The morning after the Richmond show and here are my thoughts.


I'm sure someone will post a full review of the show and song listing(which was the same as The Worchester show minus the Santana medley) so I won't get into that.


Highlights:


While waiting in the lobby before being let into the orchestra section of the Theater, Prince poked his head out of the door while doing his soundcheck and gave a surprised look to the crowd then smiled. The crowd went nuts! I was at the front of the line and it was definitly a surreal moment for me. The person that I have been listening to and watching for the past 17 years was about ten feet infront of me at my level. He is definitely a prettyman, but I have to say his head is about half the size of his body! It's huge, but he does have some "good hair" though.


Darlin' Nikki was SLAMMING!! That was the best version that I have heard! The chorus was rocking, almost had a heavy metal feel to it.


The Beautiful Ones was beautiful. All the other live versions that I've heard of the song where he gets to the climax and starts screaming sounded like his voice was strained and didn't quite hit the same notes like on the original song. But the version last night was ON! His sreaming sounded incredible and not strained at all. During the end, he went to the audience and started to sing to a particular female while making all the crazy,goofy faces.
During Kiss he was playing that MF-ing bass! he also got some audience members on stage to dance. Towards the end of the song he gave his mic to a female that he was singing to and she went off!! Whoever it was, was SINGING that song- even Prince looked impressed.



Observations:


Geneva is a MORE than adequate visual foil- man does she have a body on her and is flexible too!! The best way to describe her dancing is a cross between Mayte and Cat.
The drummer was awesome!! I was seated on the side infront of the drums and watching him play made me think, "Kirk who?" He was pounding those skins while doing some twirl with his sticks that looked cool.


Najee had TOOOOO many solos. I can appreciate a good intstrumentalist as much as the next person, but give me a break! It seemed like after each song Najee had a solo.
Prince is definitely coasting!! I don't know if it's the fact that he is so good live and as a musician, but while watching him I get the idea that he could do all this in his sleep! The inspiration,to me, wasn't there. Don't get me wrong, it was a great concert and he was entertaining, but it was missing something(like new songs!) I guess when you se someone do something so easily, you take for granted how hard it really is.


Of coarse he had his little sermon, which actually wasn't that bad. He spoke about peoples names, like who are the people with last names like BLACKBURN and LYNCH, while on the other hand who has the last name ROSENBLOOM(as in rose-in-bloom) He said he'll take that last name, it sounds pretty. Then he said to go see Bamboozled and went into When Will We Get Paid.


Prince did not seem too happy with the sound all night and it did sound bad! For one you couldn't understand what he was saying half the time and his guitar was not turned up enough. What about his post on NPG about the new sound man he got? He had to tell them to turn up his guitar numerous times.


He also commented that he was sorry that we had to pay for tickets (yeah right!) but Najee was expensive!
During the end of Come On, which was the encore, he threw his hat to the audience and some guy caught it. While going back to car in the parking deck I saw the guy with the hat, and Prince- you have a BIG head!



Overall review: Better than anyone else, but subpar for Prince.


I'm going to see him friday at The Patriot Center, and hopefully all the sound issues will be worked out by then(check out the new post on NPG- some crew members got the axe!!)