From www.jacksonville.com

The Prince of musicianship
Prince plays at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena


People wanted to see Prince. People wanted to feel Prince. People wanted to dance to Prince. He’s an artist who has stayed away from touring for six years, and he’s done it so sporadically that for a lot of people at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, it was their first chance to catch the pop icon.

The Arena was filled to capacity, and even before the show started people wiggled in their seats, and those who just couldn’t control themselves rose and got down to the funk. A man played a tambourine and it echoed across the arena like a misplaced drum.

And it would be until a full hour after the official start time that Prince and his full five-foot, two-inch body, would arise from under the stage to a roar that enveloped every crevice of that arena, a roar that started before the houselights dimmed and lasted through the first few bars of Musicology, the title track of Prince’s new album.

And it was a funk that grooved and swept across the room with uncanny energy. Prince’s music is hardly emotional. Instead, it pulls from you a carnal desire that travels through the dancing muscles.

The whole concert was a funk party that fluctuated from deep, sensual ballads to tunes that dropped fat bass lines and picked them up with the timbre of that one voice: Prince’s voice, which can as easily beg a woman to keep him in bed, as it can chastise a world for killing and violence.

Prince is a tiny figure. He wore white shoes (HIGH HEELED SNEAKERS) that lifted him inches from the ground. Throughout the night, he batted his eyelashes and with perfect timing, threw sly smiles at the audience. He is an undeniable presence on stage, who can compete for attention with musicians who played extended solos and wore breast baring outfits.

But it wasn’t when he played I Would Die 4 U, or When Doves Cry toward the beginning of the concert that his genius became apparent -- it was when he dropped the glitz of the lights and the sounds of his band.

He walked on stage with a purple acoustic guitar and laughed and went through acoustic renditions of Little Red Corvette, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and On the Couch. It takes courage to do something like that. The stage was setup in the round and it was small. It felt as though the seats pushed up against it, and that every single space in that Arena was used up. Prince sat in a rotating chair and sang with a bounciness that people could relate to, and people stood, amazed and awed and sang single lines that melded into verses and not once did anyone turn their eyes away from the man on stage.

It was a performance based on the immediacy of the emotions. When Prince plays and sings, he pays attention and performs notes not songs, and when he delivers each line he’s still amused at himself and that keeps him fresh.

He mentioned many times how much he likes old school joints. And this felt like that. It felt like Prince was taking us back to a time when bass lines were slapped and musicianship was king. A time when lip synching wasn’t an option and music was real.