Tube recording goes without a hitch



Just got back from the afternoon recording of the Tube, the UK music show which will be broadcast on Saturday night and repeated on New Years Eve.



At 1.15pm approx 150 fan were let into studio 5, a small room with 3 stages set up, one for Prince, and the others, I think for Robbie Williams,Travis and Paul McCartney.



After a short wait, the band took to the stage. I was standing in the front row on the corner of the stage (about 15 foot Sq) and as Prince brushed past (bouncer close by) my hand accidently caught the royal crown jewels! Lucky it wasn't hard (the contact I mean!) and he was able to stroll up the step in comfort. Once on stage the band had to wait around for a couple of minutes.



Prince sat quietly on one of the clear speakers (which was not plugged in?) and shared a few smiles with the crowd. One guy suggested he launched a magazine with a free CD with every issue, which raised a big eyebrow. Larry was really nice to the crowd, chatting and shaking hands.



Once the producer gave the go ahead the band launched into Baby Knows. Prince was dressed in black (again), with the usually shades and big hoop ear ring he had on TOTP and TFI friday. It was the usual live version, and very funky.



At the end, Prince returned to his speaker seat. The crowd began throwing some questions at him, mainly, where will the aftershow be, his answer was to point at the stage. This recording WAS the aftershow. Someone suggested he play "The War" as his second song, which made Prince laugh, especially when we said we wanted the full version.



After a short break, the show presenters filmed an intro, pretending we were coming back from commercials, the band them performed "The greatest Romance Ever Sold". At the end Prince thanked us for coming and ran off, heading straight back to London. The rest of the band, came back on stage and did a re-run of Baby Knows, so the cameras could get some close ups.



What was obvious was the large use of tapes. I'm 99.9% sure Prince was miming to TGRES. It was too good. I thought Baby knows was 100% live, but when the band did the "Live" re-run" they did it to a play back but got it exactly right.



Still I was great to see from 4 feet away. Baby Knows rocks live!