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LAS VEGAS

Prince came to town with his guitar and destroyed the Vegas show as we know it. He destroyed the naming conventions. He destroyed the hours. He destroyed the city’s club legacy and remade it in his image, and now Vegas is where you need to go to see the future of music – or at least the future of Prince.

Ever since the Rat Pack days, a Vegas show involved a certain set of expectations: a well-dressed clientele buying overpriced tickets to sit at tables and drink champagne at 7:30 concerts, where pop entertainers delivered their hits, often as medleys, with big, showy flourishes. Prince plays off those expectations in a way that reconfirms his genius. As the doors opened last Saturday (January 20) at 3121, his private nightclub (named after his 2005 album) in the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino – already a little naughty just for making people wait until 10 p.m. – the house boomed with a DJ mix of popular funk from James Brown to Rick James, the champagne tables slowly filled, and the dance floor was packed with women shrieking at hits they knew. Even the video walls splashed up fantastic live performances by Prince. This was going to be a hit-a-thon: “When Doves Cry.” “Little Red Corvette.” And more.

Instead, it was midnight before Prince emerged from a cloud of purple smoke with a guitar around his neck. He was backed by twin dancers, like two outrageous baby Tina Turners, and a seven-piece band. As they laid into “Joy in Repetition,” from Graffiti Bridge, he began to play electric blues – loud, masterful, supplicating, possessed – channeling all sorts of dudes this crowd did not know it was ready to hear: Hendrix, the Bad Brains’ Dr. Know, Chuck Berry, even Funkadelic’s Eddie Hazel, for Chrissakes! That guitar was loud and raw. It was filthy. A few shocked resort-trippers even clapped hands over their ears and split! But they missed the point, and the glory that is Prince. He was doing Vegas his way. Right in the middle of it all, he smiled that mischievous smile and said, “Are you glad to see me?”

Why isn’t Prince considered one of the most badass guitar players of all time? I’ve seen him like this once before, in the early ’90s at his now-defunct L.A. club Glam Slam, where at first he stood there all alone and tore our hearts out with mournful blues. Saturday’s show, however, was more of a party. Prince, now 48, was in the mood to lead a loud dance bash, and he let that guitar do a lot of the talking. From a cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together” to a revisioning of “Sexuality” (which he sang as “spirituality”) to a blistering “Anotherloverholenyohead,” he came out saying something, not just spitting out the hits.

But then the hits came, too. “Y’all ain’t ready for me,” he said. “I got too many hits.” After a hot version of “Kiss,” the band locked into an extended take on “Musicology” that broke down into a JB groove, revealing how much Prince and other funk performers took from the Godfather of Soul. In many ways, he was connecting to a soul legacy not otherwise associated with him, playing Aretha’s “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” (sung by backup singer Shelby Johnson) and bringing out Mavis Staples herself – at 1 a.m. in Vegas! – for the Staple Singers’ 1972 hit “I’ll Take You There.”

The shrieking women got their fill of hits, with “Cream” and “U Got the Look” and, of course, “Purple Rain,” as all 500 or so people packed into the little room howled and Prince uncorked the most acid-damaged guitar solo of the show. “Is this Saturday night or what?!” he shouted, clearly pleased with the mayhem he had wrought.

The cryptic 3121 is the album’s title, the club’s moniker, and the show’s name, and we might never know what it means. But you gotta feel for Celine Dion, Barry Manilow, even Elton John: Prince has utterly wrecked the place.

Love this, thank you!

Now,these r the kinds of reviews I like 2 read!

I dont have enough energy to read past the 3rd word but looking at sexxydancer's response I like it! yay
Go Prince

DanceWme said:

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That article is hott!!!