Just so this seems relevant, I tried posting this review at 9am on Sunday morning, but somehow it didn't get to you guys... so here goes again!



Just returned from 3 concerts in San Francisco/Oakland, seeing the newly accessible to fans Prince. All I can say is that membership in the NPG Music Club has its priveledges. When I heard that NPG Music Club people were invited to the last hour of the soundcheck, I was skeptical, but members did see the full hour as promised. At first, they had everyone from the music club come in and sit on the side, but Prince started jokingly asking members to see their tickets and asked the ushers to have the club members sit in their ticketed seats. As we walked in, Prince, in the most playful mood I've ever seen him in, asked the crowd if they had picked up a margarita, and that there were plenty of them backstage.



Anyways, here's the set list of the soundcheck:



When U Were Mine

Santana Medley

Oye Como Va

You Make Me Feel like a natural WOman (Rosie Gaines on vocals)

Car Wash

Like a Man (Aretha Franklin cover, I think this is the wrong title though)

Car Wash

Ain't No Way

Instrumental jam by Kip Blackshire

Daisy Chain

Joy in Repitition

Purple Rain




After Oye Come Va, Prince asked the crowd if they'd like to hear Rosie sing, and I looked and Rosie was sitting in the back of the ampitheater...she joined him for 5 songs. The song Ain't no Way was sung over the music to U Make my sun shine...which sounded really cool, and Millenia backed Rosie up on vocals. Prince interacted with the crowd a lot during soundcheck, and it was really cool to see him direct the band and sit on the sidelines at times to watch what they were doing. Of course he was playing and singing as usual, but this was different...I felt like we were watching a bootleg videotape that we weren't supposed to be seeing.



Before Daisy Chain, rapper DVS (the Eminem lookalike in the Daisy Chain video) came out with cuts all over his head and face...he looked like a bad shaving accident and asked about anyone having bandaids into Prince's microphone...it was pretty funny. Then Prince wiped the microphone off as if he had just contaminated it. Every time DVS came to the mic someone wiped it off. Poor guy. Oh well. After Daisy Chain, Najee broke into one of his solos which Prince said to the band "joy" and went thumbing through his lyric book and it eventually became Joy in Repitition..the entire song! That was the first time I've ever heard it in person and it really sounded tight! Anyways, after that, Prince started in with a fast guitar solo (kinda like Bambi) and started singing a ROCKING version of Purple Rain...this song was not a ballad but a pure rock number. I don't think most of the people in the audience even realized what song it was until into the second verse...how random was that. But then here's the coolest thing about the soundcheck: after it was over, Prince asked the group what they thought about the music club and sat in the audience and did about a 20 minute impromptu question and answer session with fans. When has this happened before you ask? To my knowledge...NEVER!!!! One guy asked Prince to play on stage with him and Prince obliged...go figure too! Some things never change though...a girl asked Prince to autograph something for her and he refused but shook her hand (and flustered one of Prince's bodyguards at the same time). Prince said there will be more vault stuff in the NPG Music Club, and that Los Angeles will see the Hit N Run Tour, and that there WILL be a celebration in MPLS this summer...



Anyways, the concert started around 9pm with Millenia and the Fonky Bald Heads opening. I didn't care for Millenia at all (in fact I'm really surprised that Prince would support a pop band like them) though the Bald Heads rocked it... unfortunately the sound mix was too loud for their set, but they sounded pretty good. Just thought I'd share.



Anyways, Prince's set lasted a little longer than 2 hours and consisted of:



DAT INtro

Uptown

COntroversy

Mutiny

The Work (part 1) (sung in normal voice, not falsetto)

Cream

Little Red Corvette

I Wanna Be Your Lover

Sexy Dancer

Housequake

Ballad of Dorothy Parker/4

Someday we will all be free (Kip Blackshire on vocals)

U Make My Sun Shine (with Millenia)

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man

Do Me Baby

Scandalous

Diamonds and Pearls

The Beautiful Ones

Nothing COmpares 2 u



Encore:

Let's Go Crazy

Take Me With U

Raspberry Beret

Mr. Happy Outro

Darling Nikki

When Doves Cry

Computer Blue Instrumental

I Would Die 4 U

Baby I'm a Star -- in the true sense of the word

God Instrumental

Purple Rain



As for this show, we're back to the one verse thing where he only would play about a minute and a half of most of the songs. When I saw him in Las Vegas, he at least sang part of the first verse of Housequake...this time he didn't sing any of the verses...just the chorus. The highlight of the show for me was U Make my sunshine...which he duets with Millenia on. He sang the first two verses of the song (he skips the one where he's talking really fast at the end of the song) but goes into a long blues thing (a la if I had a harem, which he played during the Lovesexy tour) which was pretty cool. He hadn't really changed any of the other tracks around much from the December show in Las Vegas. Oh well... most Prince fans have come to expect that the regular concert isn't the place to see non-mainstream material...which leads me to the aftershow review!



By the way, at the concert, Prince mentioned that Jada Pinckett-Smith, Lawrence Fishburne, Raphael Saadiq (from the band Lucy Pearl), Sheila E, Rosie Gaines were all present, and at the Q&A session he mentioned that Keanu Reeves wanted tickets to the concert. Aside from Sheila and Rosie, I didn't see any of them at the concert.



Anyways, the aftershow at the Fillmore was $30 for NPGMC members ($50 for nonmembers...which was sold out by the way) and they had our names on a list when they finally figured out which line we were supposed to be waiting in. Once we got in, which was around 1:45am, we were pretty tightly squashed, as is the norm at the aftershows. Anyways, they finally finished setting up the instruments around 3am, and they opened with a 20 minute+ jam on Daisy Chain, and for the first 10 minutes Prince was singing from behind a curtain somewhere. DVS did his rap on the song, then Prince came out, with Sheila E on percussion, and sang the first 2 verses again, this time in view of the audience. Larry Graham also came out with the band during this song. Next, Rosie Gaines came out and sang her Aretha Franklin tributes, as she did earlier at the soundcheck, but during Ain't No Way, she changed up the ending to make it a fast rocking number, never heard it sung like that before. Joy in Repitition followed, and was tighter than before in the soundcheck. This was obviously a crowd favorite, and almost everyone in the room was singing it with Prince. The surprise of the night followed, as Prince picked up his acoustic guitar and sang Paisley Park (!!!!!) I was trying to recall the last time I heard him play that song...oh wait, that was NEVER!!!!! Hopefully he'll play that one more...sounded really good live. Sheila came back on stage for the Santana medley and Oye Como Va. On Oye Como Va, John Blackwell did a smoking drum solo, which caused Sheila to go to the drums, push him out of the way and do her own solo, which caused Prince to go to the drums, push her out of the way and do HIS own drum solo...it was really cool, and out of all of them I think Blackwell was the best... oh well... Come on was next, which sounded better than ever for me, and in the encore Larry Graham and Prince did a long jam on Alphabet St....which was surprising and sounded good....the aftershow lasted about 90 minutes.



Here is the setlist of the aftershow:



Daisy Chain

Like a Woman

Car Wash

Ain't No Way

Joy in Repitition

Paisley Park

Santana Medley

Oye Como Va

Come On

Alphabet St.



I flew out at 7am and haven't slept yet...so that's what I'm going to be doing now. Just have to say that roughly 5 hours of prince concert and Q&A session was really really really cool....



Peace out!



-Alan