[Editor's note: this post was originally written last Wednesday, but somehow got lost in the shuffle. Sorry! - MWC]



Wow...what a week! The concert last night was unbelievable! Here's a
review of the concert and report of the afterparty last night.



Concert setlist (I wrote it down as he was playing):
[pre:0deadbeef0]
Anna Stesia (full song!!)
Greatest Romance Ever Sold/4 the Tears in Your Eyes
Uptown
Let's Work
Delirious
Purple Rain
Prettyman/Intermission (hornheads song)
Breathe and Stop (q-tip)
Vibrant Thing (q-tip)
Doug E Fresh rap
Lodi Dodi
Come On/Dance Contest
The One intro (costume change)
Question of U (Instrumental)
When u Were Mine
Days of Wild
No More Rain in this cloud (Angie Stone vocals)
Dr Feelgood (Angie Stone)
Nothing Compares 2 u
Take Me with u/Raspberry Beret
James Bond Theme
I Like Funky Music
Talking Loud and Saying Nothing
The Jam
Everyday People

Encore:
Man o'War
Adore (!!!!! Full version, first full performance ever)
America (with Bobby Z, Brownmark, Dr. FInk)
Take the A-Train
Funky 4 No Reason chant (with Angie Stone)
Beautiful Night jam (with the Hornheads)
Kiss
Gett Off
Long jam
Push it Up
Black MF in the House (instrumental)
Anna Stesia "God is Love" chant
[/pre:0deadbeef0]
Lots of guests as you've read: Maceo Parker, Doug E Fresh, QTip, Angie
Stone, the Hornheads, Bobby Z, Brownmark, the Blackshire Bros., Larry
Graham, Dr. Fink, etc.



Some highlights of the show



-The show clocked in at about 3 1/2 hours!!! Started around 9:15 (only 1
hour 15 minutes late....gotta be a new record somewhere) and ended close
to 1am.



-The Greatest Romance...he did the first verse, then changed the lyric to
"the greatest man who ever lived"...segued into 4 the tears in your eyes
with a chant of "the greatest" (NOT greatest romance...)



-Long drum intro segued into Uptown. Didn't look as Prince rehearsed this
one too much...he messed up the lyrics a couple of times and the one verse
he sang on the song was a jumble of both verses from the song. He had a
lyric book which was supposed to help him with remembering the songs, but
he kicked it over and Larry later tried to fix it but Prince told him to
stop.



-Prince changed the lyric for prettyman to jab at Elton John. "They just
wanna see me swing this pretty hair/if there ever come a time it just
don't grow/I be like Elton John and buy some mo'



-He messed up the lyrics to Come On, which he fixed by holding a dance
contest, singing the rest of the song while pulling audience members on
stage to dance.



-Question of u was the instrumental at the end of the song...he didn't
sing any of the verses.



-When u were mine lacked the originality it had when he played it live
previously...the lyrics matched the released version...not the live
version (I know you're going with another MF)...Days of wild also doesn't
sound the same without the curse words.



-The Encore lasted more than an hour, beginning with Prince on the piano
playing Man o' War. After two verses he launched into the full version of
Adore...11 or so minutes long!!!!! Not only did he sing the whole song,
but he improvised words at the end of the song! This was obviously
overwhelmingly the favorite song he played by everyone I talked with after
the concert...a few friends were crying "tears of joy falling down on us"
as he played it. I really hope this makes the final tour setlist.



-He called Bobby Z, Brownmark and Dr. Fink on stage for America. He asked
the crowd if they remembered Brown Mark...when he came up on stage, Prince
said "Looking shapely." He could still play the hell out of the bass, and
he looked generally the same as he did when he was with the
revolution. Next Prince called Bobby Z, who was almost unrecognizable
(see the picture on the NPGONLINELTD.COM web site), who Prince said "also
looking shapely." Prince then called for the Doctor in the House, Dr.
Fink, who Prince said "looking shapely. You look EXACTLY like you did
during Around the World in a Day." Fink really looked different, though
he was wearing his Doctors coat costume (though it was much bigger than
his revolution days. ) All jammed on America, and Prince called for a
change in chord which Bobby Z missed and Prince said "Bobby forgot his
hearing aids today. Bobby, you're replaced. Coming in to play for Bobby
Z..." and that was it for him. This jam lasted for more than 10 minutes
as well.



-A really long jam where everyone except for the Revolution members came
back to the stage lasted for about 20 minutes and incorporated Push it up,
Black MF in the house, and a lot of instrumental solos made it seem like
we were watching a work in progress instead of an actual concert.



After the show, we all rushed back to Paisley Park figuring there'd be a
party...and there was. Being from Southern California, I wanted to
experience the drama of trying to get into one of these afterparties, and
it was definitely an ordeal. Paisley Park security sure seemed to think
they were important as they let selected people into the party. The
afterparty reminded me of Studio 54's selective process of finding
attendees to keep up the image. First they let only girls in. Then
selected guys. After about a 2-hour wait, I finally got in, and the party
was a tilldawn dance party. And I mean TILLDAWN because we left there
around 6am!!! Doug E Fresh did some MCing at the DJs mic in the
Love4OneAnother room and Prince was the DJ for awhile too. They played a
lot of his music, though when he was the DJ, the mixing was off and the cd
seemed to get stuck at times. One cool thing about the afterparty was
they showed raw footage from the concert earlier that night. It was
interesting to watch Prince play air guitar and bob his head to his own
music. They played Greatest Romance, Delirious, Prettyman which he seemed
to really enjoy watching. They also played an unreleased remix of Kiss,
which was basically the instrumental version of the 12-inch version, plus
Mad (which sounded really good over the PA system...) The song was a bit
longer than the circulating unreleased version of the song. They ended the party around 6am after the HotWitU video was shown. Maceo Parker,
Bobby Z, Dr Fink, Blackshire Bros, Morris Hayes, Doug E Fresh, along with
Prince, were all spotted at the party.



I really had a good time last night, and met a whole lot of cool people
from all over the world over the course of the week. My hat off to Prince
for not cancelling and for holding the celebration at his crib. Hope this
becomes a yearly thing...