Music

Published: Apr 26, 2004
Modified: Apr 26, 2004 1:35 AM

Prince's Purple Reign

By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer
The News &Observer

RALEIGH -- Spinning across the stage at the RBC Center, Prince brought his band to an abrupt halt with a slashing gesture. It was only the first song, but he already had a question. "Raleigh," he asked slyly, "did y'all miss me or what?"

The nearly full house answered with a delirious, deafening sound of affirmation -- the word "roar" just can't do it justice. Satisfied, Prince restarted the band, and off we went on a two-hour ride that exhausted and satisfied everyone in the building. Prince's current "Musicology" trek might be the most-hyped tour on the road right now, but Friday night's show more than matched its advance buildup.

Imagine running into an old friend you haven't seen in so long you don't even remember that you miss him, and he manages to make you laugh and cry in the first five minutes. It was like that. Or imagine going back in time to watch James Brown in his prime, or Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the 1927 Yankees. It was like that, too, a genius and his group at the absolute top of their game. Most artists are pretty much done by the time they get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Prince got in last month, and he sounded like he's just getting started.


Calling his tour and album "Musicology" implies an educational bent, and Friday's set made a convincing case for the importance of Prince's place in the music world. The set list consisted of sprawling medleys of Prince songs interspersed with snippets of other songs, including current hits from direct descendants OutKast and Beyonce Knowles plus vintage covers. Prince danced, preened and played up a storm, with just the right amount of playful humor. During a mid-show acoustic interlude, he started playing Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" and abruptly stopped.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he smirked. "Thought I was The King there for a sec."

The first 45 minutes were almost too overwhelming, one peak after another at a pace that was impossible to maintain. The show commenced with a video montage of Prince over the past 25 years, with Alicia Keys' Hall of Fame induction speech serving as narration. Then Prince rose up from beneath the stage, looking sharp in a white fringed suit and singing from a gold-plated microphone. "Purple Rain"-vintage hits dominated the early going, including "Let's Go Crazy" (with confetti raining down from above, less than 10 minutes into the show), "I Would Die 4 U" and "When Doves Cry."

Prince's current version of the New Power Generation is an astonishingly tight ensemble, and he conducted it with his customary precision. The horn section included saxophonist Candy Dulfer (his main distaff foil throughout the show) and Kinston native Maceo Parker, who held forth with a lovely instrumental version of the Louis Armstrong chestnut "What a Wonderful World" during Prince's first costume change. Hefty keyboardist Chaz Howard also contributed a great lead vocal to the Sam &Dave classic "Soul Man."

The real show-stopper was a four-song solo acoustic set, with lots of audience participation on "Little Red Corvette" and "Raspberry Beret." Audience participation also dominated "U Got the Look," in the form of a dozen audience members brought onstage to dance.

Things flagged a bit during the second hour, when the crowd started to get antsy about some of the hits he wasn't playing ("1999," "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" were among the missing). But the energy level was back up for the closing "Take Me With U" and a three-song encore that closed with an otherworldly 10-minute version of "Purple Rain."

It was great to have Prince back -- and hard to imagine how the mainstream did without him for so long.