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"Rock review, Prince at the Chicago Theatre

By Joshua Klein

As early as his late-'70s debut, Prince demonstrated an almost pathological disdain for expectations. The diminutive genius made it clear that he would dictate the direction of his career, making up the rules as he went along.
Prince remains as unpredictable as ever, and though he's no longer the commercial juggernaut he once was, his sheer talent still shines, undiminished by time and passing trends. His most recent release, "The Rainbow Children," may be thematically inscrutable, but musically it stands with some of the best work he has ever created.

Religion played a big part in Prince's performance at the Chicago Theatre Saturday night, the first of two sold-out shows and only the second date on his tour. Adhering to a previous public declaration, Prince abstained from profanity and veered away from his more sexually charged material. The result was a strange mix of lesser-known songs, a healthy dose of "The Rainbow Children" and only a handful of hits and rare gems to reward the faithful.

A good deal of "The Rainbow Children" could be categorized as jazz fusion, and predictably, Prince's take on jazz probably wouldn't satisfy most fans of the form. It sure satisfied Prince, however, who led his air-tight band through several lengthy Weather Report-like instrumentals, cueing bassist Rhonda Smith, drummer John Blackwell and saxophone legend Maceo Parker like a conductor. Prince himself blazed away on guitar, channeling Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana with each of his fluid yet fuzzy runs.

New songs such as "Muse 2 the Pharaoh" and "Mellow" may have been too, well, mellow to spark the crowd, but "Family Name" and particularly the kinetic funk of "1+1 is 3" brought everyone to their feet. Prince also led spirited and faithful covers of Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" and the Delfonics' "La La (Means I Love You)."

As for "the hits," Prince's set was short on his classic material. He did offer a rousing "When You Were Mine," "Take Me With U," "Starfish and Coffee" and an apparently spontaneous "Raspberry Beret," which forced his band to switch gears mid-song. From "1999" and "Lovesexy" came not the singles, but the somber "Free" and "Anna Stesia," respectively. Sitting at his piano he offered the moving B-sides "Sometimes It Snows in April" and "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore."

But then the proselytizing Prince implored people to read the Bible and embrace Christ. So far Prince fans have proven willing to follow their favorite wherever he leads, but who knows if they'll all follow him down this particular path."


(and no, "Sometimes It Snows In April" is not a B-side...lol)

Cool review. I know people dig his hits, but one of the things that is a no brainer to me for a artist like Prince is, he is "one to watch" meaning just sit back and enjoy the ride, there's no telling where he'll take you but 9 times outta ten its gonna be enjoyable.

Folks that r stuck on his commercial hits, I can understand, but folks that r really into Music, go deeper with him into his other stuff and appreciate to see him just play without doing all the classic "entertaining" moves spilts. poses etc.

This is what got on Hendrix's nerves too when every body wanted to keep on hearing his old stuff and he had already moved on to new things.

Its always good to hear the hits, but lets grow with the artist ya'll!

Peace!

Okay Ive thought about writing my own report of this show, but Im at work and dont really have time to. So just some quick thoughts and details on the evening....I arrived around 7pm, too late to make it into the soundcheck, but early enough to catch Mr. John Blackwell behind the counter of the NPGMC stand where they were passing out the laminates for the afterparty. He was just standing there talking with the workers. Nobody seemed to notice him except me as I was getting my laminate. I, being the starstruck fan that I was, didnt know what to do so I just hollered to him,"Blackwell"! He looked up at me and smiled and gave me a big thumbs up which pretty much made my night. I couldnt get to my seat yet so I came back to him and got his autograph a little later. Once again no one seemed to notice him but me. He seems like one helluva nice guy talkin with folks and hanging out in the crowd.
I got to my seat in the balcony shortly afterwards. Now, as some have said, there were no bad seats in this place and I had an excellent view of the stage even though I was in the nosebleeds, however, considering that I am a club memeber and I got my tickets about 15 minutes after they went on sale they were pretty disappointing. I really expected to be up closer.
Now the performance. Overall it was a great show. Blackwell was amazing. Renato is a cool addition. I would describe his playing as a mix between Lisa Coleman and matt Fink. Like Lisa he seemed to be very emotive in his playing style, working with colors and such. Like Fink he used some far out funky fat sounds on his boards that really sounded cool in context with the Rainbow Children tracks. Speaking of Funky Fat sounds, the keyboard that Prince Played on most of the evening sounded great! Kinda like a Rhodes with a little distortion added. Horn section was composed of Maceo and some other brother on trombone (my apologies to the man for not remembering his name) the horns sounded tight. Although during 1+1+1=3 Prince stopped the song towards the begining and asked Maceo "Maceo, what key you in brother"? then gave him some sorta signal and they started back up again virgin tight.(Funny!)
I really liked the stage design. Nothing too flashy, but still exciting with different backdrops, film clips and laser effects projected on the screens, and incence burning on either side of the stage. Prince played 3 diffrent guitars and spent a good portion of the evening on his pianos.
I am surprised that none of the reports so far have mentioned anything about how little Prince danced. He did in fact seem to me to be a little down. He did very little dancing walked off stage several times and even sat with his head bowed at one point during the performance. He talked alot about losing someone you love and the troubled times in which we live. My guess is he still suffers some from his Mothers passing, and who could blame him after all.
Still, though his performance wasnt as kinetic as usual he played and sang passionatly throughout, especially, it seemed when he was playing on the keys. Certain songs off TRC really shine live. "Muse 2 the Pharoah" in particular really did it for me. When they switched over to the funky part of the song they really made it sound dark and scary, funky as hell. Certain intimate moments were wondrous. "I love U but I dont Trust U Anymore" was beautiful. Its a shame some of Princes songs dont come through as amazing on album as they do live when hes singing the hell out of them. "HCUDCMA" also brought down the house with Prince teasing the crownd by only playing the first chords then walking away when the crowd went wild with recogniton.
The only dissapointments (if you culd call em that)"Family Name" I love this song but live with Rhonda playing the bass it just doesnt jive. Rhonda is cool but she really doesnt strike me as being too funky. Prince should definatly take over the bass on that song. "Annastasia" was cool and he really seemed to get into it but it was the last song he played for the night and it seemed to end the evening on a subdued anticlimactic note.
Overall it was a great show. The new band and new sound Prince has created is, indeed, fierce. Im sure that this tour is going to get better and better as the musicians play together more. The show features alot of free form jamming and instrumental numbers, balanced with some very intimate moments and mellow songs with just a few hits "sprinkled" on top. Like he said early into the evening "if you came to get your Purple Rain on you might be disappointed..it aint that kinda party" Prince, I love you. thanks for a fantastic show. Keep it up brother..."dont let nobody...bring U down".....

yes, I also always thought that he really gets into it when he's at the keys.

Since when was "Sometimes It Snows in April" a B-side? Also, I think most of the "faithful" really appreciated the vast amount of rarities that he did play! I'd say it's more likely that the fairweather were the ones who were hoping for hits. That Weather Report crack- that's just cold. All in all a positive review, however, so