BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

Madonna still has Top-10 hits with every album and manages to convert young audiences to her music as much as she did back in the 80's and 90's, while Prince doesn't (and doesn't try to).

That's BS. Prince DESPERATELY tries to have hits, but doesn't have a clue that his pathetic third-rate imitations of lame-ass pop shit isn't what people care about.

He hasn't got a clue in general. He promoted Bria's horrible crap as a frikking Sade-like album, that's how clueless he is. Has he even watched that insane live-DVD Sade put out a couple of years ago? I'm not a huge fan of her, but that blew me away.

Was the Sade DVD from the lovers rock tour?

alandail said:

some people on here are being incredibly picky. Certainly there re going to be some core songs that stick around. People will leave disappointed if it's their only prince concert and they don't hear Purple Rain and some of the other songs. I'm pretty impressed by how much he does change. He held those concerts last week, 3 in the same night, and I believe 3 different set lists (I only ever saw 2 of the set lists). The opening night concert he played 3 1/2 hours with many encores without repeating songs. How much more do you really expect?

To play a song the band has to rehearse it and master it. Prince isn't going to come out and just wing it with an unrehearsed song. At the Cleveland sound check a few years ago a couple of people in the audience asked him to play some random different songs. His response? "I'm not a juke box".

if there are some songs in the long list that started this thread that only got played once. Perhaps the reason is they rehearsed it, played it and the response wasn't the best, so they moved on to something else.

I have a friend who lives in LA who had never been to a Prince concert before. I talked him into going to one of these - he went saturday. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it yet, but did get a 1 word text after the concert - "Incredible!" His main job each night he performs is to reach people like that. It's like Michael Jordan said when he played basketball - that every game he'd look into the stands and know that somewhere there was a dad bringing his son to their first basketball game and they deserved to see Michael Jordan play his best. That was what he used as motivation for routine regular season games night in and night out.

For Prince, every night he performs there are people in the stands who have never been to a Prince concert. He can't just go through the motions, he can't dump the core songs that they came to see, he does a great job of giving them what they want and mixing it up a bit for the regulars given the constraints that the band has to rehearse and learn whatever they're going to play. At times doing covers is easier as there are some songs that the band is going to already know pretty well vs pulling out some obscure B-Side or vault track members of the current band has never heard before.

The list of different songs is pretty impressive. I went to two of the love symbol concerts, they were nearly identical. I went to the one nite alone tour, have the official release from another stop and have heard recordings of a couple of other stops, the shows are nearly identical.

This tour, 92 different songs so far. I suspect the list will top 100. Who else do you think does that? When I was a kid, my dad took me to see Elvis. Two concerts the same day, the set lists were identical except for one spot he had 2 choices and let the audience pick.

I've also had other times where I've gone to concerts by other artists and then later bought an official live release from a different show and the set lists were identical.

[Edited 5/30/11 8:52am]

I think the thing that the hardcore fan finds frustrating is that he plays so few new songs. The One Nite Alone tour was probably the last time that a significant chunk of the shows consisted of new material. By playing few new songs Prince is basically telling us that he is now a nostalgia act. I find that a bit sad/disappointing. I'm sure that he couldn't play bigger venues but I would love to see him try to get out there and play mostly newer stuff to prove that that material is worthwhile and that there is an audience that wants to hear it. I'm fine with him doing larger scale tours for the masses but I hope he does a smaller scale tour that is tailored to the hardcore fan.

One Nite Alone was also small venues where the crowd was somewhat limited to hardcore fans by selling the tickets first through NPGMC. If he's going to play larger venues, he has to play a selection of hits that includes purple rain for a good bit of the concert.

Someone mentioned Madonna. She's played all of 3 concerts since 2009. Not a lot of variety possible there. Certainly not possible she's played 92 different tracks.

alandail said:

One Nite Alone was also small venues where the crowd was somewhat limited to hardcore fans by selling the tickets first through NPGMC. If he's going to play larger venues, he has to play a selection of hits that includes purple rain for a good bit of the concert.

Someone mentioned Madonna. She's played all of 3 concerts since 2009. Not a lot of variety possible there. Certainly not possible she's played 92 different tracks.

Absolutely. The "problem" is that all of his tours since 2004 have been bigger shows that cater to the casual fan. Lotusflow3r was arguably his most warmly received album since The Gold Experience and it would have been fantastic to get a show that heavily featured those songs but instead we got yet another hits tour. As long as audiences knew ahead of time what they were getting I think he could do a successful tour of smaller venues.

Of course not every fan will agree but I feel like he is still recording some great music and I would love it if he gave some of it a chance to grow and develop in the live setting. Look at a song like "The One." It was probably always a fan favourite but the fact that Prince has played the song live fairly often gave it a wider audience and made more people like it. There are more songs like that in his recent catalog but if he never plays them live they will remain buried on albums that few people will ever hear.

Vict0r said:

I don't see why he can't 50% hits and 50% recent material.

that is a decent balance victor, Lovesexy was sort of like that and I would happy with 50/50 these days.

Even 60% old and 40% new would be fine with me but currently it is more like 90/10 which is pretty sad...

FunkyStrange said:

Vict0r said:

I don't see why he can't 50% hits and 50% recent material.

that is a decent balance victor, Lovesexy was sort of like that and I would happy with 50/50 these days.

Even 60% old and 40% new would be fine with me but currently it is more like 90/10 which is pretty sad...

Ah, the voice of reason arrives to school his Peach and Black comrade. Go to it, son.

i'd like to hear a set with electric intercouse .. he recently pulled out power fantastic and it sounded great .. i didn't see it on the original list

i'd like him to do away with the samples and medleys and really make the songs "work out" like he used to .. those old songs used to have a whole song at the end of the song ..

a 12 inch remix tour would be rediculously awesome .. especially if promoted as an underground rave festival prince only promoted thru rumour .. goes on at 2 am plays till 4am .. no "jamming" i want the actual parts that go at the end of those songs

Vict0r said:

I don't see why he can't 50% hits and 50% recent material:

He actually explained why at every show I was at.

"Too many hits."

Maybe you were in the bathroom.

Prince himself announced that during the musicology tour would be the last time he played "the hits"....... but that turned out to be untrue.

Except for the ONA tour, ever tour since the mid 90's has been a "hits" tour. Yes there are many songs that encompasses what would be considered "the hits", but many of these songs are 20+ years old. He may not play the same set list, but most the songs have been played on numerous tours or one off shows.

With some people this is fine, but with other people they want to hear new music. The thing is that there is good music post "the hits" that he could do. Heck, a lot of the stuff he never did on tour. (I personally would have liked to see some of the stuff from the NPG music club live.) I would like to see the ratio reversed between the old and the new (even if there is a lot of the new stuff that I don't like. I say this because there have been other studio songs that he made me like them because of the way he did them live.)

That is just my take on it.

i think it is a simple case of quality of material unfortunately... many of you have made the point that alot of his now considered to be classic songs got to be classics by their inclusion in live performances... which i agree with. but look at it this way, if he came out tomorrow night and opened with 'shhhh..' or ' she's always in my hair' or even something like 'when eye lay my hands on u' the place would go nuts. because those are great songs even though to the casual fans they are nowhere near hits or even classics (repeat for the casual fan)

then look at the reaction when he opened with 'beginning endlessly'. u could feel the energy get sucked out of the room (and i kinda like that song) but when i saw the reaction it got not only do i understand why he didn't play it again i was surprised he even finished it that night and didn't 'stop on the 1' and go into something else.

the fact is he doesn't have faith in his newer material because it doesn't deliver the majority of the time.

i found myself trying to make a prince playlist the other day in my itunes which has mostly 2000-10's material (because i haven't taken the time to load the old cd's in) and even that was difficult for me.

i think there are some songs released in the last 15 yrs that could be mind blowing live but there's no arguing that they are few and far between, especially when put up against his catalog prior to then.

it's inevitable, he's 53... there's not a single artist who's done it at an arena level with new material at that age. springsteen probably being the closest... bowie, neil young, stones.... no one i can think of has done it.

rialb said:

FunkyStrange said:

that is a decent balance victor, Lovesexy was sort of like that and I would happy with 50/50 these days.

Even 60% old and 40% new would be fine with me but currently it is more like 90/10 which is pretty sad...

Ah, the voice of reason arrives to school his Peach and Black comrade. Go to it, son.

Oi, I never said he shouldn't be doing more recent material - just that it's not as bad as some people claim. If it were up to me he'd be doing only new/rare material

toejam said:

rialb said:

Ah, the voice of reason arrives to school his Peach and Black comrade. Go to it, son.

Oi, I never said he shouldn't be doing more recent material - just that it's not as bad as some people claim. If it were up to me he'd be doing only new/rare material

C-O-O-L.

electric said:

i think it is a simple case of quality of material unfortunately... many of you have made the point that alot of his now considered to be classic songs got to be classics by their inclusion in live performances... which i agree with. but look at it this way, if he came out tomorrow night and opened with 'shhhh..' or ' she's always in my hair' or even something like 'when eye lay my hands on u' the place would go nuts. because those are great songs even though to the casual fans they are nowhere near hits or even classics (repeat for the casual fan)

then look at the reaction when he opened with 'beginning endlessly'. u could feel the energy get sucked out of the room (and i kinda like that song) but when i saw the reaction it got not only do i understand why he didn't play it again i was surprised he even finished it that night and didn't 'stop on the 1' and go into something else.

the fact is he doesn't have faith in his newer material because it doesn't deliver the majority of the time.

i found myself trying to make a prince playlist the other day in my itunes which has mostly 2000-10's material (because i haven't taken the time to load the old cd's in) and even that was difficult for me.

i think there are some songs released in the last 15 yrs that could be mind blowing live but there's no arguing that they are few and far between, especially when put up against his catalog prior to then.

it's inevitable, he's 53... there's not a single artist who's done it at an arena level with new material at that age. springsteen probably being the closest... bowie, neil young, stones.... no one i can think of has done it.

You mentioned "When I Lay My Hands On U," to me that is a perfect example of a song that was given new life by being performed live. I think to many fans it was dismissed as a crappy NPGMC track but after he played it at Montreux it took on a new life. Surely there are more gems like that scattered across his post 2003 material. Plus there's an album like Emancipation. Relatively few of those tracks were performed live. The biggest complaint about that album is the "plastic" sound, wouldn't many of those songs be perfect candidates for the live setting?

with all of the examples i tried to use older songs that have been given a new life from live performance. to me 'when i lay my hands...' is a perfect example because it shows that if a song is really good it doesn't have to be well known to go over. it just has to move people, a feat usually not accomplished by his new material.

'the love we make' is from emancipation and he opened with that a few times this tour to mixed results from what i could tell.

rialb said:

electric said:

i think it is a simple case of quality of material unfortunately... many of you have made the point that alot of his now considered to be classic songs got to be classics by their inclusion in live performances... which i agree with. but look at it this way, if he came out tomorrow night and opened with 'shhhh..' or ' she's always in my hair' or even something like 'when eye lay my hands on u' the place would go nuts. because those are great songs even though to the casual fans they are nowhere near hits or even classics (repeat for the casual fan)

then look at the reaction when he opened with 'beginning endlessly'. u could feel the energy get sucked out of the room (and i kinda like that song) but when i saw the reaction it got not only do i understand why he didn't play it again i was surprised he even finished it that night and didn't 'stop on the 1' and go into something else.

the fact is he doesn't have faith in his newer material because it doesn't deliver the majority of the time.

i found myself trying to make a prince playlist the other day in my itunes which has mostly 2000-10's material (because i haven't taken the time to load the old cd's in) and even that was difficult for me.

i think there are some songs released in the last 15 yrs that could be mind blowing live but there's no arguing that they are few and far between, especially when put up against his catalog prior to then.

it's inevitable, he's 53... there's not a single artist who's done it at an arena level with new material at that age. springsteen probably being the closest... bowie, neil young, stones.... no one i can think of has done it.

You mentioned "When I Lay My Hands On U," to me that is a perfect example of a song that was given new life by being performed live. I think to many fans it was dismissed as a crappy NPGMC track but after he played it at Montreux it took on a new life. Surely there are more gems like that scattered across his post 2003 material. Plus there's an album like Emancipation. Relatively few of those tracks were performed live. The biggest complaint about that album is the "plastic" sound, wouldn't many of those songs be perfect candidates for the live setting?

alandail said:

One Nite Alone was also small venues where the crowd was somewhat limited to hardcore fans by selling the tickets first through NPGMC. If he's going to play larger venues, he has to play a selection of hits that includes purple rain for a good bit of the concert.

Someone mentioned Madonna. She's played all of 3 concerts since 2009. Not a lot of variety possible there. Certainly not possible she's played 92 different tracks.

You know you can just READ what I wrote about Madonna, right? I mean, it's not like some conversation you heard in passing, it's available for reading right here in this thread.

Kinda funny that you completely ignore the point I made and instead focused on one ridiculous statistic.

Here, lemme repeat what I said:

But apparently Prince fans aren't as sophisticated as Madonna fans, because those guys can cope with radically rearranged hits and a large dosis of new music. And last I checked Madonna was playing for far bigger crowds than Prince. Oh, and she also puts out videos of her shows and allows them to be broadcast on TV, yet somehow she manages to keep selling tickets.

I await your reply.

toejam said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Hell, just look at this playlist from his 3 March 1985 gig:

You can't just throw a Purple Rain tour setlist into the argument - that's cheating . I never said anything about the Purple Rain tour, and besides that was the album/tour that established most of those 'hits'.

Is it so bloody hard to actually READ WHAT I WRITE? Look at that setlist: he's playing B-Sides and unreleased music, and mostly ignored pre-Purple Rain-songs. That was when he was a POP STAR.

And to conclude on the SOTT/Lovesexy tours, yes, of course he did play more 'new' material then, but it was still an expectation of the casual fans that he played the 'hits' - which is exactly what he did. It was as true back then as it is today.

The maore you keep making up shit, the worse you look. NO ONE SAID HE SHOULDN'T PLAY THE HITS. There should simply be BALANCE.

But I guess you were too busy making up shit to actually PAY ATTENTION to what people wrote.

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm still curious about the setlist you gave for 3 March 1985. It's not the same as the one listed on Princevault. Is it an aftershow? If so, it's not really fair to compare that to setlists from main shows, is it?

[Edited 5/31/11 8:39am]

Yeah I checked the set list too. He did all the known hits. Yeah it must've been at an aftershow.

Yikes, Bart is one angry fellow.

BartVanHemelen said:

But I guess you were too busy making up shit ...

Can you please clarify what "facts" you think I have "made up"?

I have an opinion and see things from a slightly different perspective to you obviously - that does not mean I am "making shit up". I really have no idea what you're talking about...

To clarify once more, when I said the SOTT/Lovesexy tours were 'hits' tours, I didn't mean like a 'nostalgia hits' tour (which I agree there is an element to in his recent tours), more that it was still an expectation of the audience that he played them at some point - which is exactly what he did.

What Prince did pre-1987 has NO RELEVANCE to the topic at hand!

[Edited 5/31/11 14:24pm]

Oh toejam I thought that you knew better than to go up against Bart !

you need to rememeber Bart is ALWAYS right !! and his opinion is BETTER than yours !!

Yeah, I wouldn't pay too much attention to Bart. Dude seems like he is a perpetual state of bitchiness.

Toejam, thanks for putting the effort into compiling that list. Even though you didn't quite win me over to your hypothesis I think you did prove that at the very least Prince is drawing from a more diverse set of songs than one might think.

the reason why prince plays the same songs live is because of the live band that he picks to back him up on this tour. there are certains songs they can not do justice live, so he basically stick to the old setlist.

jackson35 said:

the reason why prince plays the same songs live is because of the live band that he picks to back him up on this tour. there are certains songs they can not do justice live, so he basically stick to the old setlist.

I think this is a good point. People here seem to think that prince should be able to play any song at any time, forgetting that his band members have to learn those songs too, and not just individually but as a band. His band knows a lot of songs, close to a 100 have been performed on this tour, but they can’t be expected to know every song he has ever written and they can’t be expected to be able to play everything equally well.

[Edited 6/1/11 8:28am]

paulludvig said:

jackson35 said:

the reason why prince plays the same songs live is because of the live band that he picks to back him up on this tour. there are certains songs they can not do justice live, so he basically stick to the old setlist.

I think this is a good point. People here seem to think that prince should be able to play any song at any time, forgetting that his band members have to learn those songs too, and not just individually but as a band. His band knows a lot of songs, close to a 100 have been performed on this tour, but they can’t be expected to know every song his has ever written and they can’t be expected to be able to play everything equally well.

Supposedly the band have rehearsed over 150 songs so I think this argument is weak.

If prince is "desperstely" trying to have hits, why does he choose not to be signed to a major label?

rialb said:

paulludvig said:

I think this is a good point. People here seem to think that prince should be able to play any song at any time, forgetting that his band members have to learn those songs too, and not just individually but as a band. His band knows a lot of songs, close to a 100 have been performed on this tour, but they can’t be expected to know every song his has ever written and they can’t be expected to be able to play everything equally well.

Supposedly the band have rehearsed over 150 songs so I think this argument is weak.

so he's played about 2/3rds of them. How does that change the point that they may not be as well suited to playing some of the songs they have rehearsed? And does 150 songs rehearsed mean mastered 150 songs? I doubt it.

edit: Also don't ignore the possibility that the 150 number could be a bit of an exaggeration.

[Edited 6/1/11 8:33am]

alandail said:

rialb said:

Supposedly the band have rehearsed over 150 songs so I think this argument is weak.

so he's played about 2/3rds of them. How does that change the point that they may not be as well suited to playing some of the songs they have rehearsed? And does 150 songs rehearsed mean mastered 150 songs? I doubt it.

edit: Also don't ignore the possibility that the 150 number could be a bit of an exaggeration.

[Edited 6/1/11 8:33am]

Fair enough. I just wanted to make the point that the band are probably pefectly capable of learning many, many songs. Prince has always been a demanding bandleader, it seems logical to me that he has high expectations from the musicians that he chooses to play with.

thank you for lettin me be myself again

everyday people

while i used to love these songs, at this point, after fifteen years of hearing them at most prince concerts, i will pay to NOT have to listen to those songs ever, ever, ever again. thank you, that is all.

hey bart van hemelen, noone gives a fuck about madonna. also, you're old. love and kisses, thetoastofgorym