Wow! What a night in San Antonio! I'm not sure where to begin, but if you were there and saw the little girl on stage, well here's her story!

That was my daughter. She turned 8 on 6/8, and as a birthday surprise, I told her I would take her to the Prince show in San Antonio. She was very excited - she is a BIG Prince fan, and knows most of the "Musicology" CD by heart (which came in handy as you will see). I told her we would have good seats because we're in the NPGMC.

Which was kind of true. No - we ARE in the NPGMC, but our seats were questionable, at least at first. We were on the second row, in Section F-10. To those of you who haven't seen the stage, you probably have heard that it is a "+" shape. Thing is, though, that the floor area of most arenas is a rectangle. This means that there are 20 - 50 rows of seats in front of the North and South ends of the "+", but only two rows on the East and West ends. We were on the stage left side, and our second row was also the last row. Consequently, Prince (understandably) spent most of his time North and South, because there were thousands more people there. However, the horn section was right in front of us, so we got to look at Candy all night long, which was a treat. And, the stairs the band came onto/off of the stage were right in front of us. More on that in a second.

We got in our seats at 6:30, and the pre-concert music was just awesome. All Prince and Prince proteges, and GREAT songs. A sound technician noticed my daughter, went under the stage, and came back with a "Prince" guitar pick for her. I thought the night couldn't get better than that. Ha! Was I wrong!

As I said, during the show Prince didn't come to our side much. When he was in the middle of the stage, he seemed to always have his back to us. Making matters worse, the seats directly in front of us were occupied by a guy who was about 6'5", and his girlfriend, who was at least 6'2". They were very nice, just hard to see around. The SBC Center ushers wouldn't let my daughter stand in her seat, so basically I held her all night. (I am feeling that today, believe me!)

The band would come down the steps right in front of us. John Blackwell would hang out and talk to fans when he wasn't onstage. He gave out a lot of drumsticks, and he gave my daughter two of them. Then he autographed them for her. A pick AND autographed drumsticks - things were looking up!

When Prince sang "I Feel for You" he came over to our side for the second verse. When he sang "I wouldn't lie to you baby, I'm, spiritually attracted to YOU", he looked at and pointed right at my daughter. We were only 10 feet away, so there was no doubt. We were higher than a kite over that!

I had told my daughter that she might get to go onstage and dance. John Blackwell invited her up, so it looked like the dream would come true. But when she was in line, one of the stage crew said she couldn't go up without her mother. Well, Mom was still in Houston, so it looked like we were out of luck. The guy was real nice, he was just concerned about my daughter's safety (in fact, before the show, he had asked me if I had earplugs for her. I did, but he had extras just in case). He said he would try to find a girl to go onstage with my daughter as a surrogate mom. However, in the rush of things, he wasn't able to get back to us.

So, I told my daughter, "Go get in line and ask that girl up front if she will look after you". Done and done! The gate opened, and up onstage went my daughter. Now, this is where it gets REALLY good!

My daughter danced around stage for awhile. She was not shy at all; in fact, if I might say so myself, she is a great dancer. She was getting down with all the girls when Candy came over and gave her the cowbell and drumstick. My daughter played it and played it on time. Prince came over to her a couple times and said "Play that cowbell!" and held the mic up to her.

Then, during "Life O' the Party", my daughter was right beside Prince when he put the microphone up to her during the chorus. You should have seen the look on Prince's face when she belted out the chorus - all the right words and right on the beat! Oh man - I was screaming my head off! Prince took her by the hand and walked with her for a moment or two.

Then Maceo took the cowbell and gave her a tambourine. She played that the rest of the set, and was just having a BLAST! She would walk to the end of the stage and shake the tambourine to the crowd. Man oh man, I'd like to say she inherited all that funk from me, but Mom might read this!

At one point she came over to our side of the stage with Candy and they joined hands and danced together. We were all in heaven.

When that segment of the show was over, Maceo took the tambourine as they herded the crowd over to the opposite side of the stage from me so that Prince could get off the stage on our side. But before they took the people off the stage, Maceo gave my daughter the tambourine back!

I was a little worried that she was on the opposite side of the arena from me now, but the same fellow who had helped us earlier took her by the hand and walked her all the way back to our seat. Like I said, he was a really nice guy. In fact, all the personnel were top-notch.

During the encore intermission, the tall people in front of us left, so I put my daughter on the front row. Standing in front of us was Inge Dulfer, Candy's sister and manager. I asked Inge if she could get Candy to autograph the tambourine. She said "Sure!", somebody produced a Sharpie, and after "Purple Rain," Inge pulled Candy over and she spoke to my daughter and autographed the tambourine. They were class all the way!

As we left the SBC Arena, we (meaning my daughter) must have been stopped by, talked to and photographed by 300 people. It was insane! My daughter told everyone how she had been touched by Prince on her left hand, and by Candy on her right hand, and that she was NEVER going to wash those hands (brought back a "Brady Bunch" flashback for me!).

Needless to say, I am one proud papa. A great big thank-you to Prince, Candy, Maceo, Inge, all the NPG personnel and all the great Prince fans who made this the greatest 8-year-old birthday ever!

awesome !!!!!

Aww that's so cool.I'm happy for your daughter

AWESOME!!! Tell her we said "You Go Girl!!"

Peace & Love!

That is the coolest story. I bet your daughter is still levitating!

One thing I noticed at the shows I've been to is that the members of the NPG are very, very cool to the kids in the house. A big thumbs-up to them for that!

I was there and She was so adorable on stage !!!

A GREAT story!! Very very cool. What a great memory that will be.

RodeoSchro said:

THAT is the cutest thing ever!!! AWESOME!

Dude, what a GREAT story!

I too am taking my 8 year old son to the concert...
He LOVES Musicology...and I'm planning on showing him
Purple Rain, the movie, (with my hand on the ff button),
just before the concert, so he knows those songs just as well.

I'm really happy for you...(I don't even know ya)...

That is awesome man, I saw ur daughter prancing around up there, I didnt see the part where she sang LIFE O THE PARTY, but i did see her get close to prince a few times....It was a great concert, and really funny when the girl didnt know the words to KISS!! Prince made that face like she had too much to drink!! lol, it was hillarious, he was so interactive with the audience, more so this time then in dallas in april, So i hope it is the same tonight for the second go-round in BIG D. See u there!!

I thought for sure your daughter was a child of one of the crew or band members. she looked way too comfortable up there with that cow bell. good for her. you may have a future musician in the family!

AWESOME experience for y'r daughter!!! She'll never forget being on stage with Prince!

Well u can rest asure she's a bonafide P fan now!!!

Your daughter rocked man! We were over by Renato and everyone noticed how she sang along to the new stuff. It was too cool to see that she knew the words and wasn't too nervous to sing with Prince in front of an arena. Very impressive.

Why weren't you able to go on stage with your daughter? Are they not allowing men on the stage?
[This message was edited Fri Jun 11 19:49:42 2004 by PurpleCharm]

That's a great story!
BTW: Inge is Candy's mother, not her sister...

Your daughter was absolutely precious! She put the other "dancers" to shame with her knowledge of Prince's music. You could tell he was impressed on stage with her! Congrats on such a cool experience -- my wife and I said hello to you on the way out of the show (we had the purple shirts on..."baby's 2nd Prince concert."

Great STORY!!!!!

That was so cool for your daughter to have that experience.



She was truly blessed. The moral of this story is " BRING YOUR KIDS "

Beautiful ... would of loved to see her shine. I feel your words shine... nonetheless.

I bet she was beautiful. I wish I could've seen her.

What a wonderful experience for your daughter and you. Thank you for sharing it. I'm so happy for your daughter and you. Your story really gave me a smile.

She seem to be a natural on stage-it was truly a highlight to see the dancers have so much fun.

That was TOO COOL! I was smiling the whole time I read this story!!

OMG!! How cool is that??? I sooooo wish I were your daughter!!! THATS AMAZING!!!!! She's so lucky and Im so glad she had that experience!!!!

Hey I sat next to your wife and daughter at the Dallas show!!!!!she is soo cute and a very lucky kid!! I'll let you tell the story of the Dallas show though





I was the woman next to the guy that kept borrowing her drumsticks and I am the one who kept telling him to give them back.

oh yeah I was dancing right along with your wife



your daughter got the funk from her man...really



see yall in Houston????


what a lucky kid, you are soooo raising her right.

Thanks! I remember y'all, and my wife said y'all were GREAT neighbors! You bet we'll be in Houston! That's where we live. We'll definitely be involved in any pre-concert hook-ups, so hopefully we'll get to see you then.

I'm going to post the Dallas story right now!

butterfli25 said: