Just recently i obtained the 4 cd's of the ONA set. After reading all the 5-star reviews and praise of this set, i must admit i am a bit dissapointed with the set.

The playing by the band is (technically) great, Prince has improved a lot as a live singer and he dares to put lesser known songs on the set. But apart from that.

I think Cd one pays too much attention to long jazz-funk jams from the Rainbow Children (not my favorite style of my music, and not my favorite CD also).

CD two shows how much beautifull, slow, melodies this man has written (sometimes that is often overlooked by critics claiming him to be a funkrocker in the first place). The problem with this disc is in my opinion that he only plays parts of most of this songs, in medleystyle, and therefore not letting the material 'grab' you like it could. That was my main complaint about large parts of the Lovesexy live shows also, by playing his great songs in medleystyle he lowers the impact of these songs.

The aftershow CD is quite nice, sometimes he goes on to long with the jamming, but some individual tracks sound great live.

The 4th cd sounds fresh, its a nice thing to hear Prince performing in such a low key-way, mostly piano and voice. I always thought that the best tracks on some of his CD's from the late nineties (Emancipation, The Truth Rave), the tracks that really showed musical growth, were the songs that slowed down and were merely acoustic. This 4th Cd reaffirms that thought.

To conclude, i wouldnt say this i a bad CD-set, the playing, some of the singing and some particular tracks are just great, but after reading all the positive reviews i thought Prince had delivered his final Live music statement with ONA. For me at least, thats it not the case. Right now i give it 7,5 / 10, and surely not five stars.

Anyone agrees (partly) with me on this?

I never even thught 2ce about how good it was until I saw responses here. ANd then I got some other live shows to compare it too. The 3rd disk is wonderful.

You must have gotten the ONA piano CD seperately.

Yeah the medleys kinda suck...but he always does them. Even on Musicology, the accoustic set was a medley. Somehow this worked better than ones from previous tours...i.e. Lovesexy. Though that was such a good show that the truncation on some of the songs kept the show moving along.

I really like ONA Live. For me it really captures the essence of those shows and that period was a really exciting time to be a Prince fan!

You could argue that it would have been better to release a whole show unedited (the New York Avery Fisher show springs immediatly to mind) but Prince is too much of a perfectionist to do that. However it captures the sound and soul of that rather wonderful band very well and there is plenty to enjoy on there.

Of course I wouldn't be without my ONA era bootlegs 'specially that Vega 2002 set.

the main two discs are okay. theres stuff from it i really like, and stuff that i could do without. the third disc has maybe two or three tracks i enjoy, and the rest is either really noodley to my ears or else just plain annoying. there are better live boots out there, but i appreciate the fact that they made an effort to finally put an official live prince album out there.

I was disappointed. This set in no way represents what Prince can do in person. I've heard boots that will blow this set AWAY.

About that Piano cd, well sometimes the net offers nice packages

I think my main complaint with the set, apart from those medleys, that the music / band has a tendency to drift of into a jazz-fusion style of music i personally dont like a lot, it reminds me too much of that seventies style of music from Chick Corea, Weather report, never been a lover of that kind of music.

During the parade, sign- and lovesexy-tours Prince also had hornplayers in his band, but in that period his livemusic was more funk and rock, spiced up with some jazzy horn riffs, but the music on ONA often is too much jazz-fusion for me to be interesting, but hey, tastes differ, i bet there are some other people out here who just love that kind of music.

Nonetheless, some great tracks on this set: i love the versions of Joy in repetition and Nothing compares to you, and as i said, i think the Piano cd sounds like something new and fresh from 'the man'.

Right now i think the best i heard of him live was during the Sign of the Times tour and on the sacrifice of victor, mixing blues, traditional, guitarrock and gospel (with that great tandem Michael Bland and Sonny Thompson)

This is Prince's only official release that I did NOT buy or was not given 2 me as a gift.

By the way i have... umm... 'purchased' some other older Prince material, i havent owned before.

And i must say that i am definitely not dissapointed with 'The Vault: old friends for sale', alltough it was an obligational release, this is a (rather short) but nice collection of more organic jazzy/bluesy/soul-like songs, which sounds surprisingly coherent. Would it have been released by another (new) artist, it could have gained good reviews. A nice, relaxed sounding CD... I like it.

The same goes for the Truth, i dont know why he 'stuffed' that CD away on the Crystal Ball set. Allright, it misses some standout tracks, but in general its a good cd, even better then his official releases in the late nineties (New Power soul, Rave) which i have never bought, because they did sound unspired and dated to me.

Next, i have the same feeling with Chaos and disorder, also an obligational CD, it might offer nothing groundbreaking, but the joy of playing music that shines through, and the energy of the band you hear on that songs, i find more attractive then listening to Emancipation (great songwriting, ruined by bad production).

The only obligational release i have never felt much for is Come, on most of the tracks he sounds uninspired, bored even. Apart from Papa and Dark (one of his most underrated ballads in my opinion) i could do without that record.

I've only just bought a copy of this set a month or so ago and I think it's wonderful, I didn't want it to end!!

it is not the best choice for a live release... silly prince puts out a live show of one of his least popular CDS/TOURS and then totally doesn't put out one for Musicology!

SlamGlam said:

Still, I'd choose to attend or listen to a ONA concert over a Musicology one every time. The comparitive popularity of the two tours is misleading.

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I was disappointed with the 2 main live cds, the actual show in person was fantastic but somehow these recordings lack energy in places. That's partly the fault of the way it was recorded, too clear, lacking bottom end and without enough crowd noise to give it that feeling of energy, and partly the set-list which somehow didn't flow as well as a single show.

It was really the Rainbow Children tour, if you don't like that album or that jazz-funk style Prince was into at that time, then of course you won't like this concert so much.

The aftershow cd is also disappointing, Joy In Repetition is fantastic but then the extended formless jazz-funk jams go on too long, there were far better aftershows with more on-point performances of tracks.

The piano cd is okay but I find a few of the tracks lack a solid tune, I much prefer a solid worked out tune to noodling on the piano. Same for me with The Truth cd, some good tunes but a few awful songs that needed more honing I reckon.

langebleu said:

I agree. I got some recordings of the Musicology tour and I have barely listened to them. It was great being there and everything was super tight, but the set list I thought was a bit naff.

soulyacolia said:

I like ONA. I still play it quite a bit. I also like TRC, so the live versions of those songs are nice.
I agree that one whole show- esp. the NYC show (I was there, in the 2nd row!)- would have been nice, but it was nice to hear the versions of the songs that other cities got, too.
We had a good time at that show-and aftershow- ONA reminds me of that night!

metalorange said:

agreed. i feel like the live discs got whittled around with too much, instead of just trying to preserve the vibe of ONE show. it sounds patchy and way too overworked, without as much attention being given to the sound quality overall. same with the dvd, needless to say...only moreso (though i guess at least the hacked up remains of the concert dvd was all from one show, so that's SOMEthing).

i don't think the piano cd was very melodic either, though i really do find the lyrics interesting, and i think his vocals are great throughout. it's not an easy listen, but i do think it's a gratifying album.

what? disappointed? no way!!!

i often wonder why Prince chose each song that he did on ona. there is NOTHING like the nrg from this live music - even when it is recorded and played back. i think that it is real cool that indy was chosen as one of the frequented places for the music that is on ona. and, check out the music from dc....and, don't 4get the Anastesia live from LA/hollywood. the nrg was so high there...Spirit was smiling and shining on the children that night.

eye'll keep looking 4 the live Prince recordings that ARE NOT bootlegs. let the Artist choose his cr8tive xpression.

superspaceboy said:

i was speaking of the wide spread appeal...

SlamGlam said:

True. Even I was expecting a Musicology Live DVD based on reports that it was being filmed.

Love ONA-Prince never disappoints!

this thread inspired me to delete most of ONA Live from the dwindling memory of my mp3 player and replace it with Prince & the Revolution Live in Syracuse.

My only complaints from the ONA Live CD's are that he cut out the cover versions so you lose a little bit of the theme of the show...especially the WNPG part. Overall, the musicianship is excellent and you get great long versions of classics and new songs.

So, I was pleased. Now, the DVD? Ridiculously poor.

I'm kind of glad someone isn't thrilled with the set. I have been trying forever to buy the 4th disk (piano and voice) without paying a fortune. I'd read the reviews and assumed it was awesome. To date I've bid on countless listings but refuse to pay the approx. $80-$100+ it's bringing on ebay. I was always going to download it off the NPG site but never did, and it seems the price on ebay went up after the site shut down. I found the ONA 3 disk set on ebay but haven't openned it in case I can find the complete 4 disk set. Now I'm thinking I'll quit this time consuming search!