back when I was starboy:

fragments of the Houston show
During the soundcheck while jamming on Xenophobia, Renato started making scary bending synth parts, and Prince said "its not Halloween, Renato"

Prince started a reggae riff during the soundcheck. The horn players had a huddle and seemed to figure out a new horn line on the spot, which amused Prince.

When Prince sat down at the edge of the stage to do the little Q&A, he said something about having really good talk at the Kingdom Hall earlier that day. Someone asked which one? (naming streets), and Prince said, "I don’t know, some nice brother turned us on to it, and he showed us how to get there."

A very nice guy tried to give prince a religious booklet of some kind, and Prince turned it down saying, "I just read the Bible."

After three club members sang "Last December" while Prince accompanied on guitar, they stood there. Prince joked that they were "supposed to bow and go (offstage)." They all filed back down. One guy stopped and whispered something (probably about JW stuff) right in Prince’s ear. Prince joked that he had asked, "Do you really want me to go?" The audience laughed, and the guy shot back, "He’s got jokes too."

Prince also told that ‘whispering ear’ guy "we’ll talk more about that later, come see me after the soundcheck." Prince had a religious pamphlet of some kind given to him.

When the "Purple Curse" lady held up her sign (I have a story 4 U) Prince asked, "Is it a long one?" she said yes and he shot back, " Can’t you tell the abbreviated version?"

The purple curse lady (she has had extremely bad luck trying to get to his concerts in the past) asked Prince if he could sign her unused Purple Rain tour ticket, he said, "I stopped signing things since I started studying the Bible"

She then asked if he would sing "International lover" (the song that got her into Prince) and he said, "since I’ve started studying the Bible, I’ve stopped singing those songs"

Prince then got swarmed by a few people who asked to shake his hand. The bodyguard stood by and (not Aaron) was on high alert, stepping forward and putting his hand up to his chest every time someone made contact with Prince.

A lady asked to hug Prince, and he said "No, I’d probably get in trouble for that, but I could shake your hand."

Prince ask the club members, "don’t you want to hear anything new?" when they shouted old obscure requests.

Prince seemed a bit tired at the soundcheck, but then appeared completely invigorated during the show.

During the course of the show, we could hear Prince saying stuff to Takumi off the microphone like "no no no, not that one…. that one," to indicate he wanted a particular guitar. He would also communicate with Takumi with little eye rolls and nods while he was singing.

When Boyer comes up right to the edge dead center and blows these single huge dramatic roars on his horn, we could actually here the un-amplified horn clearly.

We could also clearly hear Prince singing right in front of us unamplified, because of the proximity.

We thought the sweat was going to hit us off of Maceo.

Candy Dulfer was such a sharp vision… this anglo-euro-nordic-feminine-beauty playing these strong urban phrases with a look of honest bliss.

The horn players seemed to be having a great time doing little synchronized sways and were playing… as in, children playing.

Prince and Renato have a lot of musical in-jokes going on between them just like Prince had with Morris Hayes.

During the horn solos by all the players, Prince seemed to have expression of disbelief and approval over how good these cats were.

The whip noise on the fourth beat during 1+1+1 is 3 just thunderously slapped you as if to say "THIS IS FUNK"
When Prince made a statement about God having an important name ("Jesus said, hallowed be thy name") someone yelled "Jehovah!!!" behind us.

On songs like "Do Me Baby" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover", Prince seemed to conveniently let the audience sing the nastier implications like "…(only one you) come for" and "Do me."

Towards the end, Prince said "It’s an exchange like this that makes my life worth living" (referring to the energy of the audience reaction to the energy of the performance) and it came across with real feeling, not canned bullsh*t.

The Purple Rain performance at the end seemed to be a genuine loose meandering thing. Prince called for "someone get Maceo" and it took Maceo a little bit to get back on stage. Prince did not play guitar on Purple Rain. He played keyboards. No guitar solo!

Prince did not do the splits once during the show.

Prince did not wear his standard boots with little steel heels. He wore these white "Luke Skywalker" platform shoes with rope fringe all over. He wore all white, a blouse like shirt with a vest over it. White cowboy hat. Very conservative, layered, and covered.

Prince’s Ibenez semi hollow body guitar had an old marker inscription on the back that I could only read portions of. It said., "To P. Park…..best wishes…."

The beautiful cool girl who got to sit on the pillows onstage, Karen, got up to leave and Prince stopped her saying "No, no… stay there" She stayed for a few more songs with a dazzling smile that was pure eye candy. Good choice Prince!

"Xenophobia" built up a dark powerful mood that showed how "bad" this show was going to be.

"Pass the Peas" was so playful, funky, and active with Maceo, Boyer, and Prince jumping to the mic and trading vocals, that you had to smile and laugh. A truly joyful performance.

When Prince says something about "Abe Lincoln was a racist" using a beautiful melody within the context of the slow bluesy ballad that is "Avalanche," it almost feels pornographic. Very entertaining.

"Free" sounded huge and fresh in this context. Like a Beatles song suddenly crept in and changed the mood.

After the end, Takumi had to deal with some guys trying to steal guitar picks and even the little spray can. He called for security "Would you guys come over hear and help me watch my station, this guy keeps taking stuff"

One guy (the guy who tried to hand Prince a religious pamphlet) picked up a guitar pick. A guard told him, "Put that down…. PUT…. THAT….DOWN." This dude acted nonchalant and very slowly put it down as he continued to study it

Takami, the guitar tech, is amazing. He is constantly watching Prince, the audience, and security. He is quickly trading guitars when Prince signals a change. Once he hands Prince a guitar, he has to tune the discarded one with an electronic tuner at the foot of the stage. He then sprays the strings up and down the fretboard with some kind of little spray, holding a towel to block it form getting on us. He also has to keep blindly turning the pages of these oversized laminated (lyric?) books at the edge of the stage as the show progresses. He keeps Prince's guitar cables all straight. He even helped to clear out chairs at the front to make way for a wheelchair bound club member. He also would turn around and tell us to look back at the balconies so we wouldn’t miss the horn players soloing up there. He let us touch the guitars. He passed out the percussion to the audience members. He did it all in a suit with the most friendly gentle voice.

That's so cool!!! Awww man I want to go to one of shows sooooo much. Lucky....

I hate you i'm so jealous! lolol

Brings back memories for me of when I saw Prince perform. And I still got my ticket stub.

Thank you for sharing.

Awww,Prince is SO cool!! Thanx 4 sharing this wonderful story.

One Nite Alone was one of my favorite Prince shows and Takumi was a great personality, too bad he´s no longer around.

Great report. I was at that show with my (then) 9-year-old-son. We were sitting in third row. I had worked for a month on a clean version of "Peach" that I was going to play if I got the chance, but the "Purple Curse" took all the time. However, the girl who told that story was also the girl who organized the line outside and kept everyone loose, so it was OK.

BTW, my son and I had come straight from the drag races im Baytown. Talk about a day of extremes...LOL.

Thanks for sharing, very kind of U

ufoclub said:

or

sosgemini said:

lol, I haven't read those details in years. Sounds like I hit the loco weed!

AWESOME -- I remember reading your notes back in 2002. My wife and I were at that concert as well and were at the soundtrack too. Some additions:

As music club members were being ushered in, the band was running through "Let's Work." Prince was nowhere to be seen on stage though. But after about 10 seconds of everyone being in awe of being at a soundcheck folks started noticing that Prince was sitting about 15 rows back in the theatre, listening to the band.

After Prince and the band left the stage when the soundcheck was over, has guitars were left surprisingly unguarded on the floor in front of the stage, right in front of the music club memebers. My wife touched the symbol guitar while walking by to the bathroom.

The show turned up as a bootleg (big surprise) -- whoever did it must have been standing very close to my wife and I because you can clearly hear my wife screaming on the recording.

Doozer said:

you want your wife to end up dead? we never disclose the source of the annoying screaming people in boots...its one of the unspeakables.

sosgemini said:

I did not say she was an annoyance -- I said you could hear her screaming. Take it from me -- she only screams when it's appropriate.

And that doesn't just hold true for concerts my friend.