Paisley Party Review for 12/21/01...

I was kinda surprised to not see a review of the party last week (maybe there’s one buried in one of the other threads), so I will give U my spin on it briefly.

Started as a “typical” dance party (if there is such a thing at Paisley). I arrived about 1:30a and the doors were already open with music playing, etc…maybe ~50 people there at that time. They did not collect a donation at the door. The DJ was playing a little more Prince music than normal, which was fine with me!

Prince was already there behind the sound board when I walked in. He worked in some videos for us. Of special note were some “rehearsal” tapes of She Loves Me 4 Me and Family Name. The videos were not that exciting…just the band playing with Prince in front. It was still fun to hear the “rehearsal.” The crowd grew to a respectable ~130 people (in my very un-scientific estimation) or so…more than I’ve seen there in recent past.

Prince was wearing all white…including a white stocking cap sort of thing and white boots that had fringes on them…looked like what you would see on old Indian boots or something…pretty wild. He seemed to be in a very good mood dancing behind the booth, etc. I noticed John Blackwell there for some time, so hopes were up for a performance.

At 3:30a a loop for 1+1+1 = 3 started playing, and all of a sudden we noticed that John Blackwell was on stage drumming live with the loop. Of course the crowd (by now, many of the people had left…there were maybe 50-60 people left at this time) gathered around the stage…and sure enuff, Prince followed. Prince got on the keys and the two of them jammed to the loop. They were clearly having big fun! Lots of laughing and dancing on stage. About 5-10 minutes later Prince invited three women on stage to dance. At 3:45a Prince left the stage, and that was that….DJ hit it up again.

I left about 4:10a and when I did I heard a security member say “25 more minutes!” I would assume the party ended shortly after, but don’t know for sure.

As to rumors about Morris being fired/let go, whatever U wanna call it…all I can say is I didn’t see him there that night. I can’t remember the last time Prince did any amount of performing and Morris was not there. This certainly isn’t proof…but it may be another clue!

All for now…