By Matt Thorne
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/09/2007

There have been several famous UK rock residencies - Eric Clapton's 24 nights at the Albert Hall, Pink Floyd's 14 nights at Earls Court, Bob Dylan's various five-night stints - but none has caught the public imagination like Prince's 21 nights in London, which came to an end last night.

Prince knows what he's achieved. "Everything's changed this summer," he told the cheering crowd. "It doesn't matter who came before or who comes after. From now on, the O2 is Prince's house."

Everyone who's caught a show has been blown away. Listening to the crowds after the shows, all anyone can mutter is "he's a genius". The alchemy Prince achieves on stage is easy to surrender to but hard to describe.

The facts are simple: in 52 and a half hours on stage, he's played a total of 504 songs to audiences of half a million. But the effects of that extraordinary marathon are more complex.

Before this summer, Prince had lost his grip on the mass popular imagination. In spite of regular attempts to reignite his career his sometimes antagonistic attitude towards his back catalogue had left audiences confused about what to expect from his live performances.

The last time he played England (in October 2002), he opened with a 12-minute Jehovah's Witness-influenced jazz song, and berated fans who had come expecting Purple Rain.

This time he opened the run with his most famous song.

Yet although this has been a hit-based show, what has elevated this among the best concerts ever isn't the set list, but the extraordinary musicianship.

"Real music by real musicians" has been Prince's regular on-stage chant, and his current band is the best he's ever had. They are so good that the audience doesn't just cheer when Prince plays Kiss or Raspberry Beret, but after every horn solo or piano interlude.

This is a hits show that Prince can deliver without feeling any musical limitation. So he includes covers and mixes up the show every night.

Even when the set list has been similar, no two shows have been the same.

I saw 19 of the 21, and deeply regret missing the other two. And while the main shows have been extraordinary, the die-hard fans have been rewarded with a series of astonishing aftershows in the Indigo club, occasionally lasting longer than the main show itself, where Prince takes different elements of his music and gives unique performances that many believe are his greatest aftershows ever.

"We're making history," Beverley Knight announced one night while joining Prince at an aftershow.

From most performers this would be hyperbole - for these shows it seemed a straightforward statement of fact.

• Novelist Matt Thorne is writing a critical study of Prince to be published by Faber

/ telegraph.co.uk /

wlcm2thdwn said:

So untrue.

This was posted over att HQ, I thought it was a nice review but I also disagree
that htis is the best band he's ever had, this guy must not have seen Prince back in the day.

Ben is going to need a bigger and faster server when that comes out.

littlemissG said:

Nah, you missed the tell tale signs! That says "Novelist Matt Thorne is writing a critical study of Prince to be published by Faber."

In Prince speak that means...It'll NEVER see the light of day!!

I hate it when writers and critics try to dissect Prince like he's some kind of frog in a laboratory! Oo, let's see what makes him tick.