Brothers and sisters of the purple underground ....



Prince and the NPG, with special guests Doug E Fresh and George Clinton,
performed Sunday night at the Cleveland State University Convocation
Center. Then Prince and the NPG, minus Rhonda, all moved over to an
official afterparty at Wish, West Sixth and Johnson Court, in the
Warehouse District. ...



Hopefully this report can fill in a few more holes that were sent Sunday
night / Monday morning. ...



The Cleveland date turned out to be a special one. With Cleveland being
the first date mentioned (at the time) on this short "rehearsal-type"
tour, many people from all over the United States and Europe showed up
for this gig and afterparty. In addition to Clevelanders, people came in
from Cincinnati/Covington, Kentucky, Detroit, Dayton, Ohio, New York
State, and Italy. There were probably more out of towners in Cleveland
last night, too, as posted here on The ORG. ...



Take it for what it's worth - Prince's current mini-tour is, well,
basically, his take at trying to gain acceptance with his fans once
again, playing and fleshing out a back catalog of a lot of his
well-known " radio " hits. And like from the other tour reports on this
site, it was a nice feeling of Prince placing me in 1985 and 1987 during
the Purple Rain and SOTT tours. The first tour I saw Prince was
LoveSexy, 28 October, 1988, in Pittsburgh. It was cool and all jumping
and tapping to the beat of HouseQuake. ...



Me and Peggy (happy birthday !! ) made two trips to Cleveland in 72
hours to see Parliament Funkadelic and Prince, because George Clinton
was asked by local concert promoters to move his gig back a few days to
accommodate Prince's show. And each trip was well worth it. And I can
see why it would have been kind of hard to put on nearly 6 hours of
overlapping funk in one night at two venues. Maybe it's possible, but
Sunday night I don't think both funk gigs could have taken place at the
same time, some 30 blocks away from each other. ...



I really won't go into big details on each of the songs performed, but I will tell you a few observations. There is a new black and "Rave Blue"
tshirt for sale for the Hit N Run Tour. No tour dates, just the year
2000 on the back. That fetches for $20. ...



Peggy saw Billy Sparks in the soundbooth before the show. I noticed
later on in the gig that there was a lone camera on a tripod filming the
show. I thought it could be of one of the local TV stations but the
camera was not big enough. So I thought it couild be the Bravo film
crew, but afterwards I found out it was for private use. ...



About that new DAT intro, Prince includes, "What am I gonna do?" from
Poom Poom, the "Don't worry .." intro from 1999, some strains of " My
Name is Prince," and the 10 to 1 countdown from Live4Love, right before
27-year-old John Blackwell pounds the first thumps of Uptown. That was
cool. I also found out that during the show Mr. Blackwell stood up
behind his drum kit and played with wreckless abandon, a la back in days
of Bobby Z with The Revolution. John, though, did not stand up for the
entire night, but I thought that was interesting. I've seen him twice in
a month (Oct. 20) and he impresses me a ton. John is very aggressive on the skins. He will have long life in the NPG. He might not fill the
shoes of Michael B or Shelia E., but already, I hate to say this, Mr.
Blackwell is already better than Kirk. ...



Prince had the same three costume changes, and his third choice was
interesting. Remember the TODAY Show interview from last December with
wearing that nun's habit on his head? Well, he added a white band
near the brim that says MONEYAPOLI$. During the Darling Nikki number, he
almost lost his head piece while he was writhing and grinding on the
elevated stage. ...



During Cream, a sofa loveseat appeared on the riser on the back of the
stage. That's' the only "prop" on the stage during the gig, and it
disappears after the song. ...



At two points in the show, Prince played around with Najee and Doug E
Fresh. Prince was stage right near Kip, while Najee was belting out
some grooves on his sax. Prince walked over with a towel and wiped
around Najee, as if to cool him off, then strolled back into the shadows. Funny stuff. Late in the gig he did almost the same thing to
Doug E Fresh, and weaved in and out behind Fresh's back. Prince also
draped Fresh's jean jacket around him, a la James Brown back in the day.
...



It was a funny sight to see Geneva writhing and grinding next to Najee
while he blew his heart out on God. I overheard someone saying a few
rows in front of me, "That's not right in so many ways," and laughed it
off. Geneva adds some nice spice to Prince's stage presence. She has
about twice as many stage costume changes as does Prince and his
superduper limber. Her Darling Nikki outfit is very Britney Spears,
including her kickers and underwear. ...



Prince did not utter the word "rehearsal" during the gig. But he did go
on two long speeches, one about Universal Love and the current US
presidential election. He keyed upon us putting our trust in God as the
next president of the United States. As well, part of his social
commentary during Purple Rain he talked about who strong governments
through history and the holy book fail under leadership time and time again. ...



Then before "When Will We Be Paid (4 The Work We've Done)," Prince
talked about how himself, Najee, George Clinton (who was in Columbus,
Ohio, Saturday night), and a handful of Cleveland-area radio program
directors met Sunday afternoon to discus the state of radio. Prince
made some good observations, not wanting to "step on any toes." He
talked about local and national radio programming and who programs the
music. He mentioned Britney Spears and Eminem being on the radio today,
and not Prince. Well, he said he was already on the radio, and that got
a HUGE roar out of the crowd. He said Najee is a truly gifted sax man,
but do we ever hear him on the radio? Prince said no because certain
musicians like Najee do not have a "national" contract for radio
airplay. Prince hoped that one day he would rather hear Najee on the
radio and have children pick up on Najee's skills and grow from that.
...



If any of you go to any of the next shows, pay particular attention to
the lyrics of When Will We Be Paid and She's Always in My Hair. Both joints seem to fit together in the message Prince is trying to convey.
...



During the Kiss/Pop Life/Face Down groove, Prince invited a lot of
people on stage. It was very weird seeing Rhonda and Prince on bass,
and no guitar. Even better was When Doves Cry - sampled loops with
Prince off stage in the shadows, with no guitars, just keyboards, sax,
drums and Rhonda using a bow on a 4-string upright bass. ...



The concert ended around 11:20pm, but not before one of the speaker
amplifier towers on the right side of the stage blew a fuse. I mean it
was like night and day. One moment the Come On groove was blasting with
Prince belting out a few notes, and then - BAM !! - the right side of
the stage got real quiet and muted. But it didn't phase the NPG as they
ended with a chant of "Who Rocks The Party? NPG Rocks The Party." ...



The official afterparty was announced right after the lhouse lights came
on and it was held at Wish, a former avante guard, gothic club back in
the mid-1990s. Wish is now a three-level club featruing house/jungle and techo. An interesting choice for an afterparty, and not somewhere
in The Flats, a few blocks down the street. Admission was $20 and
drinks were just as high. ...



In addition to Paisley security and Wish security, there were 10-12 men
from the Nation of Islam, which I found interesting. We got to Wish
around midnight and the NPG, minus Rhonda who was back at the hotel,
showed up about a half hour after. The NPG was very accessible. In
talking with Morris and Kip after the gig, I learned that a "big arena"
tour is in the works for 2001. Morris was also interviewed extensively
by Jane Scott, Cleveland entertainment beat reporter extraordinare for
The Plain Dealer. Ms. Scott is like 78 years old and her resume reads
like a Rock and Roll history lesson dating back to the Rolling Stones
and The Beatles and Paul McCartney and Wings. ...



Of course everyone wanted to get a look at Prince (me included), who I
guess was dressed in black for the evening. I don't know because I
never saw him. Prince arrived at Wish around 1:30am to cheers and
screams and commotion. Of what I heard, he waved to the crowd on the third floor of the club and then told Aaron that he was feeling
claustrophobic because of the massive flux of people in and around the
stairwell. So, Prince said that once the club had everything under
control he would stay in his tour bus. ...



About 15 minutes later we all left and after a long back to Detroit
Metro and less than 2 hours of sleep I was back on the job. ...
[pre:0deadbeef0]
Uptown
Controversy
Mutiny
Cream
Little Red Corvette
I Wanna Be Your Lover
Sexy Dancer
HouseQuake
The Ballad of Dorthy Parker/Six
I Can Never Take The Place of Your Man
Do Me, Baby
Scandalous
Diamonds & Peals
The Beautiful Ones
Nothing Compares 2 U
Let's Go Crazy
Take Me With U / Raspberry Beret
Darling Nikki
When Doves Cry
Baby I'm a Star (spoken)
God
Purple Rain
When Will We Be Paid (4 The Work We've Done)
She's Always in My Hair
U Got The Look
Kiss (Pop Life/ FaceDown /MyNameIsPrince house loop)
Tear The Roof Off
We Want The Funk
Push It Up
Gett Off
Atomic Dawg chant
Come On
La Di Da Di
The Show
Push It Up
Come On
Who Rocks The Party? The NPG Rocks The Party
[/pre:0deadbeef0]