Snap said:

No, it's not worth going to a Prince show unless you can exclaim at least a dozen times, "Aw yeah, that's MY JAM!!"

Snap said:

If I'm entirely honest I'd always prefer to go to a concert, no matter who it is by, and hear songs I know. Like many people I love the singalong aspect, the thinking "I love this one!" and so on. A couple of years ago I achieved a bit of a dream and saw Bowie with one of my mates and kept sending excited texts to my girlfriend saying the titles of songs he was doing as she knew how much I loved certain ones and I was thrilled that I was finally hearing them performed live. If I saw a concert by someone I loved *some* stuff by, and they didn't do songs I knew, I would feel cheated. If it was somebody for whom I loved everything I did, I would be thrilled to hear so many new songs.

At the end of the day it is a paradox. In concert the vast majority of us want to hear the things we know, but if we bought a CD and it was the same old songs we'd go nuts. When you pay considerably more for a concert ticket though, part of you thinks "they're playing songs for *me*", so you want to hear *your* songs, and if you don't hear them you're not happy. Some people take this too far though; I'll never forget when I saw Prince at Maine Road (Manchester - UK) in 1992 and two people sat motionless in front of me, not singing, not clapping, until he did "Purple Rain." At the end of it they went nuts... and then left. Clearly they had gone *just* to hear him play this one song. Now that's going too far, but the artist(s) playing concerts must realise that at the end of the day they need to play to the wishes of the majority of the people there, rather than the fanatical minority that think "I've heard this before... next!"

The Rave crap.

IT upset me he didn't play when I was in Minnesota..... No Idea why he didn't. I was told because Rhonda didn't show. Maybe , he didn't wanna play to a small amt of people. Maybe Mani had something to do with it..JEALOUSY... No Idea but THAT DISAPPOINTED me and Also NO REAL SOUNDCHECK in VEGAS when I was There. NO Show in NY at BB KINGS after the SHOW in NYC. I Wanted him to Play. I am Not Sure why he Didn't. I Don't wanna Wait on him Anymore Cause I don't Know why he is SO Mad? I just wish he would be like he used to be and jam alot. I also Cannot understand what is wrong with Yelling and Screaming over his Hot BOOTY.....What he wants a DEAD FISH GIRL who Lays there?

And Rhonda was she not there cause of Mani or Shelia e? Shelia e is a Big Talent but Unfriendly to Women Fans. She was Unfriendly in Atlantic City in 1988 and I Looked Wayy Hot. She doesn't LIKE Any COMPETITION..Listen ,how she TRIED to talk CARMEN DOWN.... Carmen is HOT SHELIA... VERY HOT..... Then , let's see the ATTITUDE .....Who Needs these People DAMON and Fat Guy CHANCE. I Mean who Cares? And that LINDA Chick with Damon is MEAN also. That 2002 Celebration was ILL ORGANIZED as MOST PRINCE EVENTS. He's FAR From a PERFECTIONIST. The NPG SENT DEFECTIVE ONA BOXED SETS toME who has TRAVELLED half the GLOBE for PRINCE. Please to Think I would STILL CARE BOUT PRINCE after he Disses me for A PLAIN JANE... He Will always be my Man but he NEEDs a BETTER CREW and BROOKLYN BABES BETTER than SNOBS FROM CANADA!

At LEAST I HAVE A BABY and AFTER 7 Years Man I WOULD Have 2..Shit....ITalians /Spanish Do IT BETTER BABY!!!!!
[Edited 1/8/06 15:08pm]

I Know I was away for many years but Old Boy NEVER TRIED to Bust a Move on me. What he don't like ITALIAN GIRLS? Why he so SHY and LAME about Me? I was ALWAYS HOT! Why he gotta be Playing COY? I Wanted Him..I was SUPPOSE to Get in Trouble with his SECURITY? I'm a Nice Girl. He Fucked up with his Security Big Time wayyy back. He's Afraid of BEAUTIFUL GIRLS? PLEASE! He MUST BE GAY NOT WANTING MY ASS. I got the GOODS. He TOO OLD FOR ME ....PLEASE.. EITHER YA FUCK or ya FLY AWAY.. I B That Way....Straight up DADDY...Show me what ya got between ya legs. Hot Stuff PRINCE. I LOVE YA MORE than SEX....Kisses Daddy POP! Lick me ! Bite Me!!!

I Want a REACTION from PRINCE.....

Nasalhair said:

- Well, I must agree with you in one point. It would have been better if he threw some old songs in the setlist...but not necessarily the hits. I mean..."Joy in Repetition" or "Question of U" are usually more interesting live than ´Raspberry Beret´. I would only care for hits if I was a non-fan. For example, if I see Metallica live, I want to hear ´Enter Sandman´ and ´One´, because I don´t have dozens of different live versions of these songs on bootlegs.

GustavoRibas said:

But you're kind of missing the point, and yet you semi-reference it yourself. Sure, a lot of people who go to concerts are rabid fanatics, those obsessives who profess to love every single note put out by the artist concerned, wanting to hear every single new song they've dreamt up as soon as it happens, and preferring to hear those new things over and above the songs they've known and loved for years.

Then there are the newcomers, dragged along by friends or loved ones, knowing nothing by the artist concerned. These people will be shaped by what they hear, either loving the show or hating it dependent on how good or bad they think the songs and the performance are.

In my opinion, these two groups are the minorities. 75%+ of the audience will be made of "casuals", people who like some of the stuff but not all of it, who are curious about new songs but would prefer to let them grow on them over time. If they're bombarded with new songs and album tracks, including obscure fan favourites (and yes, I love "Joy in Repetition") they'll be disillusioned, feel sidelined, even cheated by the experience. "Big" concerts these days tend to cost over £50 per ticket here in the UK, which is a hell of a lot, and so when you pay so much money to see a show you expect to hear things you like, things you know. How many times have you been to a concert, the person on the stage has said "here's something from the new album", and there has been a sudden exodus of audience members to the toilets and the bars?

As I said in one of my earlier postings (scroll back a way in this thread) I loved the 1995 tour when it was all new material, but I could see why countless people didn't and walked out, still complaining about it to this day. What people want from concerts will always vary, and the key for an artist is to satisfy the majority rather than the minority.

Nasalhair said:

I couldn't have put it better. The Gold tour was my favourite, but alot of casual fans I know stopped going to his shows.

There've been a few times, but I guess Prince doesn't really owe me much besides being true to himself. I'd rather he do that than to constantly give me what I want and thereby become possibly stagnant.

...The time that hurt the most, though (probably because it was the first time he didn't release a slam-dunk album in my mind), was the release of BATMAN. All in all, I've always given that album a "C+," but before that, his albums all carried a bulletproof "A" from the first song to the last.

He NEEDS TO hire BETTER PEOPLE. HIs Staff at NPGMC is ASSHOLISH. Sending stuff not BUBBLE WRAPPED that get's SMASHED and Broken is NOT COOL..... Maybe that was MUSICTODAY's FAULT..... Paisley Park was so ILL MANAGED and his CONCERTS also ILL MANAGED and Too Many Problems Moving People Etc. Security hasn't ALWAYS DONE a GOOD JOB. PLUS TOO AGGRESSIVE towards FANS WAYYY TOO AGRESSIVE . I also wish he just Partied More and JUDGED LESS. I want a PRINCE who has Fun and Doesn't Laugh at FANS who go APE SHIT OVER HIM..... Because he CAUSES it so why LAUGH? We are FOOLISH TO LIKE YA? I Don't think ANY MAN would tell a WOMAN SHE"S CRAZY for SCREAMING so MUCH...ACCEPT Ya FATE! Ya a STAR Ya GET WOMEN ACTING CRAZY.....

JW conservative, reactionary, closed-minded, dogmatic, homophobia, anti-semetic, cult-like views that contradict everything he formerly stood for.

Nasalhair said:

- Yes, it´s true...but I understand that, for an artist, it must be very tiresome to play always the same songs...that´s one of the reasons I love Prince so much, because he still surprises us.

Maybe the solution would be alternating the tours...one more focused on new stuff/obscure songs (like the ONA tour, where he still played some hits with new songs) with less promotion, small venues, etc. And another tour intended for arenas like the Musicology tour (mostly hits with some obscure tracks). I think it worked well.

Zelaira said:

I love this new word, ASSHOLISH! See, I would've said ASSHOLISH. But your way is better. Prince's religious conversion didn't surprise me. It was his choice of religions that baffled. He didn't let me down, but I thought he would've chosen one more....rational...

When he was a no show on saturday night live in 95

Zelaira said:

WOW..... always love reading your stuff Zelaria

Zelaira said:

GustavoRibas said:

Face it, this will never happen. No artist would ever launch such an enterprise if only from a logistical point of view. If you want to hear obscure tracks then listen to the CDs, because a tour focused on new and obscure songs would never be as financially viable as a "hits" tour. Only the die-hard fans would go to an "obscure" tour, and to be brutally honest Prince has so few of these left that the entire tour would probably only consist of a few dates here and there, which just wouldn't be cost effective.

Again, as I said earlier, tours are all about promoting the material, old and new, for the majority of fans and in order to increase sales. In order to get the fans through the door, paying their >£50 per ticket, they need to know that they'll have a good time and will hear the things they want to hear. The way Prince has treated fans in the past with the 1995 tour, even the "ONA" tour (die-hards loved it, others slated it because of the refusal to play hits) they just wouldn't shell out and go at all. If I'm entirely honest, even having been a fan since '83/84, the quality of material he's released over the last decade I don't think I'd go to a "new songs" tour.

Nasalhair said:

- Yes, but just reminding that the "financially viable" thing was one of the main reasons he fought Warners, because they didn´t think it was "financially viable" to release 3 albums a year. Prince was always a very independent artistic mind, although a slave to money too. It was always hard for him to deal with his two sides. Personally, I would like to see him less and less dependant on the ´pop star´ thing.

Well, only time will tell. I am not sure if he will do the same kind of Musicology tour in 2006, specially after saying he would retire the hits (I never believed it). I just don´t understand how fans aren´t tired of listening to ´Raspberry Beret/Take me with U´ all those years, specially because he doesn´t play them with half of the energy he played in the past (the last good version of When doves cry was on the NUDE tour - 88 - 15 years ago!!). I am not saying the tour should be focused on unreleased/obscure tracks, but not focused on hits only also...maybe a balance should be fine.
[Edited 1/9/06 2:03am]

GustavoRibas said:

If only artistry wasn't dependent on financial viability, but sadly it is. In this day and age *everything* boils down to economics. When a label releases a record they want a return on it, and so they want to spend time making sure it is right, then promote it effectively, finance videos and tours etc. If an artist releases more than one album in a year then this is immediately compromised as there is now less time to back the product effectively and so the returns on it will suffer. When Prince was trying to get out of the Warner deal (still consider this the worst move he made myself) he released a string of "contractual obligation" albums like "Come", "The Vault", "Chaos & Disorder" and also his own single, "TMBGITW", and this resulted in market saturation - so many albums, so little promotion. Listeners were confused, the quality of the songs definitely suffered (and has never recovered), and the press which once lauded his every release turned on him, reviews suddenly slipping from five stars to one.

If Prince wants to retire the hits then that's his decision, but more fool him if he does. He may be tired of playing the same songs but they are the same songs the vast majority of fans know and love, and they're the ones they want to hear. Look back a few years to when David Bowie formed Tin Machine for example. He played the "Sound + Vision" tour saying it would be the last time he played the hits, and then along came Tin Machine with two poor albums. Bowie released more records under his own name and toured them, refusing to play the hits, and audiences dwindled. When he came back with the "Heathen" and "Reality" tours the hits were back, got the biggest cheers of the night, and the whole thing was a triumph.

What if Prince does a tour with a 50 / 50 mix of old and new? Audiences will still walk out! I've been to countless shows where as soon as a new (or even old but unfamiliar) song has been played there has been an exodus of people heading for the bars or the toilet. When I saw Prince in '95 (the last time I saw him) he played almost exclusively new and unreleased songs, which the fanatics loved but the vast majority of people at the show either complained that they didn't know the songs, sat down in protest, or simply walked out. A better solution is to go for a 60 / 40 mix, maybe even 70 / 30 in favour of "old" songs, otherwise the audiences will be alienated.

The only chance you'll have of seeing a new & rareties show is if he does a small show at Paisley Park or somewhere similar, say at the Celebration. You'll never see it on the road, and that's down to economics.

Nasalhair said:

- Ok....70/30 could be fair enough
I never went to a Prince concert in my life, so I don´t know how it works...but I surely would prefer to go to an aftershow like Bataclan (one of the best shows ever IMO).
But tell me...people go to the toilets/bars even with not-so-famous songs (but well known to fans) as ´Strange Relationship´ or great covers like ´Whole Lotta Love´? Just curious...

GustavoRibas said:

Ah, well - aftershows are a different kettle of fish entirely. When they happen they tend to be frequented by more hard-core fans rather than the casual listeners, and so the material changes accordingly. Prime example: the "Small Club" show, much of which was improvised on the spot. "Proper" concerts do need to focus on the wishes of the majority though, and these are where the lions share of the material needs to be hit-based.

Do people walk out during songs like "Strange Relationship"? I've never heard that played live but yes, if people hear a song they don't know or aren't that keen on then yes, they often walk out. I've seen this happen at every concert I've ever been to, no matter who is onstage.