"Musica", one of the most important italian music mags, reviewed the "Ona" box set giving it two stars (out of five). Major causes of disappointment, according to the reviewer, are the high price and the fact that, according to him, the sound is a bit overproduced and it doesn't represent fairly Prince's great showmancraft. The reviewer closes the article saying that "fans should look after bootlegs in order to listen to the true live Prince".

well..hmmm..i sort of agree,to me the only negative was the crowd wasnt that audible.when he walked out 2 the intro of trc the whole place goes fuckin mental.tho on ona its almost sounds muted.
whatever its still bloody exciting getting a p boxed set thru ur door!(not ur postbox as of course that would be too small!)

i agree absolutely with that article!!!
the ONA-tour was the best prince-tour ever,
but the official release sounds kind of dead,
without blood, there is no live in it.
it's just overproduced! apart from that, the
much better european leg of the tour is missing!
everey single bootleg of the european tour is
way better! sorry to say that ...

For a die-hard Prince fan like me, I'd give it two stars. For a casual listener, it would only get one out of five! I wouldn't recommend it to anyone!

Please diss me for asskissin´ but ONA Live gets 5 outta 5 stars from me.

I think if we should have just the Ona Box without any boots, we're gonna get excited about it, I think it's the best prince's product ever.
I know that some boots are better than that, try 2 think of that one from Buffalo, great quality and above all great show.
But without those boots the ona box would sound better 2 us all.

Well, I loved the ONA box set, but I kinda agree with the review...some of the best moments of the tour are inside bootlegs.
I dont think the album sound was overproduced...it sounds very raw for me, which is great.
I think the piano medley on disc 2 had some unnecessary moments
The aftershow starts VERY well with some of his finest guitar performances ever, but I think Prince should have included some of his less famous songs like ´Something in the water´ or ´Question of U´ (Princey did some real great versions of them in the bootlegs) replacing the extremely long jams ´Girls and boys´ and ´Peach´.
But I cant complain at all, the album as a whole is real good.

I agree with the writer!

A bit like marmite then, either love it or hate it

jonylawson said:

One of the problems with live albums is that they go straight 2 the soundboard so U miss all the audience reaction.The place did go mad when P walked on stage U and U hear that on the boots because they are (usually) recorded from the audience.

super4nk said:

Put. Down. The. Crack. Pipe.

Then go find some bootlegs for the 1980s tours.

Then rethink the above.

One more time, ´the 80s were great´...
I listened to several 80s concerts and the lack of musicianship of the Revolution (specially Bobby Z) didnt attract me much. And some concerts were full of medleys too (like Lovesexy video) and I always thought medleys suck.
The ONA tour had something very positive. For the first time Prince put the music as first priority. Less dances, choreographies, chants and stage gimmicks and more music. And he improved so much as a guitar player