Beautiful Strange
The Rainbow Children (instrumental)

Onstage, VIP's & Diamond ticket holders enter and take the closest seats from the front. In the middle of the stage, Prince's keyboard is set up with a small stool. The PA plays N.E.W.S. as soft background music while we all wait. Turns out, the whole N.E.W.S. CD gets a play while fans start getting restless and squirming in their chairs, as the supposed 4pm soundcheck start by 5pm still wasn't happening. Occasionally, fans would try clapping and cheering. Tech guys remove the keyboard and stool and set up Prince's microphone stand.
Just after 5pm, Prince (wearing all Black heels, loose black pants, black turtleneck and white fluffy beanie, as seen in ONA LIVE booklet) enters stage left with NPG to a standing ovation. Somebody from the crowd yells out "Thank U 4 coming back" Prince replies "Thank U 4 having me back". With a real sly look on his face, Prince points up to the empty seats of the back of the concert hall. "Nice Seats" he remarks as everyone laughs realising what non members are missing out on. Prince then walks over to John Blackwell and plays air drums in front of him directing the groove. The music is hella funkay and breaks into 17 Days.
Right there, people knew that this was going 2 be special. Prince seemed to be in a happy, playful mood, yet was very relaxed. Wasn't long b4 Prince goes down the front stage stairs and walks through the crowd to the mixing desk to check audio levels. The groove continued into an extended jam, that included some nice backing from Chance Howard.
The groove came 2 an abrupt holt and Prince started Beautiful Strange, a great blistering version. "Why don't y'all have a seat, it's gonna be a long night" he tells the crowd. Prince moved over to Rad's keyboard rig and started a groove. The tech guys quickly set back up the keyboard in the middle and Prince moves over a noodles on the keyboard an instrumental version of The Rainbow Children (the only vocal he used was "With the accurate understanding of God...etc...) It lead into the end build up of the song, the group was tight. Maceo got some great solos, and each band member got a chance to shine. Prince then tells the crowd "See U in about an hour?"
Myself, Joshy, Ally85, Creamtour, and a few others go over and talk to John Blackwell. He said that he and Greg Boyer visited a very small club in George Street the night b4 (Thursday 23/10). "Soup Plus?" I ask John. "Yeah, Soup Plus" Blackwell says, but he said that they didn't have a set of drums ( I assume they were trying 2 look for locations 4 a possible aftershow). We then get taken to the VIP room for our wrist tags, ONAL box set and some small bite size food. John also makes an appearance in the VIP room.


MAINSHOW

After they cleared off the turntables of the support act, 10 minutes b4 show time, John Blackwell prances back and forth on stage throwing out some drumsticks to the crowd and waving to everyone.
I was seated in row 5, but moved up to 3 when show began.

Lights down.


SETLIST (from memory. "U Got The Look" was performed but I can't remember where it fit in this list)

Let's Go Crazy
I Would Die 4 U
1999 intro
Baby I'm a star
Shhhh...
DMSR
Glamorous Life, Love Bizarre (instrumental)
I feel 4 U
Controversy
Renato Neto instrumental
The Beautiful Ones
Nothing Compares 2 U
Insatiable
Sign of the times
Question of U
The One ("Falling" chorus sung by RAD)
Let's work
Life of the party (new song)
Soul Man (Chance vocals)
Kiss
Take me with U
Everlasting Now

Encore: Piano medley -
Adore
I wanna be your lover
Do me Baby
Dont make me sleep on the couch (new song?)
Diamonds & Pearls
Forever in my life

Alphabet Street
All the critics love u in Sydney (jam)
It ain't over (jam, Rhonda's chant)
Purple Rain

HIGHLIGHTS

Rad comes out and starts the show with a great synth piece as the other band members take their place. Prince comes out as the crowd get nuts.

John Blackwell's solo on Shhh... was spectacular . He done a section of the solo with one hand playing, the other holding a bottle of water and drinking it. Too Cool!

DMSR was the shit! Period. Renato's synth line was SO NASTY, It was the closest thing to a Fink groove.
Renato's playing was excellent! Especially his little solo before The Beautiful Ones. He done some fast, clean runs.

Maceo Parker! Never thought I'd witness James Brown's horn player blowing his "licking stick"! His solos were smooth!

The crowd got very vocal on Nothing Compares 2 U. Prince let the crowd basically take over on vocals for the most part.

Sign O The Times was another crowd favourite. Done with no guitar, the arrangement had a revamp that took it to a new level that made it pretty funky.

The Question Of U was done on his aqua/ light blue Fender Strat. The guitar playing on this was mindblowing!

Life Of The Party is a great new song, Has a party vibe about it that grooves like a latin salsa. Has a great "turnaround" section in the song.

Soul Man - For most part of the night, Chance Howard was kinda hidden behind a large desk (he looked like a court judge). For those who haven't seen Chance, think Notorious B.I.G. in a suit (or check The Time's set on Rave Un2 The Year 2000 DVD playing keyboards up the back in the brown suit, he also appears on Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back when The Time perform Jungle Love). This guy is a TRUE TALENT.
Has a very soulful voice! This rendition of Soul Man was great (I think Prince should release this as a mainstream single) For those in the audience not 100% sure of his material, recognised this classic and went off to it!

Everlasting Now - got everybody jumping "up and down". At the end, Prince threw down his guitar and proclaimed "Don't Hate me Cuz Im Fabulous" and walked off. Lights went down and tech guys set up keyboard and stool in the same position as the soundcheck for the encore.

The encore was very reminisant of the piano medley on ONA LIVE. It displayed Prince's great piano stylings to the those in the audience that have never seen him play b4.
The new song about sleeping on the couch is very tongue in cheek and got a great response from the crowd. The crowd sang along to other well known songs, and the vibe from this got Prince worked up into a frenzy that built the groove again into Alphabet Street. Prince worked the crowd, threating to leave (y'all ain't ready) to the crowd, which drove the crowd even more nuts, begging for more.
One of the funniest parts of the night (during Alphabet St) was Prince revealing his "Secret Weapon" Turning to Greg Boyer he says "Come Down Here Ice Cream Man" (referring to Greg's white suit, he really did look like an ice-cream man!) Greg ripped into a blasting solo as Prince asks "Mr Ice-Cream Man" to "Put some sprinkles on it!"

Prince continued to work the crowd and was getting in a great mood. He looked so happy, u could see it, this lead into the "It Ain't Over" chant. Prince cued Rhonda to a funkay grooving solo, while everyone was chanting Rhonda on. This was a great highlight for me as well.

A guy (who stood in line in front of me at the afterparty, didn't catch his name - sorry ) who was near the front of the stage with his 5 year old son (who had a tshirt on and a yellow Batman bandana) was bought up on stage and danced He was a cool little kid and Prince pointed to him and gave him his props (and so did the crowd)

Habibi was given 2 Prince and Purple Rain was performed, bought the house down. The whole crowd doing the chant in the song - very emotional!


At the end - I CAUGHT THE DRUMSTICK USED ON PURPLE RAIN BY JOHN BLACKWELL!

Prince then high five's some of the onstage ticket holders and walks off - What A Great Show! Clearly Prince was also happy with this show. He told fans at soundcheck the next day (Saturday the 25th) he watched a filmed video of the performance four times when he got back to his hotel room - It was that good!

End of Show. I meetup with Joshy & Ally85 and caught a taxi to the afterparty. Joshy was clearly blown away by the performance, he also found Purple Rain 2 be very emotional.
Shell-shocked by the performance (and the fact we had 3 orger's in the one cab - who would have thought?), we head to:

AFTERPARTY

The Basement - Reiby Place, Circular Quay
Doors opened at The Basement (Jazzclub) at 12:30am
As soon as we walked in, there was 2 turntables on stage, DJ'd by a guy in a suit (he was pretty good, played old skool 70;s & 80's funk). It was obvious that there would be no aftershow, It was a great night regardless though.
Next to the small stage , there was a sectioned off part that lead to a private bar (The Blue Note Bar - like the famous Jazz record label).

1:00am - John Blackwell arrives
1:25am - Chance Howard is spotted
2:00am- Caught a glimpse of Renato
2:10am - All NPG members (No Greg Boyer), including PRINCE appear onstage, waving to crowd, dancing a bit (this made the records jump though) Prince wore a Black suit with a crisp white collared shirt. John Blackwell done the splits. Prince was joking around with the crowd weather he or Chance Howard should stage dive on them. Prince grabbed a fans tambourine and played it for a minute or so. He then done a sleeping gesture, and went though to the sectioned off bar.The NPG hung out in this section,by 3:00am, word was going 'round Prince had left. After that great SoulMan performance at the gig, I had to go over to Chance to give him his props. He signed my concert ticket for me - He's a great guy!
I also heard word through the Basement that during the next day (Saturday 25/10) Prince was going to take Mani out shopping in Sydney, and NPG were going to do some sightseeing before the second concert (The weather turned into a storm later in the day, so don't know if they got to see much).

The next day, I had to go to work
However, I saw a guy with a "Diamonds + Pearls" CD in his hand, and got chatting to him about my experience. He said that he was going to go to the Saturday 25th show that night. He was even more hyped up to go after he got done talking to me. A few hours later, I see an older guy holding a copy of N.E.W.S., and I said to him that CD is a must have, to which he said to me "I went to the concert last night", so I clicked with this guy as well. He appeared to be a casual listener, but he was totally floored by the concert and wanted to check more of Prince out. He was very, very impressed!
This is great, this tour will introduce alot more casual fans to the music of Prince, he won alot of people over with this fantastic concert.


B4 I sign off, I really wanna thank all the people I met from this website. U WERE REALLY COOL PEOPLE!
These peeps include:

Joshy - The one and only!
Ally85- U're an Angel!
Bkw- Nice meeting up with u!
OzPfan- Great Suit!
Derek - Finally!
diva - Another cool person
mrdespues & Jacally - Hope 2 see u again in the area!
f2002 - Great meeting u too Dom!
NewpowerSoul - Vince IS the man!
Natty- All the way from Adelaide like Joshy + Newpower
Jimino1- All the way from NZ! (dedicated)

Plus Creamtour, Justin and Sonja and Sonia and everyone else I met that night, thanks 4 sharing it all 2gether - It was fun!


Take Care

Dnaplaya!


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[This message was edited Mon Nov 17 3:03:09 PST 2003 by dnaplaya]

great ! at least som eppl know how to write a decent review !

More and more new songs are starting to appear on the setlist...

Exciting!

Great review man!

It was a pleasure meeting up with you!

i was going to write a reviws of my own, but everyone has summed it up so well.
awesome! so breath taking, so many times during the concert i thought to myself 'holy shit that is prince right there tearing it up!'. it really was brilliant.

and lots of fun meeting up with everyone!!!

Gr8 review... but who R U... U met me and I don't even recall...

ozpfan said:

Sure u have (maybe I didn't introduce myself )

I was standing with Joshy outside online when u hooked him up with the tickets

dnaplaya:


Remember Now?

BTW, let me tell ya, that suit was sharp

(excuse the bad photo, but u get the idea)


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[This message was edited Sun Oct 26 3:38:25 PST 2003 by dnaplaya]

I updated this post for everyone - enjoy it!

EXCELLENT REVIEW!!

Unfortunately, I did not get to meet any of you guys as I didn't have much time prior to standing in line. I did hear a few familiar names in passing conversation while we were waiting in line though.

I was the lucky blonde girl in the first row, just left of centre directly in front of Rhonda. My brother and I were seated next to the gorgeous 7 year old, Michael who got up on stage. He was so unbelievably cute!

This will go down in history as the best night of my life! I'm still emotional about it!

Excellent detail... thank you for taking the time, truly.

~WOW

Hey, Is It Just Me, Or Is Joshy Missed Here? After going back to S.A., He's gone AWOL!.

Please bring on the Joshy review!

very nice report thank you

yeah, where is joshy!?!

Oh, Yeah, There is one other thing i forgot to mention. Just before entering soundcheck, we were all briefed about the strict No Cameras / No Phone cameras policy. They said anyone caught would be instantly thrown out. Then they said it was a rule enforced not by them, but by Prince's management...

Hang on...

Prince has stated in interviews, he doesn't need a manager, so I yell out to the guy:

"Prince doesn't have a manager". Someone else threw in "Prince IS the manager".

After soundcheck when we were talking to John Blackwell, there was some guy (I assume works for Paisley Park) who broke up the party we were having with John. He demanded we show our tickets and ID. He was professional, but just a bit over the top, he could have handled things differently. He even served it up to Joshy (who was wearing his Melbourne VIP laminate - "What's This? - Get Rid Of It")


Dude needed a Chill Pill

dnaplaya said:

to which i couldnt resist but yell out "i want to speak with the manager!!"

ally85 said:

Yeah, go girl. That was a crack up!

Just quickly 2 more things i've remembered.


1 - When we were talking to John after soundcheck, he stated that Prince's only request to the band is to make (the concert) sound a bit different to the one before it.

2 - At the Basement afterparty, After Prince made his onstage appearence with the NPG, once they moved to the sectioned off bar, the DJ in the suit started spinning Prince tracks, He done an interesting mix of "Girls & Boys" with Vanity 6's "Nasty Girl", he done a pretty good job of it as well!

Thanks dnaplaya for the setlist and review!

Excellent review, v. impressive. Thanks.

Brilliant review dnaplayer!

It was wonderful getting to meet you!

Diva said:

Likewise We all had fun didn't we?

Bacdafucup

It just dawned on me 2day, wasn't Geneva going to be a dancer on the tour? What happened to her? Anyone know what it now says on her website? (don't have the link).

here i am!!!

havent had time or a chance 2 get online much these days.

wild essay of ur Xperience anth...

ur a legend!