Article #2 out of 3, written in 1998 back when Prince was named "The Artist":

The Meet & Greet Experience
by Nicolai Willumsgaard

One week before the concert I got a phone call from BMG, the company that this time around distributes The Artist. I have some friends there and they knew I am a big fan of The Artist. They asked if I could make some odd 30-35 questions about the man very fast for a radio contest, and the first prize was meeting The Artist. The following afternoon I delivered 43 questions to BMG. They were happy and surprised how quick it went. We decided it would be best if I participated in the radio show as a referee, if there were going to be any doubt questions.

The Danmarks Radio show "Strax" was going to air live monday morning, the day before the concert. I thought the radio show would be more of a Prince / The Artist event, but it wasn't. A few songs was played ("Raspberry Beret", "Come On" and others) and then the question contest. Everything went well and we found a winner, I knew the girl who won and some jealousy started showing. I would love to meet The Artist and she was told, that she and a friend was suppose to meet him before the concert, I said: "please take me", but NO. Anyway I was sure to get in at the nightclub Vega, where The Artist was going to play an aftershow, because that was the deal with BMG, after all the help they got.

The big day came and knowing that the winner of the show was going to meet him around 18 o'clock, I only showed up around 19 o'clock, trying to hide my disappointment. When I arrived with my wife and my mom (oh yeah, she was there too), I ran into the winner anyway. There had been lots of delays and she hadn't met him (Prince!) yet. She was standing with people from BMG, so I tried again, "what about me". Because of restrictments and security it was still impossible. We went into the hall and I kind of forgot about it, because the concert and later the aftershow was going to happen.

Suddenly my friend from BMG came running, took my hand and said: "This is it". I could not believe my luck, I was going to shake hands with The Artist himself, We went downstairs to some dressing room and got told "The Artist will be here in a few minutes". Inside the very small room, which was full of large "Newpower Soul" posters on the walls, there were some large candles, so we lit them. We were all 7 people together downstairs, waiting in a very small and hot room, at least it felt hot. I had to wipe my hands from sweat every few seconds in my pants. A woman every now and then came to check on us. One time she asked if it was ok if Larry Graham also came along and of course no one objected about that.

The door opened many times but still no The Artist. We waited aprox. 20 minutes, when suddely you heard his familiar voice say: "aah, spooky light..."! The Artist had arrived with Larry Graham and Larry's wife. He walked towards us and shaked hands with everyone of us. I was the last in line, "Hello, I'm Nick. I, ehh, made the q-questions" I stuttered. There he was right in front of me dressed in the purple plush coat in which he later sang duet with Chaka Khan and I couldn't talk. Larry and his wife came along and I said: "hi, I saw your show last year at Park, you funked that up pretty well", he answered "yeah we had fun and we're looking forward till tonight's show". Then The Artist looked at the woman who had checked on us every now and then, and said "they'll get in" referring to the nightclub gig.

And that was it. He left. I blew it, I could not say anything. My question "how come U don't make b-sides anymore" never came out of my mouth. I just wasted a once in a lifetime chance, how stupid can one get. Hopefully I'm not the only one choking in my own words meeting this great man.

article #1:
"Cross The Line" - a Backstage experience before a Prince concert 1998
Here:
http://prince.org/msg/7/330023

and... article #3:

"Meeting the N.P.G." at Hotel SAS Royal, Copenhagen 1998
Here:
http://prince.org/msg/7/330026



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[Edited 2/11/10 0:37am]
[Edited 2/11/10 0:38am]

Thanks for that one too. How many issues of Free were there?

^ only 1 issue, october 1998 - all articles were about Prince's visit in Denmark in the previous month 1998.

the magazine was really amateurish, but very fun to make.

I am still in contact with David, I haven't spoked with the 2 other guys since then...

^ Cool. Too bad it didn't take off.

squirrelgrease said:

yes, we ran out of ideas, and we found out how much work it took - it was really hard, and also how difficult it was to get in contact with the danish Prince fans... (this was made before we had access to the internet)...

I think only 50 copies were made, most of these we gave away for free, and 2 copies were sent to Paisley Park over there...

- with no response from Prince, of course...

Very cool article!

thedance said:

Nicolai Willumsgaard is on Facebook. You can catch up with him there.

I think the guys who got to see the rehearsal were more lucky than poor Nicolai.

scififilmnerd said:

Thanks Shifi, I have just send Nicolai a friendly message.

Nice article