Biloxi was the better performance, but it was the fans who made the Bossier show special. One reviewer agrees. Here are excerpts:


Purple reigns at CenturyTel
Prince turns Bossier City arena into a pulsating palace where everyone felt like royalty.
June 13, 2004
By J.D. Ventura

More than 10,000 people streamed into CenturyTel Center last night wearing, old Prince concert T-shirts, purple feather boas and raspberry-colored berets.

Tamara Thompson, 19, of Barksdale Air Force Base was tailgating with friends... She and friend Nicole Argieard were scared away by the high ticket prices. But then the base offered a special rate they couldn't refuse: $5 per ticket. Three hundred tickets sold out 30 minutes before they were supposed to go on sale. Thompson...wasn't even born when Prince's signature album was released. "My dad has his albums."

Fans crowded around merchandise tables eager to buy a concert T-shirt. Karen Holley hardly needed any more purple accessories. She traveled from Brooklyn to catch the show here. Holley wore purple fishnet stockings, a short purple skirt, a purple blouse and colored her hair -- you guessed it -- purple. Shannon Hilburn, 29, of Shreveport said that even though Prince has given up performing his more risqué songs, "he is still worth seeing. We all have to grow up."

Deidre Harrison and husband Jimmy drove up from Baton Rouge. Both wore purple shirts, although Deidre admitted that she made her husband wear his. [referring to Prince], she said, "He's sexy, handsome, and talented. ... I expect to be flabbergasted all the way."

At the first beat, people were on their feet and the roar was deafening. Prince was an immediate blur of motion... The crowd let loose with encore-worthy cheering when he screamed, "Louisiana, we are here, where are you?"... The arena instantly turned into one big nightclub as his purple subjects showed their adoration for him by dancing their brains out..."B-City, that's your new name!" he screamed at the Bossier City crowd. He sang D.M.S.R. like a preacher of his purple faith. "I just need five people to dance, let's see what you got," he said to the front row, which erupted in what only can be described as delirious hysterics.

Fans....turned to each other and sang the lyrics, reveling in the shared familiarity of songs that, for some, have come to define good times for decades. Later when he instructed the audience to "jump up and down," they did --- 20,000 feet adding a natural, thunderous bass to the exhaustive, sweaty pulse of the concert's whirlwind first hour. Then he started singing Little Red Corvette acoustically. Nearly everyone in the stadium erupted into song, singing when he stopped. "But it was Saturday night, I guess that makes it all right ..." With Prince in the house, Saturday night indeed would be all right. Musical royalty would have it no other way.

©The Shreveport Times
June 13, 2004

See full review at: http://www.shreveporttime...8DBF.shtml


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