The argument that he used to play more new songs is pointless. He was a new artist then, he could not play old songs.

He spreads it out pretty well. Played b-sides, tracks from Emancipation, Planet Earth, 20Ten, Diamonds & Pearls, Gold...

...plus the hits that 90% of the crowd really wants to hear

I saw about 30 prince shows, a fine mix of tour shows, aftershows etc. Starting at 1992 D&P tour, thru gigs at 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2007...

I just came back form LA where i saw 3 forum shows and 1 HOB show.

It was an awesome experience, to see prince Still rocking a sold out arena, playing 195 minutes last sunday with songs i consider definitely NOT for casual first timers, like: The love we make, Future Soul song, Shes Always in my hair, Insatiable, A love Bizarre, Scandalous, Musicology, Cool, Mountains and many others. I sadly missed other great numbers he pulled out the freezer during the last couple of months including endorphinemachine, bambi, colonized mind, extraordinary, does not compute etc to name but a few.

Indeed I would have preferred as a hard core fand to have a full Crystal Ball set played on an acoustic guitar or 10 minute bass solos (btw he did one at the HOB). Since i SAW prince do this stuff with my own eyes, and I SAW the guy last weekend, I know the guy can still do it, he's absolutely in shape. His musicianship is as good as ever if not better. He can play and sing as good as he ever could.

However, He is in "Tour" mode. He wont do these things in arenas - it's not the 1995 prince with the FU attitude nor the 1984 prince with the pre-sold out chain of stadium shows. It's the prince whos out to make a buck with the best entertainment he can offer the would gather the biggest audience.

I am cool with that! I think these shows are great. Moments like the re-arranged LRC or the Awesome
Love we make as an opener are brave and innovative as any other Arena show you're likely to get from anyone else of his calibre.

The 3 d&P concerts i saw were awesome BUT even though P was younger and much more of a rude boy, these shows were choreographed and contained little place for variety between different shows. So were most of the other BIG, successful tours. Hence the Aftershow mode.

Prince's most Adventurous Live experience was - for me - the 2002 celebration. Just reading these setlists - night after night - makes me shiver. He was at his definite peak there as a musician. I really hope hell do something like that again. The Indigo concerts after the O2 shows were not too far from this. Too bad he didnt establish an aftershow routine in LA, it would have cleared alot of the debates here.

As for Bart's views, even though i don't share many of them, I agree Prince makes some laughable moves and can get his hardcore fans real confused if not damn angry. We all shoukd know His faults by now, how he treats his band, his weird grasp of reality etc. I bet many times it's just him being an arrogant asshole.

However - i say he still makes great music, and throes great concerts. And he was always pretty weird and arrogant. Nothing really changed here.

The balance between old and new, regarding the reception of the new material - i think he got it just about right for these large scale shows.

Last point, I saw two Madonna ocncerts live, one back in 1992 and one in 2009. I love her. But there's absolutley no room for comparison.

A) To my taste she really lost it musically in the past 4-5 years.

B) Her shows now are mostly about a great audio visual experience. very choreographed, no room for spontaneity, shows are completely idnetical to each other, synched to the videos, no room for real music by real musicians pardon the phrase. Always were mostly , and now are totally mechanized theme park attractions.

see y'all next show.

nirforward said:

I saw about 30 prince shows, a fine mix of tour shows, aftershows etc. Starting at 1992 D&P tour, thru gigs at 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2007...

I just came back form LA where i saw 3 forum shows and 1 HOB show.

It was an awesome experience, to see prince Still rocking a sold out arena, playing 195 minutes last sunday with songs i consider definitely NOT for casual first timers, like: The love we make, Future Soul song, Shes Always in my hair, Insatiable, A love Bizarre, Scandalous, Musicology, Cool, Mountains and many others. I sadly missed other great numbers he pulled out the freezer during the last couple of months including endorphinemachine, bambi, colonized mind, extraordinary, does not compute etc to name but a few.

Indeed I would have preferred as a hard core fand to have a full Crystal Ball set played on an acoustic guitar or 10 minute bass solos (btw he did one at the HOB). Since i SAW prince do this stuff with my own eyes, and I SAW the guy last weekend, I know the guy can still do it, he's absolutely in shape. His musicianship is as good as ever if not better. He can play and sing as good as he ever could.

However, He is in "Tour" mode. He wont do these things in arenas - it's not the 1995 prince with the FU attitude nor the 1984 prince with the pre-sold out chain of stadium shows. It's the prince whos out to make a buck with the best entertainment he can offer the would gather the biggest audience.

I am cool with that! I think these shows are great. Moments like the re-arranged LRC or the Awesome
Love we make as an opener are brave and innovative as any other Arena show you're likely to get from anyone else of his calibre.

The 3 d&P concerts i saw were awesome BUT even though P was younger and much more of a rude boy, these shows were choreographed and contained little place for variety between different shows. So were most of the other BIG, successful tours. Hence the Aftershow mode.

Prince's most Adventurous Live experience was - for me - the 2002 celebration. Just reading these setlists - night after night - makes me shiver. He was at his definite peak there as a musician. I really hope hell do something like that again. The Indigo concerts after the O2 shows were not too far from this. Too bad he didnt establish an aftershow routine in LA, it would have cleared alot of the debates here.

As for Bart's views, even though i don't share many of them, I agree Prince makes some laughable moves and can get his hardcore fans real confused if not damn angry. We all shoukd know His faults by now, how he treats his band, his weird grasp of reality etc. I bet many times it's just him being an arrogant asshole.

However - i say he still makes great music, and throes great concerts. And he was always pretty weird and arrogant. Nothing really changed here.

The balance between old and new, regarding the reception of the new material - i think he got it just about right for these large scale shows.

Last point, I saw two Madonna ocncerts live, one back in 1992 and one in 2009. I love her. But there's absolutley no room for comparison.

A) To my taste she really lost it musically in the past 4-5 years.

B) Her shows now are mostly about a great audio visual experience. very choreographed, no room for spontaneity, shows are completely idnetical to each other, synched to the videos, no room for real music by real musicians pardon the phrase. Always were mostly , and now are totally mechanized theme park attractions.

see y'all next show.

Great summation, including the positives and negatives!

nirforward said:

I saw about 30 prince shows, a fine mix of tour shows, aftershows etc. Starting at 1992 D&P tour, thru gigs at 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2007...

I just came back form LA where i saw 3 forum shows and 1 HOB show.

It was an awesome experience, to see prince Still rocking a sold out arena, playing 195 minutes last sunday with songs i consider definitely NOT for casual first timers, like: The love we make, Future Soul song, Shes Always in my hair, Insatiable, A love Bizarre, Scandalous, Musicology, Cool, Mountains and many others. I sadly missed other great numbers he pulled out the freezer during the last couple of months including endorphinemachine, bambi, colonized mind, extraordinary, does not compute etc to name but a few.

Indeed I would have preferred as a hard core fand to have a full Crystal Ball set played on an acoustic guitar or 10 minute bass solos (btw he did one at the HOB). Since i SAW prince do this stuff with my own eyes, and I SAW the guy last weekend, I know the guy can still do it, he's absolutely in shape. His musicianship is as good as ever if not better. He can play and sing as good as he ever could.

However, He is in "Tour" mode. He wont do these things in arenas - it's not the 1995 prince with the FU attitude nor the 1984 prince with the pre-sold out chain of stadium shows. It's the prince whos out to make a buck with the best entertainment he can offer the would gather the biggest audience.

I am cool with that! I think these shows are great. Moments like the re-arranged LRC or the Awesome
Love we make as an opener are brave and innovative as any other Arena show you're likely to get from anyone else of his calibre.

The 3 d&P concerts i saw were awesome BUT even though P was younger and much more of a rude boy, these shows were choreographed and contained little place for variety between different shows. So were most of the other BIG, successful tours. Hence the Aftershow mode.

Prince's most Adventurous Live experience was - for me - the 2002 celebration. Just reading these setlists - night after night - makes me shiver. He was at his definite peak there as a musician. I really hope hell do something like that again. The Indigo concerts after the O2 shows were not too far from this. Too bad he didnt establish an aftershow routine in LA, it would have cleared alot of the debates here.

As for Bart's views, even though i don't share many of them, I agree Prince makes some laughable moves and can get his hardcore fans real confused if not damn angry. We all shoukd know His faults by now, how he treats his band, his weird grasp of reality etc. I bet many times it's just him being an arrogant asshole.

However - i say he still makes great music, and throes great concerts. And he was always pretty weird and arrogant. Nothing really changed here.

The balance between old and new, regarding the reception of the new material - i think he got it just about right for these large scale shows.

Last point, I saw two Madonna ocncerts live, one back in 1992 and one in 2009. I love her. But there's absolutley no room for comparison.

A) To my taste she really lost it musically in the past 4-5 years.

B) Her shows now are mostly about a great audio visual experience. very choreographed, no room for spontaneity, shows are completely idnetical to each other, synched to the videos, no room for real music by real musicians pardon the phrase. Always were mostly , and now are totally mechanized theme park attractions.

see y'all next show.

Very well said. Thank you for that.

he has 3 shows worth of material up his sleeve on this tour.

That's what it felt like to me.... I able to catch 10 of the shows in L.A. There was 4-5 songs you would hear every night... BUT, the vibe, delivery & mood of the shows was different each time...

There did seem to be 3 basic outlines to the shows though.

1. Start with D.M.S.R & usually having a dance party all night...

2. Starting with a Big hit (i.e. Let's Go Crazy) & playing mainly hits all night.

3. Starting slow & obscure (i.e. When Eye Lay My Hands, Joy In Repitition, The Love We Make) & keeping the Mega Hits to a minimum....

But then again, the last weekend, he decided to kick the show off with the Sample set & blow my whole theory out of the water....

The indigo nights cd is a completely different set of songs than he's been playing in concert lately

I saw KISS in 1977 and then again in 1998.

It was the same concert note-for-note! The only difference was that during the audience shout-out, Paul Stanley added, "Oh yeah - don't drive drunk".

I saw Rodney Daingerfield in 1982 and then again in 1998. It was the exact same show, joke-for-joke.

Not really sure what all this means, although all the shows above were sold out.

NDRU said:

The indigo nights cd is a completely different set of songs than he's been playing in concert lately

To be fair to the discussion - Indigo Nights is the after party CD.

Swa said:

NDRU said:

The indigo nights cd is a completely different set of songs than he's been playing in concert lately

To be fair to the discussion - Indigo Nights is the after party CD.

True, but it's still music being played for people. Different music. More people would rather he play the hits, so he does that for bigger crowds

But yes I see your point, if you're complaining that he does not ever experement and do stuff like indigo nights for his main concerts, then yeah you're right.