soon after we left outta paisley we headed over to the giant panda, which is this chinese restaurant that's a bit up the road from paisley. we were the only two people in the place--it was like a fuckin ghost town in there, and i don't understand that! it's been the same every other time i've been over at the giant panda with friends, and it's a shame, cuz their food is the bomb. seriously. they need to move over to downtown minneapolis or sumfin...shanghai wok just ain't cuttin it, yo.

anyway, me and jimmy were gettin our grub on and one of the men who worked at the panda comes over to us and asked, "you guys here for prince?" we're like "yeah", and jimmy asks the guy about a few things--including if he knew where prince lived. the guy's like "oh sure, i'll tell you..." he goes over and grabs a map and proceeded to give jimmy directions to prince's house. so after we were done eatin and paid n'stuff, we hopped in the rental car and drove off in search of ol' boy's place of residence.

the guy had told us that the house is across the way from this housing development (which it seems like that's all that chanhassen is--one big housing development) and there's a driveway, gate and a guard house by the driveway; i mentioned to jimmy that the house was also surrounded by trees--it's very well-hidden from the road. we're drivin around and the first time we went by there we had passed it cuz we didn't see the gate n'driveway initially. we made a u-turn and immediately found it. jimmy took drive-by pictures of the gate as we went by the 2nd time. we were all like, "don't fuck wit us! we know where you live now, beeyoooootch!" btw, the house is only like a couple miles away or so from paisley park so it's really convenient commuting-wise. it's almost like the same situation i'm in, i live within walkin distance of where i work. so, i now know where prince lives...and you don't. neener-neener-neener.

....okay. enough about paisley n'all that shit. ya'll wanna hear about the show. heh.

we went to the xcel energy center and got our tix n'stuff--we sat in section 117, row 16, which were excellent seats. they were about 16 rows away from the floor, so you could see everything. mmm...puttin it in a bit of perspective: if we were on the floor, we'd be sittin behind renato. the concert was in the round, so there wasn't a bad seat anywhere...'cept for the nosebleeds, from where i suppose prince n'them looked like ants.

o-tay, now on to the show: they played the video for "call my name" before they went on with the hall of fame intro (alicia keys givin the induction speech n'all). it was somewhat reminiscent of the "u make my sun shine" video (i.e. prince on a spinning platform-thing...he seems to be enamoured with rotating floors all the sudden). it wasn't much, from what i remember. after that, ol' boy came out and started kickin everybody in the xcel's boo-tay.

now, someone awready pretty much had said all the highlights that i wanna touch up upon here, but here are a couple more that i liked:

--durin the acoustic set (which was, without a doubt, the best part of the concert, imo) ol' boy had mentioned about somethin--i forgot what it was--and folks started booing at what he said. he goes, "oop, wait, wait--are those boos?!" everybody in the place started laughin and whatever.

-- a bit after ol' boy went through that "i ain't got no booty!" spiel, chance howard (that big mofo who usually sings "soul man" at one point in the show) goes and starts shakin his ass--big puddin was groovin, too! i was like, "go 'head!!!!"

...almost forgot to mention: ol' boy wore all red durin the acoustic set. *dies*

all n'all, the show was teh mega-bomb--we went back over to paisley for the aftershow. kip blackshire was performin when we got there--i don't really care for kip. for some reason he gets on my last nerve! oh yeah: larry graham was there. yes ya'll, your best friend larry was in the house. he told me to tell you he said "hi". hehehehehe. i don't remember much about kip's set, save for "watchtower man" graham bein there...and mr. hayes (ex-npg keyboardist) was there too. i hadn't seen mr. hayes for a while, so that was a surprise!

now on to when prince came on: the aftershow was o-tay, but the bestest parts about it were:

1) during "joy in repetition", prince had this fan come up on stage and sing part of the song. the dude knew the song word for word, line for line...but he could not sing to save his life, ya'll. that, and he hunched over a bit as he sang, sorta like elvis used to do. prince stood behind and to the dude's right and was mockin the way the guy was standing! too funny.

2) they did a cover of tower of power's "what is hip?", which was the chit.

the night ended with larry graham comin out and doin "the jam", like he seems to always do...it must be some sorta obligational thing between him and prince: "baby brotha, you must let me do one or two sly & the family stone songs whenever i play at one of yo functions--or you gon' get one of these big shoes in yo boo-taaaaay!" me and jimmy left the park while "the jam" was bein played, and it turns out we left at the tail end of the aftershow so we didn't miss much else. they played a bit of "purple rain" for the last song--hearin the song once durin the concert was enough for me, i know how it goes n'everything.

...and that is that. teh end.

awesome report....epic! better than "troy"!!!

as always ~ your reports are a BLAST to read Dej'

Glad the 'wear red vibes worked and that you had such an awesome time!!

~ Gretch

I'm glad you had such a great time, Deja!! One thing you left out (or hadn't heard yet) was Adore after Purple Rain. It made the agony of staying that late all the more worth it.

thanku Handclapsfingasnapz sounds like everyone had a great time

Tap, Tap now waiting for him to come to the UK

CarrieMpls said:

oh yeah! yeah, we had left durin "the jam", so we didn't hear it.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Actually, they played Purple Rain like I had never heard it before, it was great! THEN the ended with ADORE . This may have been THE BEST LIVE VERSION OF ADORE I have ever heard.

Even though, you missed only two songs, they were great!

Hehe, I wanted to stop by that Giant Panda place because of it's awesome name, but I'd already eaten. I'll keep it in mind for the next time I'm in Chanhassen though!

Anyway, that's one fine concert report right there. I definately agree that the acoustic set was the best part of Friday's concert, as well as the other two. I was so glad he pulled out On The Couch, because that was the best part of the simucast back in March.

BTW, it was wonderful meeting you at the aftershow, even though it was really brief. I would've chatted a bit after Kip's set was through and it wasn't so noisy, but I HAD to get out of that crowd and get some fresh air. I'm sure we'll get another opportunity to talk sometime soon, though! I hope the friends I left in there didn't block your view or anything.

HobbesLeCute said:

yeah, same here--he started playin it and i was like, "yes!!!!!"


nah, ya'll didn't block my view at all...from where i was standin i had a pretty good view. usually when i'm at a paisley function there's at least 2 or 3 tall people obstructin my view, but friday night was perfect.

it was nice meetin you too, hobbes! man, seems like i met everybody in the spot where i stood cuz right before i met you i met stymie and sassybritches and i saw theblueangel (they were standin a few people over to my left)!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

He was talking about how the people in tennessee like the tennessee part in Alphabet st., and represented a little better than the mpls folks during the sing-along portion of that song.


I had 3rd row seats in section 107. It was great.
[This message was edited Sun Jun 20 17:49:57 2004 by zachypoo]

zachypoo said:

ohhhhh, now i remember! that was funny!

Great report Dansa. Glad you had such a good experience

i can't wait for august

cool to read this, D.

im soo glad that you had such a fun time deja

Did you get me a T-shirt?

dammit! I just wrote this long response, and when I hit reply it only posted one line!


Too tired to write it again.
[This message was edited Sun Jun 20 21:48:56 2004 by minneapolisgenius]

Great report Dansa. I'm so glad you had a great time and you found out where homeboy lives. I'm so Jealous of you! LOL!!!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

PLEASE tell me y'all said this in your minds!!!

psykosoul said:

you didn't give me $45 bux, so no.

It was so great meeting you, Dansa. I kept looking for Carrie and Hobbes, but alas, I couldn't find them. Meeting you and Prince singing JIR were the best part of my short trip.

CalhounSq said:

But if she'd only said it in her mind she wouldn't be OUR Dansa

CalhounSq said:

we really said that chit out loud, in the car...

TheOrgerFormerlyKnownAs said:

omg! ya'll shoulda seen me and ivy--we were huggin and like "ohmigoooood!!!!!"

Yea, you missed Adore, ya goof...lol

hi handclaps...i'm glad i got to meet ya, although just for second! don't worry about missing adore. in my opinion, it was just a karaoke version anyway. and purple rain...with no guitar? lordy, what was he thinkin'

wish i had more of a real meeting witchya rather than just a hello and all...maybe next time!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

That was the best part to me!!! I have always thought you were one cool mu'fugga!!!

TheOrgerFormerlyKnownAs said:

I was keeping my eyes peeled for you as well.

Maybe next time!

Thanks for the report, Deja! I wish I could have been there for the aftershow, too. It's nice to see what I had missed.

Cool report Dansa.

chookalana said:

Wait, you seriously think that was the best live version of Adore you've ever heard? You must not have heard him play it at any of the Lovesexy or One Nite Alone shows...to be honest, I couldn't really imagine a worse live version of Adore, considering the fact that he wasn't playing any instruments, the band didn't know the song, and he only sang the chorus and a couple verses. As we said when we were leaving, "That Karoake Adore was supposed to make up for the fact that we hadn't seen or heard from Prince in the last 3 hours?"

I do agree with you that Purple Rain was indeed "like I had never heard it before." For starters, every other time I've heard that song, Prince has either tore it up on guitar or the keys, but by that time Friday night he was clearly over it, so again he wasn't playing anything. What was even more bizarre though was the way that Prince apparently got bored of the song about halfway through and just basically told the band to stop playing. No "Vegas on the 1" or anything, just one minute they're playing and the next they're not.

I really wonder if some people tend to make themselves like certain performances better than they would otherwise just because they had to go through so much trouble to get there.
[This message was edited Mon Jun 21 21:29:05 2004 by theblueangel]