Thursday turned out to be a great time in general, although there were a few things bugging me.. but let me start from the top.

I was able to witness some of the soundcheck, although it was before Prince showed up. I tried to mingle a little bit but didn't really learn a lot. Nobody was able to tell me if there were afterparty passes for NPGMC members, nor could anyone tell me if there would be a show (and when I left the afterparty at 2AM there was no sign of the band or instruments, so I gave up). However I did talk to John Blackwell and he said they have been rehearsing two shows, and they might alternate between the two. The second one would include Bambi, IIWYG, Delirious, And God Created Woman, Three Chains of Gold, among others.

There was not an "open soundcheck" like I had hoped. However, everything seemed to be running on time and we didn't have to wait around a lot. The Funky Baldheads opened the show... pretty boring if you ask me. How can you have a band that's a combination of Living Color, N*Sync, and Eminem, and be taken seriously? Not my thing....

Disclaimer: I haven't really paid attention to setlists recently, so if anything here was reported at other shows, that's why. I didn't write down a setlist, so I won't get too deep into that. However, it seemed to be pretty similar to the lists I have read (Uptown/Controversy/Mutiny, etc etc). Housequake was a nice addition, and I didn't really notice the lack of "bullshits" and "damns." At one point, Rhonda and Najee were sitting down at the back of the stage as they were playing, trying to have that "laid back" vibe. Prince walked by, grabbed Rhonda, took her over to her microphone and pointed at it. She reluctantly added her background vocals (the repetitive "housequake" chants). It was kind of funny to see him in action, bossing around the band. Towards the end of the show, after "God," there was a technical glitch and the drum loop for "When Doves Cry" came on when it shouldn't have. I'm not sure what was supposed to happen, but it was pretty obvious that there was a fuck up! They got through it, but I'm sure somebody was fined for their mistake.

The stuff that bothered me: he changed the lyrics to Purple Rain. "You can't seem to make up your mind. I think you better close it, open up your bible, and let it guide you to the Purple Rain." Now, I was never too comfortable with the idea of "closing your mind," but to suggest blind faith in such a way bothers me, especially since I'm not a Christian. What happened to "open your hearts, open your mind?"

They started "Darling Nikki" and Geneva came out in the schoolgirl costume, but right when the lyrics would have started he yelled "stop!" Then they went into the spoken word intro to "Joy in Repetition." He changed the words to "four letter words will not be heard on this stage tonight." And that was all we heard of JIR.

Highlights: Geneva... wow. Limber to say the least. Millenia was on hand throughout the night to add backup vocals to UMMS, Purple Rain, among others, and they sounded great. Early in the show the band played a blues and Prince didn't sing, but talked to the mic as if it were a woman. "Where are you going? Your girlfriend's place? What's that dress you're wearing? What happened to all the dresses I bought you?" All paraphrased, of course. I couldn't help but think of "I Love U But I Don't Trust U." Hmmm....

For me, the highpoints were at two songs: "U Make My Sunshine" and the encore, "Get Off." Prince was WAY into UMMS, and so was the audience. I always love it when, even though he's putting on a rehearsed show, he plays a tune that he FEELS, and the audience KNOWS it. I was completely surprised by this song... the band was tight, they were really into it, and the results gave me goosebumps. And "Get Off" was so good because they could just JAM. No loops involved, so the band could just let go of their carefully rehearsed show and let it hang out. Plus, it was nice to hear "23 positions in a one night stand" instead of "23 scriptures!" He had the whole place singing "O-HI-O" like it was a real song! It was stuck in my head long after I left the parking garage.

Other observations: giving NPGMC members first shot at tickets does two things: it gives fans great seats (I had 6th row), but it also puts "his people" right there front and center. I think that has a ripple effect, generating excitement throughout the hall. He is certainly promoting the music club! He asked who was in the club, and everyone on the floor went nuts. He said something like, "that's why you're all down here" and then gave out the URL. Kind of tacky to give out the URL, but I guess he's promoting that instead of a new disc!

As for merchandise... there weren't any singles and there weren't any Rave SE CDs. Instead there were TRC t-shirts, Funky Baldheads CDs, Rhonda's "Intellipop," and not much else.

Aftershow: kind of boring if you don't want to dance, but I still had a good time. There were no passes or discounts for club members, and the beer was overpriced. The owner of the club painted the walls purple. The Baldheads' DJ was spinning tunes, including Supercute, High, some Rave SE tracks, and even Chaka's "I Feel For You." Prince came in around 1 AM, and got on the mic. Nothing big, just "are you having a good time?," "thanks for coming," etc. etc. I left at 2 am convinced there would be no performance. Haven't heard anything to the contrary.