Prince Rocked the House at the Park West



For all those people who refused to pay $40 or $20 because Prince wasn't scheduled to perform... you missed out on a great concert.



The Fonky Bald Heads took the stage around 10 p.m. They played a 45 minute set. One song, "Under the Cloud" reminded me musically of "Hallucination Rain" on the Exodus album.



Millenia took the stage at 11:10 performed three songs and Prince immediately followed. He had on a red outfit (with matching shoes of course) and the top of the shirt had NPG in black letters embroidered on it.



All night this man was in my face playing his guitar, posing and feeling the vibe. He opened the show with Uptown, Controversy, Mutiny. He performed "U Make My Sunshine" (Nicole from Millenia sang the female vocal section.



Of course, Prince had to preach. About being free, owning his masters and voting. One thing that stood out was when he said,
"If I gave you a CD of my music would you copy it and give it to your friends?" I didn't answer that but I could hear a lot of people around me LYING by saying no. Right. So, Prince must have known people were lying and said, "If I asked you to give it away, would you?" People yelled "Yeah!" Now here comes the paraphrasing - "Now, if I asked for my CD back, you'll give it back?" We screamed, "Yes." Because it's mine. I don't understand the logic (reference to record companies).



Prince played the guitar. He thrived on it for almost two hours. He performed solo's on "I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man," "Purple Rain" and 'U Make My Sunshine." He made UMMS
a blues number and rocked it. I think it was on this song he got Habibi and played it like he was communicating with dolphins. He was telling the audience to shhh so they could hear the sound. The sound started to sound like the siren of the humpback whale - beautiful.



His encore was Purple Rain. I can't tell you what song he played when people got on the stage to dance. Carla from the Chicago Nation, Julian and Motley were on stage working it. Prince also pulled up Motley and Des for Housequake previously in the program. It was cool to watch people I know dance on stage with Prince.



It was a great concert. Five computers were set up and people were on them checking out the NPG Music Club Web site. If I'm missing anything, sorry. It's 4:16 a.m. and I'm falling
asleep at my computer. Ignore the grammatical errors. Goodnight.



UP,

L&H