May 3.1994 Stars & Bars
Monte Carlo, Monaco

1.The Ride
2.Come
3.Endorphine Machine
4.Space
5.Interactive
6.Days Of Wild
7.Now (Gold album)
8.Ackowledge Me
9.Dark
10.Glam Slam Boogie
11.Race
12.The Jam
13.Believe In You
14.I'm In The Mood
15.Peach

& The New Power Generation

Mayte Garcia ( dancer)
Sonny Thompson (bass)
Morris Hayes ( key)
Tommy Barbarella ( key)
Michael Bland (drums)

Pleased to meet you... Hope you've guessed my name. For the first time since God alone knows when, the artist formerly known as Prince talks exclusively and extensively about identity, insecurity, George Michael, Nelson Mandela, ballet, boogie, opera, orgasm, freedom and the future. "I follow the advice of my spirit," he tells Adrian Deevoy.

His name is not Prince. And he is not funky. His name is Albert. And he is lurching across the dancefloor in search of accommodating company. Slightly balding and chunkier than he looks in photographs, he moors behind a gyrating female and clumsily interfaces.

Up on the stage another man whose name is not Prince says, "This is dedicated to Prince Albert, the funkiest man in Monaco." It's a wonder he can get the words out with his tongue buried so deep in his cheek. Prince Albert beams and grinds arhythmically on. Prince laughs, throws a swift shape and stops the funk on the one. It's his party and he'll lie if he wants to.

One hundred and twenty people have been invited to the Stars &alt; Bars club in Monte Carlo for this most exclusive of celebrations. The champagne is free, the spirits are freer and the house band is possibly the best live act on the planet. You probably remember them as Prince And The New Power Generation. They're still the NPG but he's not Prince any more. He is 0{+> (to give him his full title). Sir Hieroglyphicford for short.

Ursula Andress is at the bar, sipping sensually at a flute of champagne. A few generations and a couple of yards along, Claudia Shiffer is doing likewise. It's that sort of a do. Everyone is wearing impossibly shiny shoes and gold epaulettes. If God weren't resting his suave old soul, you'd expect David Niven to walk in with Peter Wyngarde on his arm. Without trying too hard, you can imagine Fellini standing in the corner saying, "Christ, this is weird!" Quit what the gnarled jet-setters are making of the music programme is anyone's guess. At 1.15am the Barry Manilow tape was exchanged for a stripped down five-piece (and non- stop disco dancer Mayte - pronounced My Tie - Garcia) who have just embarked upon the most daunting funk experience of a lifetime. A knot of maybe 15 perfumed debs cluster around the lip of the stage. Naturally you join them and find yourself standing so close to the Artist Formerly Known As Prince (AFKAP to use the diminutive) that you can hear him singing unamplified behind his microphone.

The Day Before

PROLOGUE
Monte Carlo
May 2, 1994

"So how can we do an interview that's not like an interview?" asks 0{+> as he spoons a dollop of jam into his tea. We're sitting in the Cote Jardin restaurant in Monte Carlo's historic Hotel de Paris, overlooking a small garden that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. He is here to accept an award for Outstanding Contribution to the Pop Industry at the 1994 World Music Awards. I am here at his request, the final step in a full year of putting together his first lengthy conversation with a journalist since 1990.

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Those 12 months have been an especially remarkable time for 0{+> whom some call "the artist formerly known as Prince," or any number of variations on that theme; others, of course, will always call him Prince, much to his dismay. The year has included--in addition to the controversial name-change that signaled the "retirement" of one of this era's biggest pop stars and the songs that made him famous--a sales slump and the closing of his Paisley Park Records label. He went through four publicity firms in nine months. But this run of hard times was quickly followed by a triumphant rise with the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," his biggest hit in several years. And at the end of this particular peculiar period, 0{+> has emerged with some of the best music he's ever made--though whether the world will ever be able to hear it is another question, in the hands of managers and lawyers and Warner Bros. Records as they negotiate how or if all this music will be released.

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Which, perhaps, is why he feels that now is the time to talk after a long silence. It seems to be part of a campaign to generally increase his visibility by appearing at events like the World Music Awards, for instance--exactly the kind of thing the reclusive Prince of old would have avoided like the plague. Or to introduce three new songs on Soul Train or publish a book--titled The Sacrifice of Victor--of photos from his last European tour that presents him much more up close and personal than he has been shown in the past.

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Meanwhile, he continues to move forward, exploring new, alternative outlets for his music, like an innovative CD-ROM extravaganza, 0{+> Interactive, that incorporates dozens of songs into a kind of video game/video jukebox--or the Joffrey Ballet's wildly successful Billboards, set to his music, which may lead to his writing a full-length ballet score soon. And through it all, he has kept writing and recording new songs--or "experiences," as he now likes to call them--and struggling to find a way to get as many of them as possible released to the public.

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"I just want to be all that I can be," 0{+> says in his dressing room at the Monte Carlo Sporting Club, site of the World Music Awards. "Bo Jackson can play baseball and football--can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can? If they let me loose, I can wreck shit."

The Day Before

PROLOGUE
Monte Carlo
May 2, 1994

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SCENE III

At the Monte Carlo Sporting Club, 0{+> is checking out the set for his performance at the Awards. The backdrop is a big, silver, fuzzy 0{+> symbol. "They got my name looking like a float," he whispers, more amused than annoyed.

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But then, if your tolerance for tackiness is low, the World Music Awards is no place to be. The nominal point here is to honor the world's best-selling artists by country or region, plus some lifetime-achievement types. The presenters and hosts--the most random aggregate of celebrities imaginable--seem to have been chosen based on who would accept a free trip to Monaco. Ursula Andress? Kylie Minogue? And in clear violation of some Geneva convention limit on cheesiness, Fabio and David Copperfield are both here to present awards.

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Honorees include Ace of Base, smooth-sounding Japanese R&B crooners Chage & Aska, Kenny G (who annoys everyone backstage by wandering around tootling on that damn sax), and six-year-old French sensation Jordy (who runs offstage and kisses Prince Albert in mid-performance, which somehow does not create an international scandal). Whitney Houston wins her usual barrelful of trophies, and the whole thing is almost worth it to hear Ray Charles sit alone at the piano and sing "Till There Was You." 0{+> sits patiently through it all, not something he usually does (but again, this is royalty, you know). Before receiving his award from Placido Domingo (!), he puts as much as he can into "Beautiful Girl," though the show is making him do something he hates: lip-synch.

"It's cheating!" he says backstage, adding slyly, "Lip-synchers, you know who you are. See, if I would lip-synch, I'd be doing backflips, hanging from the rafters, but to cheat and be tiredä" I ask if he thinks people feel too much pressure to live up to the production quality of their videos.

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"Concerts are concerts and videos are videos. But I'm guilty of it myself, so that's going to change.

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"Concerts, that whole thing is old, anyway. To go and wait and the lights go down and then you scream, that's played. Sound check is for lazy people; I want to open the doors earlier, let people hang out. Make it more like a fair." In his room, he has a videotape of the stage set he's having built for the next tour--a huge, sprawling thing, something like an arena-size tree house.

But still, the first thing 0{+> does when he finishes "Beautiful Girl" at the Awards is ask for a videotape, wondering how one dance step looked, concerned that he has reversed two words and rendered the lip-synch imperfect. Even here, he is simply incapable of just walking through it.

And that's what it always comes back to. There is only the music. Look at him, putting more into a sound check than most performers put into their biggest shows. Laugh at his ideas, his clothes, his name. But look at what he is doing: He's 15 years into this career, a time when most stars are kicking back, going through the motions. But he is still rethinking the rules of performance, the idea of how music is released, the basic concepts about how we consume and listen to music, still challenging himself and his audience like an avant-garde artist, not a platinum-selling pop star. And we still haven't talked about his plans for simulcasts and listening booths in his Glam Slam clubs in Minneapolis, L.A., and Miami, or about the 1-800-NEW-FUNK collection of other artists he's working with for NPG Records, or his thoughts on music and on-line and CD-ROM systems, or the two new magazines he's started....

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Of course, from where it stands, Warner Bros.' objections to his ambitious (some would say foolish) plans make conventional business sense: Would the increase in new music, coming from so many media, create a glut and cut into the sales of all the releases? Is it financially feasible? But these kinds of questions seem to be the furthest thing from 0{+>'s mind. And okay, maybe the unpronounceable name is a little silly, and let's not forget--he retired from performances once before, back in 1985, and how long did that last? But there's no arguing with the effort, the seriousness, the intensity with which he is approaching this new era in his life.

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"There's no reason for me to be playing around now," says 0{+>, laughing. "Now we're just doing things for the funk of it."

Even though Prince was losing radio play and chart positioning to rap and grunge, this was a very active and really fun time for me as a fan. I can't say that the Come-Gold Years are my favorite, but there was so much activity and good work from 1994 - 1995, leading into Emancipation, which I also like a great deal, that this period reminded me of when I was a Prince fan before 1999 and he wasn't a mega superstar, and I just enjoyed the music and the message before the bandwagon jumpers. So, after Diamonds and Pearls, when many people were jumping off that bandwagon, it was cool enjoying and realizing that Prince was going to be a funky, rocking, soulful genius regardless of record sales or hype. So much was happening in the Prince world from 1994-1995 that I could care less about what was on radio or on the charts.

This era is one of may favorites. I remember seeing him at Glam Slam LA IN 6/94 after the VH1 HONORS. Stevie Wonder showed up led to the mike by Berry Gordy & they played "Maybe Your Baby". One of my all time favorite Princey moments, not too mention Mavis Staples "stagediving"..

In my top 3 gigs this one.

It ticks all the required boxes, a lengthy no holds barred performance with blinding guitar, audience particpation and some good humour.

Race & I'm in the mood being particular fav's, super show.

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[Edited 11/5/13 14:43pm]

[Edited 11/5/13 14:43pm]