Having only seen Prince at the Tower Theatre just outside of Philadelphia and Irving Plaza in NYC - both small venues - I find it disappointing that he is favoring arenas on this tour. It's true that it opens it up to more people - as does beaming your show to dozens of cinemas across the country - but it's so difficult to produce the same intensity in such a large venue, especially when many people will have to rely on jumbotrons to see anything. I wish he would take the lead from the Stones and do a couple of dates in each city, one in an arena and one in a smaller place (of course the stones also did stadiums, but I hardly think of Prince as a stadium act). Or even do multiple nights at the smaller venues, charging one set higher ticket price.

This is, of course, not to say that I will not be partying down in front @ the local arena, but I'd much rather be with a few thousand of my closest princely friends in an old victorian theater.

"... it's so difficult to produce the same intensity in such a large venue..."

Since you've never seen a Prince arena show, we'll cut you some slack. But you shouldn't worry: Prince has no trouble coming up with the "intensity" goods no matter what size venue he's playing. He's a master of the large gesture and 15,000 folks screaming to the hits only takes the energy higher. Most of his best tours have been arena tours... you'll be in good shape, trust me.

And for the record, he doesn't have to "take the lead" from the Stones about doing smaller shows alongside the big ones, since he pretty much invented the concept. It was unheard of for a big act to do a club date on tour when he started doing it in the late 80s. I suspect there will be a few aftershows on this run as well, no matter what they say.