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April 14, 2004

POSTED: 1:22 pm EDT April 15, 2004

The following review was e-mailed to ThePittsburghChannel.com by Mike Hamilton, a Channel 4 Action News viewer from Monroeville.

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There was once a time that when you went to see national touring acts, it was truly a "rock n' roll show," not just a band playing their songs exactly the way you hear them on the radio. Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and, more recently, Dave Matthews entertained audiences with their music and a full 100 percent creative effort, and they also played longer than the standard 1 ½ hours that seems to be the norm these days.

This show by Prince tonight was a magical experience. He must have realized that he has so many hits, he can't possibly play them all in one show. What he did was shorten them by a few minutes to try and get in as many as he could.

His band was incredible. They truly brought the funk. He had two keyboardists, two saxophonists, a drummer, a bass player, a few guitar players, a trombone player and probably others that I didn't see. One of his saxophonists was Candy Dulfer, the most talented and most attractive female saxophonist in the world. The bass player was Wendy. I am not sure if she is the original Wendy from Prince and the Revolution, as well as the "Purple Rain" movie, but she was very good. I don't know who the other band members were, but they were all very talented. There was about a 20-minute period when the band just jammed. I haven't heard horns like that in a very long time. It was truly amazing.

Here are a few of the songs that he played: "I Feel For You," "Let's Go Crazy," "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man," "Nothing Compares 2 U," "Sign O' The Times," "Diamonds And Pearls," "Little Red Corvette," "I Would Die 4 U," "Kiss," "U Got The Look," "Cream" and "Purple Rain."

The show was broken down into parts. The first part was Prince and the entire band playing songs. (By the way, he had red lights built into the heels of his stiletto boots, much like kids have in their sneakers these days.) The second part was Prince solo, playing acoustic guitar on a bar stool that could spin 360 degrees so he could sing to all parts of the arena.

The third portion was the entire band back together, and they let about 10 girls from the audience come on stage to dance for about three songs. Whoever handpicked those girls had very good taste. He actually let some of them sing portions of the songs. Well, you can imagine that is a "hit or miss" type of thing. One girl was very good and didn't want to give the mic back to Prince. On the other hand, one girl didn't even know the words to one of his most popular songs. That was SAD!

The stage was set up in the round, so it was exactly in the middle of the floor of the arena. It was a unique stage, set up as a plus sign so Prince could run back and forth and play to all areas of the crowd.

With Prince being such an enigma as a person and a singer, you forget how talented he is at playing the guitar. He must have used at least five during the show. He had some moments where he was giving Eddie Van Halen a run for his money. He was wailing on the instrument and made great use of the whammy bar. His guitar was screaming so loud during "Purple Rain" that it sounded like it was crying.

Other great musical moments for the band included the two saxophonists taking turns trying to outdo one another. Very impressive.

Something many people don't realize about Prince is that he has given songs to other artists to use. "I Feel For You" was a hit for Chaka Khan, "When You Were Mine" was a hit by Cyndi Lauper and "Nothing Compares 2 U" was a hit for Sinead O'Connor.

The encore was absolutely stunning. I can't remember if it was two or three songs. The closer was "Purple Rain," and Prince stretched it into a 10-minute masterpiece. The lighting of the stage was all a brilliant shade of dark purple. He was at the top of his game, both vocally and on the guitar. The lighters were out in full force and it was just like being back in high school when I heard it for the first time. The only songs I didn't hear that I wanted to were "Raspberry Beret," "1999" and "Alphabet Street."

Classic composers are all revered in our time: Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc. Prince is no less of a musical genius. His talent crosses so many fields: songwriting, instruments, sense of style. He and his band are so good that if they just played music for two hours without any words, it would be worth the price of admission. They really rocked out tonight. Get out to see him if you can. There is talk that he may retire certain songs to never be played again live after this tour, which would truly be a shame.