Fillmore AfterJam -- San Francisco, April 29th



(Forgive me if I messed up on part of the chronology and maybe some of the lyrics. That night is still kind of a blur to me, and I tried to remember things the best I could. If anyone would be kind enough to add corrections to this thread, it would be greatly appreciated).



Late Friday night, I got confirmation that Prince's aftershow would be at the Fillmore near downtown San Francisco. At 2:30AM Saturday morning, I drove to the Fillmore. I arrived there before 6:00AM. Hardly anyone was around. Just a few people walking the streets. It was the quietest I had ever seen San Francisco. I asked someone where to get tickets, and she pointed at the boarded-up ticket window. No one was there. I picked up a quick breakfast, and then drove back around 7:00AM; and still no one was around. I was starting to think that none of it was going to happen, but I decided to go park my car and then walk back to the ticket window and wait for someone to show. When I got back to the ticket window at 7:15AM, there were four people sitting there. I walked past them as if I didn't know anything, and then I turned back and asked them, "So, what are you waiting for?" And they said, "Prince tickets." I said, "Ah, he's playing here tonight?" They said, "Yeah, it's gonna be great." So I said, "Well, I guess I better wait also." And they said, "Yeah, you better." So I stood in line behind them. We all got along real well, and told each other that we had been driving around the Fillmore for an hour or more to see if anyone had been waiting, and then by coincidence we all got in line around the same time. It was only the four of us until after 8:00AM when some other people started to show. And then a couple Fillmore staff showed up to open the door for some kind of Karate event taking place inside. They also put some barriers beside us to keep us from blocking the sidewalk, and then one guy handed out small tickets (not event tickets) with numbers on them. I was number 307, meaning that I would be the 7th person to get a ticket. We assumed that they were holding the first 300 for online sales, and that they had held a few for their friends. He said that these tickets guaranteed that we would get a real ticket for the show. We were all so happy and gave each other high fives. He told us that they would either start selling tickets at 10AM or 12PM, and that the tickets would either be $40 or $50. He also said that we were limited to buying two tickets. A few people in the line left since they were now guaranteed to get a ticket anyway. But most of us stayed. I wasn't going to leave until I had the real thing in my hands!



I asked the guy if Prince would be selling anywhere near to capactiy (1200 people), and he shook his head, "No," and smiled real big. We later found out that Prince was leaving a lot of room for the NPGMC premium members who would be coming straight over from the Arena show and wouldn't have tickets. The man also told us that the show would start at 2AM "at the earliest." He suspected that 3AM would be more accurate. "Semisonic has to clear the stage at 12AM before Prince can set up." Semisonic is another Minneapolis band that just happened to be playing at the Fillmore the same night. The man seemed to suggest that both bands had made a deal with each other so that the transition would be easier.



The Fillmore only gave out 145 tickets to those waiting in line, and they didn't give out the last one until right before the ticket window opened at 12PM. (However, I heard that the Fillmore was still selling tickets off-and-on throughout the day. Each person who had the smaller ticket could buy an event ticket for themself and for one other person. As the day went on, the Fillmore probably had a better idea about how much more room they had since a lot of people only bought a ticket for themselves).



During my 5 hours in line, I made some good friends, and when the ticket window opened at 12PM, the people at the front of the line turned to me and said, "You should be the first one to get a ticket. Go ahead." And I said, "No, I'm just happy to be here. It doesn't matter, as long as I get into the show."



When I walked up to the ticket window, I asked, "Does my name happen to be on the plus-1 list?" The lady said, "Oh, let me check. What's your name?" She pulled out a list that had two columns of names (I think) on two or three pages. I saw my name right away. I was very excited since then I knew I'd be on the list to get into the soundcheck also. She told me that I couldn't get a free ticket but that my ticket would cost $30 ($20+$10) instead of the $50 ($40+$10) that the others had to pay. I gave her my money, and she printed out my ticket. I took it and felt like I had a million dollar bill in my hand. I put it safely into my pocket, and kept checking throughout the day to make sure it was still there. My first Prince aftershow! I had always dreamed of this day. Even the people standing in line knew this was going to be where the real show was at!



Sometime before midnight, I took off early from Prince's concert at the Oakland Arena to beat the traffic into San Francisco. I was really surprised to see a traffic jam at the Bay Bridge toll both. At this time of night? Not sure why, but I don't live there. When I got to the Fillmore I was told to stand in a line half a block away from the entrance. About twenty minutes later, a man walked by and said, "NPG Music Club members!! There's a line for you on the other side of the building." A few of us got out of line and walked to the other side of the building. I was about 10th in that line. As we stood there, I saw some of Prince's limos and cars go by with the same drivers that I saw at the Arena. And then I saw a line of NPGMC members being escorted to the ticket window. No one told my line what was happening. We were all confused. Now there were three lines. Apparently they had separated NPGMC premium members who didn't have tickets from those who did. But our line didn't know this for sure, and we were wondering if they had forgotten us.



The longer we stood there, the wider our line became. People refused to stand at the back of the line. A couple people in my line told one guy, "Hey, the line is back there," and he said, "I'm not waiting in line." Someone asked, "Why not?" And he said, "I'm security, so it doesn't matter." Then people startled to heckle him a little bit, "I can't believe people are still using that one. I'm security. Yeah, right." Later, I saw this same "security" man call a girl over to cut in line beside him.



When the Fillmore opened its doors and started letting us in, they let both lines of NPGMC premium members walk in at the same time; however, lots of these members got out of line and started to cut in front of us. The two lines had disappeared, and now it was just a huge crowd of people trying to all get in at the same time. One guy behind me told these people, "Why don't you guys try getting in line like we are!" But people kept cutting in and shoving their way through. I said, "I thought we were about Love4OneAnother!" Somebody stepped right in front of me and tried to lead his girlfriend through. I blocked her off and said, "Please, no." She tried to get around me from another direction, and the person behind me also cut her off. He said, "It doesn't matter how hard you try, you're not going to cut in front of us." She cussed at him, and he said, "Well, I don't care. We've all been standing in line for a long time. Why don't you try going to the back of the line." Then I heard a few different people exchanging nasty words. I thought, "Hmmm... true Prince fans, huh?"



As the line surged forward, I bumped into a security guard. She said, "I can only do one of you at a time. Stand back." And she shoved me back, but I couldn't move. She shoved me again and said, "Get back!" I said, "I can't." The line was getting tight. So she patted me down and then let me in. One guy checked my ticket to see that I was in fact a NPGMC premium member. I think he checked the $30 ticket price to distinguish us from non-members. And then I was up the stairs and onto the dance floor. The whole front row had already formed, and I was the first person to get the center spot in the second row of standing people. Many people were at the bar ordering drinks. I guess they didn't care about getting a good spot. And several people were already upstairs taking the balcony seats. I wanted front-center. I was going to live this experience to the fullest!



The velvet rope had been placed about 15 to 20 feet back from the stage to allow room for Prince's sound people to move equipment back and forth in front of the stage for setup. Most of his equipment was in big black boxes (with wheels) stenciled with the address: "P.R.N. Productions / Chanhassen, MN" One box was stenciled with Larry Graham's name and they took his bass guitar out of that one. Another big box addressed to Prince was opened. Inside there were four keyboards in a purple-lined mold, including two Korgs. One Korg was placed on a stand for Morris, and the other Korg was placed on a stand for Kip. Morris and Kip each had another keyboard also, but I forget what those were. And then they put a percussion kit stage-left from Prince. Most of us knew what that meant. "Sheila's here!" The guitar tech checked Prince's Telecaster with the leopard-print guitar strap and then checked Habibi. Another tech checked all the basses. And the drum tech checked the drums. Prince's sound crew checked each and every mic several times. Every once in awhile I swear I could hear Femi's voice, but I didn't see him. I looked back at the soundboard room, but couldn't make out the people in there. And then Najee walked on stage carrying his two saxophones (tenor and soprano) and a flute; no cases for them. He got some applause as he walked in, and he nodded to us.



Prince's songs were being played over the sound system -- many of them from the New Power Soul album. The Fillmore had placed purple cellophane over lights that were focused on two rows of chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. At first, I kept looking at the chandeliers and wondering, "Did they put those purple chandeliers in here just for Prince?" and then I realized that the purple color was coming from the lights above them. The main lights above the stage were also covered with purple cellophane.



The sound people checked the levels on each mic, and then wiped each one with a towel. They were moving around very fast. At one point, when they were removing amps from their boxes, they had dropped one over on its side. Some of us said, "Ohhh," but they picked it up as if nothing happened. I found all of this very interesting. We practically watched an empty stage become filled with mixing boards, drums, keyboards, guitars, mics, and dozens of cords within two hours. I had never seen this before and was impressed at how fast they put it all together with seemingly little problems. Myself, I have a tough enough time trying to get one instrument to sound right, but they put it all together very fast. The sound people looked very stressed, rushing back and forth, back and forth. Some people in the crowd started to say, "Come on. It's good enough." And one guy tried to get us to chant, "We want Prince! We want Prince!" He looked at me and said, "Should we do it?" No one answered him. I was thinking to myself, "Well, we should give them time to get things right. I know Prince is very picky about his sound." The guy said, "Let's do it." He tried to start the chant a couple times, but thankfully no one wanted to chant along with him. The sound people checked the mics one more time, and then Prince's main sound person (the blond with his hair tied in back) said, "It's good enough for me, if it's good enough for you." I'm not sure who he was talking to -- the person standing at Prince's mixing board, the person at the Fillmore's soundboard, or maybe Prince himself? Anyway, about five minutes later, they wrapped it up and cleared the stage.



Security came to the front of the velvet rope and started to move it while walking backward, but people started to rush them, so they stopped. They tried a couple different times saying, "Now, we're going to take it easy and walk. Remember, I'm a small guy." So, we started walking forward with the rope in front of us, but the people in the back probably thought the floor was free reign and they rushed forward, pushing all of us against the stage. I got the wind knocked out of me and someone spilled a drink on my sleeve. One of the security guards also got crushed like we did, while another one jumped up on the stage just in time. He yelled at the back rows, "Get back, get back!" He was hot! Several of us looked back as if to plead with those behind us. He yelled several times, and finally things started to loosen up a bit. I actually thought about leaving the floor, but there I was, right in front of Prince's mic. How could I leave and miss out on an opportunity like this?



At 3:15AM the band came on stage and started to play "Daisy Chain" and we all started to dance (the best we could while being squeezed against each other). Then Prince started singing the first two verses (without a chorus). We couldn't see him from the front. Someone later said they saw him singing from the bar in the back of the room, which would be ironic since all eyes were looking the opposite direction to see him on stage. Then DVS (the white rapper from the Fonky Baldheads) came out to rap his part. Some of us sang along the best we could and waved our arms in the air... as best we could. DVS got a much better reception here than at the soundcheck, and I really don't think he deserves the Eminem comparisons he's been getting. After his rap, he left, never to be seen again, and then Sheila E. came out to the stage. We all went wild!! I noticed that she was wearing a bracelet, a necklace, and a belt, all with crosses on them! And over to the left, I saw Prince slowly creeping onto the stage with his guitar. He walked up to his microphone and sang a couple verses again. During the whole show, he and Sheila were smiling at each other and interacting quite a bit, whispering into each other's ears and laughing. They stood right next to each other at the front of the stage, with Sheila behind her percussion kit. When Prince came to the chorus, we all busted out in unison, "Bless my soul! Say my name! I ain't never going down to the daisy chain!" It was the only part of the song most of us knew well. Prince and the band jammed on this song for about 10 minutes or more. Sheila played percussion, sometimes kicking her heel up on her snare. She did this to damper the sound a bit as she hit the sticks against it. She also played the cowbells and hit some rimshots. I think she thought the cowbell sound was too loud, and she turned one of the mics away. One of the sound men snuck up by the mic and seemed to ask her if she wanted the microphone removed or adjusted. He left it, I think. At the end of the song, after the applause, it was quiet for a minute, and Sheila turned to find a place to sit or stand. One guy next to me yelled, "Sheeeeila!" and she turned and smiled at him. People cheered.



Next, Prince introduced Rosie Gaines. Everyone was very happy to see her and she received a lot of cheers and applause. She started to sing a song called, "Do Right Man" (or something like that) -- a blues song about a woman who has been hurt by relationships and is now looking for a good man. "A do right woman needs a do right man." She sang it like she meant it, oftentimes meeting my eyes and looking for understanding. "You know what I'm saying? Mmm, hmm." And I'd say, "Amen!" Her voice was wonderful. She added many ornamentations to the words. The timbre and range of her voice fluctuated often -- sometimes sounding like a screaming synth and other times sounding like a grumbling trombone, "wah, wa, wahghgh..." It was a beautiful thing to see firsthand, and the cheers never seemed to stop.



Then the band picked up the tempo and Rosie started to sing, "Car Wash." I forget when Millenia showed up, but I'm pretty sure they were singing backup on this one. Sheila was playing tambourine, and Larry Graham was playing bass. This was nothing more or less than a jam. Everyone was having fun. At one point, Prince looked to Sheila as if she should do something. At first I thought she was confused about what he was expecting. All she had was a tambourine in her hand. The band played a little softer, and then all of a sudden Sheila started to jam on her tambourine, hitting it back and forth, against her legs, shaking it side to side and upside-down, getting as many different rhythms as one could possibly get out of a tambourine and still make it sound good. I'd never seen someone play a tambourine solo before! And then a few of the other band members played some short solos, if I remember right. I know that Najee got a chance to shine. He played some beautiful sax improvisations, and then the whole band began to jam again. The entire auditorium was jumping and singing along, "Car wash! Working at the car wash, yeah." The jam lasted at least 10 minutes.



Then the band started to play a slow ballad, "Ain't No Way." Beautiful song. Millenia's voices really harmonized well on this one as Rosie sang lead. Toward the end of the song, Millenia became more and more passionate as they repeated in the background, "Ain't no wayaaaay.... Ain't No Waaaaay..... AIN'T NO WAAAAAY!" And then the music died down as if the song were over. But no, the tempo changed double-time and all of a sudden we were part of a gigantic gospel choir with Rosie screaming at the top of her lungs. The house was jumping. The tambourine was banging. The cymbals were clanging. The song exploded! And then the crowd cheered and applauded as the song came to an end and Rosie left the stage with Millenia.



Prince picked up Habibi (if he already didn't have it on), walked to the center mic, and the band started to play "Joy In Repetition." Most of us sang along with him the whole time. At the part where he sings, "Love Me" I was thankful he let us men off the hook by saying, "Just the girls please." And when he sang, "and they ran out the back door," he jerked his head toward the Fillmore's back door. Then he played a guitar solo, and I noticed the expression on the security guard's face start to change. He had been standing right between Prince and me throughout the show. At the start of the show, he gave some funny looks every once in awhile, like he really wasn't into it, but now I could see that he was impressed with Prince's guitar playing. During this song, and the next three, Prince went guitar crazy. Habibi was magical and had us all under its spell. At one point, he did the Chuck Berry guitar strut, and at another point, he held the guitar out to his side and played it that way. He was having a lot of fun. I don't think he messed up on one single note. Everything he did sounded perfect. I don't remember anyone in the band messing up on one single note the whole evening/morning.



Toward the end of "Joy In Repetition" while Prince continued a long guitar solo, he sang "Joy!" and asked us to sing along. He continued to play and cued us each time he wanted us to sing, "Jooooy!" Najee played saxophone along with Prince's guitar part, and at times it was hard to distinguish who was playing what part. I forget during which song it was, but at one point Prince motioned for Najee to do a solo, and we could barely hear him. Prince looked back at the sound room as if to say, "Wake up!" I think they had fallen asleep. So, Prince grabbed his microphone stand and started to carry it over to Najee, and that's when the sound people finally awoke and turned up Najee's feed. He was excellent! And as a lifelong sax player myself, I should know.



The next song Prince and the band played was a lot of fun. It was "Paisley Park"!!! He revised this into a rock song. In the original version the beat sounds something like, "Boom-Dah Ba-Boom-Pah." And now, in the version he played this morning, he threw in some power chords and totally emphasized the "rocking" chair motion of the "Ba-Boom" part. I can't remember, but I think Prince used the Telecaster on this one. His guitar, and Blackwell's drum playing, made this song sound fantastic! You couldn't help but rock with the rhythm. I'd love to have this on CD to play over and over again. I just can't describe how much I loved the way it sounded, in addition to the wonderful lyrics. But it seemed that Prince forgot the lyrics, and he didn't have his lyric book to help him. He kept motioning for us to sing along, and then when he totally forgot a verse, he put the microphone to the crowd. I was watching his lips to help myself remember the verse, but he didn't know either, and then when it came to the chorus, we all chimed in. After a few choruses he started to jam on his guitar, really emphasizing the the swing feel of the song. "Boom-Crunch-Ba-Boom-Crunch." And then when he brought the song to an end, I heard him say into the microphone, "Learn My Music!" He took one of Sheila's percussion sticks and hit her snare hard, and walked over to her. She was standing by the drums. He said something to her and they laughed. I think he was more upset at himself for missing the words than at us. And since I was so close to him, I thought he said something else right before he said, "Learn My Music." He may have said, "You gotta" or "I gotta" -- I'm not sure. At first I thought he was talking to the band as if they missed a part or a chord change or something, but I think he was referring to most of us forgetting what verse we were supposed to sing. Anyway, it was all in good humour (I know because I was standing right in front of him and saw his reaction), and he was in good spirits throughout the performance.



Sheila walked up to her percussion kit, and the band started to play a long Santana medley (including Tito Puente's Oye Como Va). Each member seemed to have a solo part, and I believe Najee alternated between flute and soprano saxophone during this medley. Prince totally ripped (a good word) on Habibi, and Sheila went crazy, doing some of the tricks that she's been known for, flipping her sticks and hitting them against the drums while she placed her heel on top of one of them at various times. She was hitting anything and everything -- cow bells, high hat, rim shots, snare -- with feet, hands, sticks, whatever. Prince went into an extended Carlos Santana-influenced guitar solo. He had his eyes closed during most of his guitar playing on this medley. One time I looked up at him, and he opened his left eye, looking straight at me, no one else, then closed it again, and kept on playing. That was a bit freaky for me. I think he was checking for reactions. If he would've seen the security guard just below him, he would've seen a reaction -- the same person who didn't seem to be enjoying himself at the start of the concert was now starting to sway his head along with the guitar solo, at certain points opening his eyes wide when he didn't seem to believe what he was hearing. I found it funny watching him. It looked like he wanted to turn his head and see if Prince was the one who was actually playing the guitar. Prince was totally awesome. When I wasn't looking at the security's reaction, I was looking at Prince's fingers fly across the frets, all the time while his eyes were closed. And then Prince started to sway with the guitar, hitting and moving hard on certain beats (during the bridge of that particular song, I believe). Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, or Prince? I forgot who I was watching. It was like the whole room started to disappear. We were in some kind of celestial atmosphere where the music was the only thing we breathed -- our life source. I felt like I was going to float away with the melody, right out the door, and into the night sky. But lucky for me, Prince brought the song to an end, and we all came back down to earth. (Also, I don't want to leave out Mike Scott. He did some powerful guitar playing throughout the night. At one point he played some very strong power chords, and at another point he was strumming some very cool acid/psychedelic blues-jazz chords).



I think it was at this point that John Blackwell performed a drum solo. I've never seen anyone hit drums so hard. He just slammed those sticks into those drums! How could he not break them? He was like two drummers in one. It seemed impossible that one man was creating all those beats, even while he was throwing sticks around, moving his hands around like a windmill, putting a stick in his mouth with one hand and then taking it out with the other. It seemed humanly impossible, everything he was doing. I thought, "His arms must be huge from doing workouts like that on the drums," but, really, he's not that big of a person. Amazing!



When his drum solo came to an end, I saw Sheila start to walk toward him. I thought, "She wants to take this chance to play drums too." I was hoping Prince wouldn't cue the next song and cut her off. He didn't. And Sheila went over, took Blackwell by his blue shiny shirt, and yanked him to the ground right off of his stool! She sat down, and John stood up with a little boy smile on his face (the first time I had seen him smile). Sheila was going to show Blackwell what experience sounds like! She played her solo for about a minute or so (sounding very similar to the Lovesexy and Sign O' The Times drum solos she performed), and then when she started to come to an end, Prince walked over to the drumkit. We all knew what he was up to. He playfully tugged at Sheila to get her off the drums and then he sat down and did a very short drum solo. At the end of it, he held the sticks in the air and tried to humorously imitate Blackwell's windmill technique. We all laughed, and he got off the drums.



The next song was the funkiest of them all. It was "Come On," I don't remember if Prince played an instrument on this song or not. He may have had a guitar strapped on which he played at different parts of the song. Actually, I think he had his bass. The drum and bass combination was totally funky and we couldn't help but do our best to dance in unison with the beat. We all sang the chorus as loud as we could, "Come on, baby. Come on, shake it now!" This song lasted about 7 or 8 minutes. I thouht it would last all night. It could have gone on forever. This has to be one of his funkiest songs ever, and it was good to hear it live and to feel that beat pulsating under my feet. I was sure it was going to be the last song. How could he top it? The band even walked off the stage as if it were the end, but we continued to scream, cheer, and clap, hoping they'd come back. And they did!



Prince came out with his bass and met Larry at center stage. You could really see the brotherly love for Larry in Prince's eyes. Larry was radiant, and Prince was all smiles. They played off of each other, having a great time. I was almost certain that this bass duel was going to lead into "Everyday Is a Winding Road." And then Prince stopped the "duel of basses," came to the microphone, looked at us, and sang, "Whoooooa... wo-a!" He asked us to sing along, "Whoooooa... wo-a!" And then he went back to playing bass with Larry, every couple measures cueing us to sing the "Whoa" part. However, there were a couple measures of silence between each "Whooooa...wo-a!" and some girl came up with a brilliant idea to fill that gap. She sang, "Ow! Ow-a! Ow-a!" We liked it too, and sang along with her, "Whoooooa.... wo-a! Ow! Ow-a! Ow-a!" We kept singing it that way, and Prince stopped the band while motioning us to continue. He held out his microphone to record us, while looking at Larry and smiling. We did that a couple times, in time, and then Prince cued the band to join in again. It was a lot of fun. None of us missed a beat. Then Prince came front and center and started singing "I'm going down..." (I forget, but I think he may have switched the bass for his Telecaster guitar because I'm pretty sure he played that funky descending guitar part in the song). "Yeah, yeah, yeah." We all sang along, "I'm gonna put her in the back seat and drive her.... to Tennesse." And Prince said, "No! San Francisco!!" (or maybe he said Oakland?).



Anyway, it was kind of special for me that he performed "Alphabet St." as an encore. The last time I saw Prince peform live was back on November 10, 1988, in the Oakland Arena. There were only two Lovesexy songs that he didn't perform that night, if you count the little bit of "Dance On" Sheila played. One was "Positivity" and the other was "Alphabet St" which was my favorite song at the time and for a long time. He didn't perform an encore that night, and when he did during that tour it was usually "Alphabet St." I was really bummed at the time; even though the entire Lovesexy experience affected me for life. So, it felt special to me that he performed "Alphabet St." as an encore at the Fillmore while standing right in front of me. But I probably would've been able to enjoy it more if I hadn't been distracted by the lady behind me who kept grabbing my aaa.... But... there was nowhere I could go to get away.



Prince brought "Alphabet St." to a close and he walked off the stage with the band following him. We were left standing in a dark purple atmosphere screaming, cheering, and clapping for several minutes. Then "Mad Sex" started to play over the speakers, with the crowd singing along. Prince's sound crew came out and started packing up right away. I bet they were looking to get some sleep as bad as I was. It was now 5AM on Sunday morning and I hadn't gotten a minute of sleep since 8AM Friday morning. I left the club right away, walked past all of Prince's limo drivers and the crowd outside, got into my car, drove outside the city limits, found a place to park, and took a four hour nap before continuing on my way home. What an experience!! (I want to say thank you to those who talked me into going, including angel & 2the7th. And a special thanks to the NPGMC for getting me on the list!!).



Hundala-cya!