I was glad to see from previous reports that others enjoyed the Little Rock show as much as I did. It was a blast. It's true that the arena wasn't sold out but the crowd that was there was charged up. As many of you already know, either from the recent NPGonline update or on your own, Morris Hayes and Kip Blackshire are from Arkansas, and as we picked up our tickets (no problems, no hassles), Kip's family was in front of us (some problems, some hassles -- but they got it straightened out). Prince thanked everyone for turning up on such short notice and served up a great show.



It began with Millenia, a SWV-like quartet who insisted, much to my dismay, that they are around to stay; unfortunately they lived up to this promise to the extent that they remained together for the duration of their set. I kept hoping that they would disband in a fit of hurt feelings and bruised egos right there on stage, sparing us from yet another variation on "Where My Girl's At?" -- but no such luck. Actually, they were not *that* bad. They sang backup throughout the night with the NPG and they had some good harmonies going. One of the members, whose names I didn't catch, had quite a voice.



The Fonky Baldheads were straight up fun. Mike Scott and company were just jumping around with their instruments and playing some heavy metal type music at one point, a kind of grunge/funk blend, and then lapsed into a hardcore r&b/rap, leading the audience in a chant of "Fonky Baldheads!" DVS is not a bad rapper and he's got a great stage presence. He came out and macked on Millenia at one point and generally kept things light and fun, but also intense and energetic. If with Millenia you can't help but think of Destiny's Child, with DVS you can't help but think of Eminem, with the exception that DVS and the FB find a use for thuggery other than it being a justification of their own anger. "Music should be about inspiration!" he shouted at one point, and damn if it wasn"t inspiring to watch them all bring the imaginative hammer down on some stuck-in-the-mud rapper or some dressed-to-swill boy band tripe. I was hoping that with DVS around we would hear Daisy Chain. But no such luck. No Larry. Rhonda's great, but I would've loved to see Larry Graham. If I have to go JW, I will.



When Prince finally came on at about 9:15, the crowd was pretty pumped. He said that he was in a good mood and it showed. I don't remember the entire set list, but early on we got Mutiny, with the same dance arrangement from the March downloads video; we got Housequake (I can die happy); we got Darling Niki AND The Beautiful Ones; we got Diamonds and Pearls; we got Do Me Baby; we got rocked; we got souled. He introduced I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man by saying "we're gonna rock a little in Little Rock!" endearing himself, I'm sure, to the local Chamber of Commerce. At one point, he brought out Habibi and Habibi sang for a while. Of course we got Purple Rain, this time dedicated to someone named Gloria, who "knows who she is." This was a greatest hits show, no doubt about it. Ain't nothing wrong with that. The only new song that Prince performed was The Work and that was something to see: his moves were fluid and lissom. I hope some version of this performance winds up on video. It needs to be seen. His performance all night was in top form, as was the band's. John Blackwell is a monster on the drums!



During The Beautiful Ones and at a few other moments during the night, Prince kept asking the crowd "Do you love me?" (I'm glad he didn't say "Who Do You Love?" Cause I would've stormed the stage and said "It's 'Whom' Dammit!"). Of course the crowd answered yes. But that wasn't enough. He also wanted to know *how much* we loved him, and at some point, amidst the flurry of crowd participation and kick-ass encores, he said that although many bands would be performing at the Alltel, we needed to remember *him.* On one level of course, this was mere crowd bamboozlement, but I actually found it touching. It was interesting to hear such pleading during a greatest hits show of a career that spans four decades, as it gave the early soul ballads and sexually explicit vintage funk numbers an entirely new meaning. The desperation of unrequited love heard in The Beautiful Ones, for example, and the accompanying fear that such unrequitedness may deep down be self-generated was projected respectively onto the crowd at large and onto his career as a whole. This didn't come off as insecure so much as perplexed. He was genuinely curious about the nature of his relationship to his audience. Last Saturday night in North Little Rock he simply asked the question again.



I didn't hear if there was an after-show or -party, and after reading the org the next day I suspect that there wasn't -- more bad feelings on the part of some unrequited club-owner. I enjoyed reading those other reports. Wendy, Christopher_Tracy, and Shanekirk pretty much said it all. *You* shoulda been there too.



On a final note, if there's one thing that I took from this experience it's that one should never, ever post phony tracklists! No matter what! It distracts from the REAL music!