Aqua Lung Madrid

November 23, 1999, 12:30-2:30 a.m.



Could You Be The Worst Prince/ Show I've Ever Seen?



The front door to the Aqua Lung opened Tuesday night about an hour later than
its scheduled 9:30 p.m. time. I expected this, but many of the local Spanish
folks seemed upset by it. A large crowd had been lined up most of the day,
bringing boom boxes with them and lots of snacks. The shopping-mall Burger King
located directly across the line of people had good business throughout the
evening. Burger Kings in Europe sell beer, of course, (a fact U.S. readers
might not know) and alcohol was brought in from other local stores as well.
Emancipation lyric books were handed out to the first couple hundred people in
line. Although I saw a few Prince t-shirts, skull caps, and necklaces, most
people seemed quite interested in this give-away; clearly many of them had
never seen it prior to this evening. This is my first European Prince/ show
(out of the 50+ I've seen in the U.S. during the during the last 17 years).
The crowd in Madrid was "grungier" than I expected. Maybe that's because it
is winter now, but to me, they looked a bit more like a Nirvana crowd from the
early 90s than a Prince crowd from any era. This is not intended to be a slam
against the Spaniard fans; actually, I believe Prince has always wanted a crowd
that looked like these folks. One brave guy, however, was selling bootleg CDs
and vinyl out of a huge box at the front of the line. Although I didn't get a
close look, he seemed to be doing good business.



The doors opened about 10:30 p.m.; people were let in slowly after being patted
down for cameras. The venue, although located in an old run-down shopping mall,
looked a little like First Avenue on the inside: multi-floored, high black
ceiling, the stage was elevated to about the same level, the standing floor
area was a little smaller, but more room was in the back. There was a tall rock
wall separating the VIP floor and the main floor, and somehow my wife and I
climbed it and sat on it giving us an excellent view of the stage. At this
point we waited. I guessed that the show would start about midnight, a little
later than the 11:30 announcement from the ticket office. 1 a.m. wouldn't have
surprised me either. The crowd grew more and more impatient as the night
progressed, however. What first surprised me was that the dj's didn't play
Rave, or anything Prince related. They did play YMCA and a few house beat songs
that anyone could make on a K-mart drum machine. The crowd didn't seem to like
it (I credit them with good taste) and most stood and looked at the people on
stage tuning equipment. Coupled with the fact that Prince didn't play anything
from Rave either makes me wonder why he even bothered playing Madrid. Let's
see" 5000 pesetas times 2000 tickets equals about $70,000 US dollars. Anyway,
about midnight, the crowds were getting quite impatient, and several hundred of
the 2000 there started chanting, in Spanish (of course), "Fuck you, you son of
a bitch," an obvious chanting and clapping thing that reacted to the fact that
everything was behind schedule. It was very loud and clear. I looked around as
if this was a joke, and no one was smiling. They were mad. Unfortunately, it
didn't get too much better. About 12:15, an exasperated announcer said that
the show would start in 10 minutes. A few band members appeared in the VIP area
and smiled and waved to the crowd; they didn't understand the Spanish chant, I
imagine.



Rumors passed around that day and evening that he had a sore throat and his
singing would be limited. This was not announced at the venue, however. I
figured he'd try to make up for it with guitar and dancing. The floor of the
stage wasn't pre-prepared with a dance platform like I had seen in the past.
The music began around 12:30, much to the crowd's initial approval. Larry came
out and led the band through "The Jam," introducing everyone. This is the
first time I had seen Kip; his keyboard playing needs a lot of work, but his
vocal abilities have potential and could be pretty good in a different kind of
venue with better acoustics. Larry's wife was briefly on stage, and Larry
introduced the band, including the Hornheads. Mayte was not introduced by
Larry, but she joined the group on stage in a terrible black outfit, but she
seemed happy, playful, and healthy; it was good to see her. She occasionally
translated something into Spanish, but otherwise didn't do much. She smiled a
lot.



The second song was "Thank you...." and Prince arrived on stage wearing a
grape purple fuzzy winter coat over a black shiny skin tight outfit. His hair
was in braids with strips of fabric tied onto the braids to match his outfit.
It took me a few minutes to get used to the hair but finally he started to
remind me of the Dirty Mind era look, although the smile on his face certainly
didn't fit. He played a natural colored hollow-body guitar that looked and
sounded pretty good. His vocals were indeed limited, but to my surprise, his
dancing and playing were also. The first hour turned into Larry's show. They
played "Everyday People" and "I'll Take You Higher" and "It's Alright"
among other Larry-like covers (I'll let others report the exact song list).
After an hour of watching and listening to mostly Larry, Prince finally said
"thank you, good night" and exited stage. At this point, he was met with
mostly silence. The crowd was obviously as disappointed as I was. In the first
hour, he had played no more an one half of one song of his own music. The crowd
seemed confused. They knew the show wasn't really over, but they didn't come
to see Larry, and if the show continued in this direction, many of them clearly
asked themselves, "Do we really want him to come back?" A few technical
difficulties had occurred in the first set also, which slowed down the pace of
the show. A point in the show when dozens of people were brought on stage was
also drawn out so long (!) that the rest of the crowd seemed bored. No musician
"had" the audience during the first set, and most of crowd looked
uncomfortable watching the show. It was not the crowd's fault.



Mayte's interaction with Prince was interesting to watch. She giggled a lot,
but they rarely made physical contact. At one point in the show, Prince asked
her what she wanted to hear; she whispered something in his ear, he laughed,
and gave instructions to the band to switch keys to "B minor" and to quickly
tune his bass guitar, but the band and technicians weren't able to comply
during the next 10 minutes during which the band and Prince just played
"let's stand on stage and waste time," no this isn't a new song, so nothing
ever came of Mayte's request, but I would like to know what she requested to
make him laugh. Prince played his purple symbol guitar, his white "eye" bass
guitar, the blue cloud reproduction guitar, the synth, and the hollow-body
guitar.



The second half of the show was better, but not much. He came out in a red
outfit with matching fabric strips in his hair; this outfit clashed with the
purple guitar (in my opinion). He played the Santana song "Oye Como Va" that
the crowd enjoyed singing (they knew all the words, of course), "Gett Off,"
"Kiss" (featuring both Larry and Prince on bass which was very odd, but
interesting), "She's Always in My Hair" (which was a mild personal highlight
for me), "U Got the Look," and a very lively (albeit 15 years late) version
of Public Enemy^Rs "Fight the Power." He also played "Lets Go Crazy,"
teasing the crowd, and finally playing half of it (messing up the lyrics in the
process, and the guitar didn't sound right (more technical problems). He also
played "Come On" from NewPowerSoul (in which he also screwed up the lyrics).
Again, nothing from Rave, nor did he mention it. Maybe he hasn't learned any
of the lyrics yet. Sorry.



He ended with "Purple Rain" which the crowd really loved. Although the crowd
seemed to like the second half of the show, it was clearly too short. They
seemed to wonder (as did I) why he didn't just play both sets like that,
turning Larry's mike off and pushing him to the back of the stage (in a
glorious, yet unfortunately short-lived 15 minutes). Although Prince was
clearly sick, and technical problems limited his playing on guitar, bass, and
the keyboards, his dancing was also limited to this short part of the show for
the most part. It truly felt like The Larry Show with about 20 or so minutes of
Prince playing his music. Should Prince start as the warm-up band for Larry
from now on? One could easily argue that this good 20 minutes was a mistake:
what Prince did during this time is show the audience what it was exactly that
was missing in the rest of the show. His 20 minutes were so much better than
the rest of the show that the crowd was shocked and confused about the purpose
of their sitting through the rest of the evening. Why did we have to do that?



Over all, I'd say that it was the worst show I^Rd ever seen him do (out of 52,
I think). Added to the technical difficulties and his obvious illness (which
are arguably not his fault), the venue just didn't have very good sound. Can
you build a good sounding venue in a shopping mall? The bass got lost in the
high ceilings and the treble distorted too easily. There was a lot of static.
Also, although I don't have the technical vocabulary to describe this well
(help?), the left and right speakers were too separated, so that by walking
around, one could only hear the right side or the left side of the music, not
both blended. It just didn't sound right. Also (and equally important), the
pacing of the show was not good. I know that club shows are supposed to feel
more "laid back," but this show wandered off to the point where no one really
had the audiences attention (except perhaps while he was playing the Purple
Rain era songs). It wasn't that the audience only wanted to hear those songs;
I watched them try and fail to connect during the entire show, but long, empty
solos where keyboards were being adjusted, or basses guitars were being tuned,
or the sound was too low or too high on certain instruments kept the crowd
un-invested. Also, this was further hurt by so much playing and singing by
Larry. The "sing-alongs" were tiring, and instead of seeming interactive, I
often felt that Prince was pandering to the audience (quite different form any
show I had ever seen). The crowd didn't always know all the words to the songs
(can you remember all the lines to "Fight the Power" after so much time has
passed), and since his voice wasn't healthy, he expected and needed the crowd
to help out too much. That's okay during "U Got the Look," I guess, but not
during older cover songs that the crowd didn't know very well.



I have two more things to say, then I'll sit back and wait for your criticism.
First, The Larry thing is out of control. Not only does Larry play too much,
sing too much, and demand too much of the audience's attention, but the
religious influences he has on Prince are scary. The second set was
unfortunately interrupted several times by Prince's speeches about "God's
son, Jesus Christ, and how happy we would be if we had him in our daily life."
This happened many times (and the crowd looked at him like he was out of his
mind), and after he'd say it (again and again), he'd first look over his
shoulder at Larry and then off-stage right to Larry's wife who both pointed to
the sky and smiled ear-to-ear. They are obviously behind this and I think it is
scary, no longer the playful interaction between religion and sexuality that we
grew up with in the 70s and 80s. What is it called when friends get together
and rescue someone from a cult? Intervention? Someone should do something. This
is simply getting out of control. I can certainly live with the "no cursing"
on stage, but do we really want all the songs' lyrics (including Purple Rain,
last night) changed to include how without Jesus in our daily lives we can
never truly be happy?



Last (finally, huh?), I think he should basically get rid of the entire band.
Maybe this is going too far, and I don't mean to take such an extremist stand
on this, but hear me out. I know that it can be hard to fire the person who was
the best man at your wedding, but this is not a band that can keep up with him
on stage. Why does he surround himself with well-below-average musicians?
Personally, I like Mike Scott and think he is a good guitar player, good for a
traveling band, and he never seems to get in the way. I agree that Prince needs
a guitar player like Mike to play while Prince wants to do other things on
stage. And I realize Larry's talent (but he should be fired for reasons
described above). The rest of them are a joke. The Hornheads spent half the
evening picking up dropped sheet music on the floor and looking confused, Kirk
spent the night calling security onto the stage to keep the invited on-stage
fans from chasing Prince around or trying to engage him in meaningful
conversation while he's playing guitar. Kirk is, after all, a glorified
security guard, isn't he? And do I even need to comment on the percussion? I
remember seeing James Brown in concert, or better yet Miles Davis in concert
before he died. At this stage in Prince's career, he could attract quality
musicians to back him up. My wife, at one point during the show, tapped me on
the arm and asked, "Why doesn't he just come out on stage by himself and
play?" I couldn't agree more. In fact, I think a pre-recorded tape in the
background would be better than what I witnessed last night. It's
embarrassing.



Okay, okay, let me have it. Or perhaps a show of solidarity if you agree with
me. Take care.