http://www.thisislondon.c...es/1473365This Prince is still charming

Reviewed by John Aizlewood, Evening Standard (4 October 2002)
GIG REVIEW: Prince, 3/10/02

His gall is staggering. Midway through a show that began with much of the audience still queuing outside, owing to Prince's insistence that every customer - paying up to £65 - was searched should they have the temerity to bring a camera, he cackled: "I don't mind having my picture taken."
Gall notwithstanding, Prince is struggling. Since his acrimonious departure from WEA Records in 1994, he has been in a musical strop. He has eschewed breathtaking genre-straddling in favour of impenetrable funk, which chiefly serves to remind us how malign the influence of his mentor George Clinton has been on black American music.
His sales have collapsed to the degree where he releases internet-only albums and, in place of the lavish stage excesses of yore, on the misleadingly titled One Nite Alone, he is accompanied only by a five-piece band.
He remains unrepentant. "If you came to get your Purple Rain," he goaded, "you're in the wrong building. I'm not interested in what you know, but what you're willing to learn." The result was further audience-baiting via snippets of myriad hits.
However, Take Me With U, Raspberry Beret and Nothing Compares 2 U, the B-side which gave Sinead O'Connor her career, were dispatched with gusto. For the most part, though, this was Prince spending nearly three hours repeatedly cris-crossing the line between uncompromising and self-indulgence.
However, to the delight of the venue formerly known as Hammersmith Odeon, Prince remains a playful showman, whether compering a dance competition or, for the final encore, dragging a dozen startled folk to cavort on stage. And his guitar roadie appeared from the orchestra pit, attired in suit and tie.
His post-popularity music is not without merit, too, and a surreal cover of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love confirmed he remains an astonishing guitarist. Muse 2 The Pharaoh is several songs in one, with Prince's vocals ranging from throaty rap to his other-worldly falsetto, while Extraordinary is in the Prince tradition of beautiful, albeit perverse, ballads. Part enigma, part prone to lame invocations to party, but wholly wilful: what a peculiar little fellow Prince is.
Friday and Saturday. Box office: 0870 606 3400. Sold out.

My review of this review is that it is confused, inaccurate, repetitive and stylistically bankrupt.

And my review of this review is that the writer completely misses the point. My guess is he watched the first three minutes and then listened to the rest of it from the bar, phoning in his review between pints of watered down lager. Prince isn't peculiar, he's just playing by his own rules.

This is really funny. This joker is just jealous. Some uptight mean snot nose who woke up that morning without a clue as to why. All he has to do is read the last two words of his own review SOLD OUT .

This "journalist" obviously did not do his homework.
This review in no way reflects truth about Prince.
He seems to be more intereted in jounalstic flair,
of which he has none.
I am critical. not because his report is unflattering,
but because it is just dumb.

SensualMelody said:

"Journalistic flair"?

Interestingly, John Ailzewood spends a full third of the, ahem, "review" of the show going on about Prince's feud with WB and the fact that the guy is "struggling". Very objective reporting indeed...

To call that a "report" would be to undermine the proper meaning of the word.


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