Hello all!

Just got home from the Hit N Run Show at the Hollywood Palladium. It's been awhile since he's played Los Angeles...though lately it seems I've been to a bunch of shows in Vegas, Oakland, MPLS...pretty much everywhere except LA. But enough about that.

Went to the Tonight Show taping this afternoon. Fairly organized...which is always a plus in my book. I'm sure you can probably see me on the tape of the show shaking Jay Leno's hand prior to starting the show. Anyways, Leno did his thing and Prince did his. I haven't watched the broadcast yet but it was a really cool version of Ballad of Dorothy Parker/4 that, though it was live, sounded a lot more refined than it did at the actual concert. During Dorothy Parker, Jay Leno was actually grooving to the song. He watched the performance from the side, tapping his foot with the song. I don't think very many people in the audience knew the song, though we all did. As for NPGMC seats, I think there was a total of 10 seats available for NPGMC members...and they all sat up in the balcony overlooking the stage. Of the people who got in through the Music Club, one person came down from Canada, and another from Germany (now living in the bay area)...Have Prince, Will Travel. After the performance, the band left the stage and Prince came out for an interview...then left again and they filmed a few teaser bits for local television. To me, this was the highlight of the show...the other guests (Kathie Lee Gifford--does she bug, or what--and two little girls who saved someone's life) along with Prince, Morris Hayes, Kip Blackshire and Kirk Johnson came out and Prince was trying to play a joke on Leno and misread a cue card...it was pretty funny. In the other two spots, they introduced Prince and the Ink Spots, and another they said Prince and the Three Tops, because one of them had died. Anyways, after that, we left the theater. Apparently, after yesterday's taping the audience wanted Prince to play another song, and Prince tried to, but the stage manager wouldn't let them play. Oh well...

As for the Hit N Run show at the palladium, as usual, the NPG Music Club continues to deliver its benefits...today in the mail I got my copy of the Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic, and then all premium members got in first to the show, and most of the front rows were NPGMC members.

By the way, in case anyone DOESN'T want to see the set list for what he played tonight, don't read anymore of this post. If you do, keep reading. I hate to spoil the show for you if you haven't already seen it. If you have seen it, he pretty much kept to the same set as he's been doing recently during the regular concerts....a medley of hits, mostly one verse long (except Sexy Dancer, which had no verses but seemed to last 5 minutes) and Housequake, which he also didn't sing any of the verses of the song.

When we got in, I bought a couple of the new cds at the gift shop...in case anyone is planning on going to the show to get those new cd singles, be sure to purchase the Peace single early because that one sold out first at both Oakland and here... oh well....
As we waited to get in, we could hear part of the soundcheck permeating the walls. The songs we could make out were:

Uptown
Let's Go Crazy
Thank U Falletinme Be miceelf again

Anyways, the concert was supposed to start at 10 but they were about a half hour late (I'm impressed--Prince has been more punctual these days...). There was no opening act (man, I really wanted to see Millenia too! JUST KIDDING). I actually really liked the Funky Bald Heads last week in Oakland but they didn't play either. Oh well...

Here is the set list of the concert:

DAT Intro
Uptown
Controversy
Mutiny
The Work
Cream
Little Red Corvette
I Wanna Be Your Lover
Sexy Dancer
Housequake
Ballad of Dorothy Parker/4
Some Day we'll all be free (Kip Blackshire vocals)
U Make My Sun Shine
I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
Do Me Baby
Scandalous
Diamonds and Pearls
The Beautiful Ones
Nothing Compares 2 u
-----
Encore 1:
Let's Go Crazy
Take me with u
Raspberry Beret/Mr Happy Outro
Darling Nikki
When Doves Cry
Computer Blue (Najee Instrumental)
The One Intro
I Would Die 4 U
baby I'm a star
God Instrumental
Purple Rain
-----
Encore 2:
Come On
U Got the Look
Kiss
Gett Off

Prince opened the show by saying "You're gonna have the best time of your life tonight." Well, if that time would be spent by hearing a one-verse medley of his hits, then he was right. It seemed that the 2 songs where he showed the most emotion were The Work and U Make my sun shine... the rest of the show was fairly standard, though he's cut another verse out of Scandalous from the last time I saw him last week in Oakland. The work was much longer than the version performed on the Tonight Show, and he sang it again in his normal voice, not his falsetto. Am I the only one who thinks he should do a medley of the Work with Pretty Man? On Someday We'll All Be Free, Prince sat back and sort of lip synched with Kip's vocals. He announced that it was a song he loved by Donnie Hathaway when he was growing up.

I enjoyed hearing U make my sun shine live. I think it's his favorite song to perform live now, as Anna Stesia, Get Wild, I Wish U Heaven, America, Peach and others have been at various points of his career where he likes to do long extended jams on them. On this track, he went into a speech about how his woman was bad...and was treating his microphone as if it were a woman. Reminded me of If I had a Harem from the Lovesexy tour.

The guitar solo at the end of ICNTTPOYM really jammed--as expected. That solo gives him a good chance to showcase his guitar skills...wish he would sing the whole thing though...

Skipping the entire first encore since it was exactly the same as I saw in Oakland, but the second encore was much better.

During Come On, he brought people from the audience up on stage to dance, and my brother was one of the people picked...it was cool. Come On continued to sound good live. I still have that song in my head from the concert. U got the look included an opening guitar solo that I thought was gonna become Alphabet St., but it didn't. Oh well...

Celebs spotted in the audience were Jermaine Dupri, Mayte and her new boyfriend, Magic Johnson, Wesley Snipes, Beyonce from Destiny's child (weren't they supposed 2 be in New York filming SNL tonight??) among others....Prince mentioned Nia Long, The Williams Sisters (tennis) and Eddie Murphy but I didn't see any of them there.

Anyways, all in all I enjoyed the concert, though I do wish he'd play more complete songs instead of the medleys...

Another thing to note is all of the cool people I saw there...Krystina Paradise7, the whole Bay crew, Arizona Joe, DJ Will, Chris G, Bobby, TheeBeautiful, etc., Deb, Ruth and the whole slew of others I saw.

I'm tired now though and must go to bed...peace out!

[Awesome report. Thanks!!]