was this tour considered a "flop"??? I saw it a few times and enjoyed it, but the tour is never discussed on the board...

thoughts??

Commercialy I think it was a success in that he made his money, Creativly it's considered the begining of a drop in quality of his live performances. Most of the criticism is not at Prince but at the over inclusion of Larry Graham, Doug E Fresh and Chaka Khan

I personally think his performances of Face Down alone make the whole concerts worth while.

The Jam of the Year Tour in 1997 was the first time I had the chance to see Prince And if loving this era is wrong, I don't want to be right!! Those were sure some funky, fun nites

Larry and Prince would make everything and everyone shake with their dynamic, rythmic FUNKY jams.

Only Masters could synchronize everything to a T like they do and make musical magic come alive

I don't care what people say, those two guitar players have the rhythm and beat that can't be matched when they share that stage together

I loved the JOTY and Triple Threat shows. I saw three of them. They had a very lazy groove to them, but I mean that in a good way.

I know my friend did not love the medleys, but he did appreciate the ecstatic girls in the row in front of us.

They were something of a prototype for the current shows, but back then he was still an under-appreciated current artist, not so much a living legend. That made it a little more exciting, along with the fact that his moves were much more energetic and acrobatic. I saw the first show after his injury, and that was a sign of things to come.

I have a warm place in my heart for the New Power Soul album after chanting "the freaks on this side" (my side, of course) and "Mad sex!" and "I like funky music" with 20,000 others. It felt unplanned, like we were part of something spontaneous, though looking back that probably was not the case.

He was really acrobatic for the opening number and the James Brown cover during this tour, before the injury (was that in a rehearsal before the LA concert that was then cancelled?)

I saw the "Jame of the Year" tour 3 times, then the "New Power Soul Tour/Festival" another 5 times.

I also attended 2 afterparties during that time.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself during that era.

chopingard said:

Yes! I turned 30 in 1997, so a friend (who has, uh, a rather large "collection" ) made me a cassette tape called "Face Down @ 30"- both sides filled with different versions of the song from that tour. I played that thing to death!

One day in the car, my Mom said, "Is that the same song over and over?" Even after I explained how they were from different shows, she still looked at me like I was crazy!

NDRU said:

It was exciting because it was my first Prince concert as an adult (LoveSexy in 5th grade was my first). It wasn't the best, but it was good. It started 2 hours late (Big surprise). Old Grad Central Station opened for him. It was just him and the small Emancipation band. The intro was cool with a green strobe light in the air (different shapes, symbols, a dove, etc.) and about 5 different songs started before he came out. They would play the beginning of Kiss and then stop. Then Let’s Go Crazy and stop. The crowd was going nuts!!!! After a few times you could hear the Rosie track "this is the jam...". He was on stage for a long time solo while the band took a break. I remember hearing a lot of people yelling "play the whole song...what is this medley crap?" lol!!!!

It wasn’t the best show and neither was the Rainbow Children. Kind of a low budget / Stripped down show. 7-7-07 was about the same. You could take all the shows and together they couldn’t touch Musicology. That was a show!!!!!

The tour he missed out on in the US (actually two) was Sign ‘o the Times and Diamonds and Pearls. The Diamond album and Maxi Singles along with the Arsenio shows had Prince back!

Had some really nice moments: If I Was Your Girlfriend, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?, The Cross, Do Me Baby.

Had some songs played a few times not played on the entire tour: When Doves Cry, 17 Days, A Case Of U

Had some horrible moments: medley after medley, shortened song after shortened song, Purple Rain was barely the first verse, chorus, and the guitar solo.

The fact that Emancipation was touted as the album he was "Born To Make," made it silly that he pretty much only played two full length songs from it on the tour with JOTY, and Face Down. He played bits of Sleep Around a few times, and some actually got Somebody's Somebody and The Holy River...and in what would become typical of Prince, having a single out but hardly ever playing it live.

This was obviously a difficult period in his life, with the death of his child, who he acknowledged as being alive and well on Oprah, when he had either already passed or was dying...which was very creepy.

Basically, from 1997-2001, a Prince show always had at least a few minutes of excellence, but was a huge letdown from previous tours.

In 2002, he would go back to being the great live performer, and would continue through the 2004 tour....

Sadly, from 2006-2012, he is not so consistent, and plays some generic arrangements that hardly sound like the actual song. He plays too many snippets, and has 2 things in his show that go from beyond corny and stupid to self-parody: The Sampler Set, and having Shelby shout "Put Your Hands Up," anywhere fromn 50 to 200 times a night.

Still, even at the worst Prince concert, the guy who can be the greatest live performer on the planet still shows up for a song or two, or even 10 or more if you are lucky.

What I remember most about this tour was that the previous time I saw Prince play was in front of a sold out venue in front of around 18,000 and this one was in a venue that held 6,000 and was about 75% full.

I saw the Love 4 One Another Charities tour in Moline, IL (1 show) and the Jam of The Year Tour in Minneapolis (2 shows) in 1997. The Moline show was barely half full, but both Minneapolis shows were sold out. I have to say it was the first tour that I was very disappointed in. As someone else said, Prince saying Emancipation was the album he was born to make and all the media blitz for it, then to not play hardly any material from it was bullshit. I guess if you had never seen Prince before, then all the hits would have been nice. The new band had no personality.

stillwaiting said:

The fact that Emancipation was touted as the album he was "Born To Make," made it silly that he pretty much only played two full length songs......

I listened to it a few months ago....wow....bad.

some actually got Somebody's Somebody.... typical of Prince, having a single out but hardly ever playing it live.

Man...I wished he played Somebody's Somebody..good song and good video (rare for Prince).

This was obviously a difficult period in his life, with the death of his child, who he acknowledged as being alive and well on Oprah, when he had either already passed or was dying...which was very creepy.

He didn't actully say he was alive...he just said "It's all good". It seemed like he didn't want to talk about and quickly got back on the album.

stillwaiting said:

This was obviously a difficult period in his life, with the death of his child,

True, this was a total disaster. I don't see how he went through with the release of the album considering what happened. He should have shelved it and done something new.

I mean, I was happy he released it and I listened to it a LOT in 96-98. But really, he shelved the Black Album, this one really had more reason not to be released...or at least to be edited.

I want to a bunch of these shows and, although far from his best, the early shows were still pretty cool because he was still playing the "dirtier stuff" and cursing.

It was while on the JOTY Tour that Larry Graham officially started his brainwashing of Prince and the latter part of the tour featured the "censored" versions of stuff like "Face Down" and "Sexy MF" and, I'm sorry, those songs do NOT work with the cursing taken out, much like "Days Of Wild" when he plays it now.

So this tour has bittersweet memories for me because it was the beginning of the end of the Prince we all knew and loved.

Fun show. Enjoyed it even though it seemed a little "rushed".

[img:$uid]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecnirp2004/Prince/FREEMag199801-1.jpg[/img:$uid]

From the European leg of the tour:

"The Meet & Greet Experience" - Meeting Prince before the concert in Valby Hallen 1998 ("Free" article #2 out of 3)

http://prince.org/msg/7/330024

.

[Edited 7/12/12 22:12pm]

2 more experiences:

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

and...

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

^^ those 3 articles :

I once sent to Paisley Park:

Two copies of our self made Prince-Fanzine: "Free".

Made by 4 guys in Denmark (David Dyhr; Alex Mingolla; Nicolai Willumsgaard; Bo Egstrup).

It was in october 1998.

We never got any response back from Prince, but I hope he liked those articles.

thedance said:

[img:$uid]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecnirp2004/Prince/FREEMag199801-1.jpg[/img:$uid]

From the European leg of the tour:

"The Meet & Greet Experience" - Meeting Prince before the concert in Valby Hallen 1998 ("Free" article #2 out of 3)

http://prince.org/msg/7/330024

This is the first time I got to see Prince so it was really nice that he played all the hits. It helped that Emancipation was a great new album.

chocolate1 said:

chopingard said:

I personally think his performances of Face Down alone make the whole concerts worth while.

Yes! I turned 30 in 1997, so a friend (who has, uh, a rather large "collection" ) made me a cassette tape called "Face Down @ 30"- both sides filled with different versions of the song from that tour. I played that thing to death!

One day in the car, my Mom said, "Is that the same song over and over?" Even after I explained how they were from different shows, she still looked at me like I was crazy!

chopingard said:

Commercialy I think it was a success in that he made his money, Creativly it's considered the begining of a drop in quality of his live performances. Most of the criticism is not at Prince but at the over inclusion of Larry Graham, Doug E Fresh and Chaka Khan

I personally think his performances of Face Down alone make the whole concerts worth while.

That was the NewPowerSoul tour.

LittlePurpleYoda said:

chopingard said:

Commercialy I think it was a success in that he made his money, Creativly it's considered the begining of a drop in quality of his live performances. Most of the criticism is not at Prince but at the over inclusion of Larry Graham, Doug E Fresh and Chaka Khan

I personally think his performances of Face Down alone make the whole concerts worth while.

That was the NewPowerSoul tour.

Yes you're right.

I get the two mixed up as they are basicly the same with a bit of tweaking here and there. I thought the one tour ran into the other just adding musicians.

Either way I think both tours have merit and although I never atended there are some entertaining recordings from both.

Also was he still doing Face Down on NPS Tour ( I wouldn't have thought he would have done that infront of Larry)

[Edited 7/15/12 15:08pm]

chopingard said:

LittlePurpleYoda said:

That was the NewPowerSoul tour.

Yes you're right.

I get the two mixed up as they are basicly the same with a bit of tweaking here and there. I thought the one tour ran into the other just adding musicians.

Either way I think both tours have merit and although I never atended there are some entertaining recordings from both.

Also was he still doing Face Down on NPS Tour ( I wouldn't have thought he would have done that infront of Larry)

[Edited 7/15/12 15:08pm]

Many people complained about the NPS tour as P's set was a little shorter due to Chaka and Larry opening and P shared the spotlight with DougE Fresh, etc. I believe the L4OA charity tour was like the JOTY tour as well. I seen a three tours a couple times.

Yes, I agree, and carlos santana joined those 2 and made it 3 when i saw the tour in the bay Area, Shoreline..yeah buddy, it's all a journey, and it's up to us to make it count everyday!

colorblu said:

Larry and Prince would make everything and everyone shake with their dynamic, rythmic FUNKY jams.

Only Masters could synchronize everything to a T like they do and make musical magic come alive

I don't care what people say, those two guitar players have the rhythm and beat that can't be matched when they share that stage together

My least favorite tour I have seen from Prince.

The show was good, but not great.

I could sense that Prince wasn't himself (seemed troubled), that maybe affected his performance.

I saw the JOTY tour in Indy, St Louis and KC and enjoyed it very much but maybe I was just live show deficient at the time since it had been since the symbol tour. The show in KC was especially memorable as Rosie made an appearance and even though he had cleaned up the language for Larry, he played snippets of Darling Nikki but was really fun with it as he was pretending to be having trouble not giving into the temptation of playing it since the crowd was going wild. The tour was towards the end and it was well tuned and stuff had been added.

Now the NPS in St louis concert was a different story. He played a very small venue but brought enough speakers for Wembly stadium and the sound was so loud and so bad that all songs were unrecognizable.

For me the "worst" concert was the Hit and Run tour as he seemed to be doing nothing but a total money grab. He played short versions of everything, kept leaving the stage to let Najee play wayyy tooo much. But a "worst" concert by Prince kicks the hell out of most live performers so "worst" is said with a grain of salt

The fact that he started to play the hits again, and that he almost totally gave-up playing new material, was a major disappointment to me after all the craziness of 1994-1996 and the fact that he would mostly play new or obscure songs for 3 years. I know his WB catalogue by heart, I don't nead new renditions of these songs again and again.

The only tour I have found of real interest ever since was the ONA Tour (where he went back to the new and rare songs politics), and of course a few unusual shows such as the Montreux or Lotusflow3r release ones.

I'd have loved to see tours focused on Emancipation, Newpower Soul, Rave or Lotusflow3r/MPLSound, or a completely intrumental jazz tour.

This tour gets soooo shat on and IDK why. I only saw one date and it was in Minneapolis, after years of absence. But I thought it was great! I wasn't in the nosebleeds but I was completely opposite the stage and everyone around me was having a great time and totally engaged with the show.

I remember even stopping to look around during the "Paaartaay" chant in 1999 and thinking to myself how great it was that everybody was putting their hands up and chanting along.

Plus, he was working those highlights and flared-bottom slacks, and looking about as hot as he oughta should.

This was my first Prince concert and I was highly disappointed with all the medley stuff but it's a very personal experience for me as I took my sister for her 16th brithday and we were both going crazy, medley or not