Prince - a tale of two concerts

I've been a huge Prince fan since I first heard "When Doves Cry" back in 1984 one Thursday night as I watched "Top Of The Pops" (it was one of the "Breakers", if you remember those) and have seen him six times since 1990. This weekend Lou took me to London to see him play two nights at the O2 (Millennium Dome). What follows are the two reviews I have posted on Housequake.com - Prince's main fan site.

Friday 3rd August

Thursday night I couldn't sleep because I was so excited about seeing Prince for the first time since 1995, especially after seeing the glowing reviews of the opening show. We travelled to London by train, checked into our fantastic hotel, and headed to the O2 by tube after a short wander along the Thames.

The O2 itself is a huge tent in case you haven't seen it before, and whereas from the outside it looks impressive the interior is extremely tacky - an avenue of incredibly busy bars and restaurants (top tip: eat before you go, and buy drinks & snacks once you've gone through the ticket checks) - partially still a cordoned-off building site, and if you look up the fabric of the dome is absolutely filthy. The arena itself is accessed by escalators and isn't particularly big in terms of floor space, so no matter where you are the stage seems close, but it is very high indeed. Our seats were on the back row of block 103, which was at about the 7 o'clock position on the symbol. Lots of people had cameras with them, or used cameras on their phones, but there were lots of messages displayed on the screens over the stage and on a kind of LED strip around the hall saying people taking photos would be ejected, and "this show is for your memories".

The show started at about 8.45 with the band playing a fast & funky "Down By The Riverside" which really got the place going, but then Prince came on and frankly killed it stone dead. "Satisfied" isn't a bad song, but it is absolutely 100% not an opening song. On top of this the sound was poor - Prince's vocals very low in the mix so you could barely hear what he was singing, the bass too loud, the keyboards too shrill and reedy. It took a long time for the sound to get better and by the end of the show it was only slightly improved. In addition, the lighting seemed not to be working too well - there were a lot of times when Prince went walkabout on the stage and the lights didn't follow him, so he was kind of lost in the darkness.

As far as the set was concerned it was a series of peaks and troughs. The peaks for me were "U Got The Look" (even though you couldn't hear Prince's vocals, the music sounded great - a good, heavy version of the song), "Purple Rain" (lots of people started to head to the bars when they heard another slow song, then turned and ran back to their seats when they realised what the song was), "Anotherloverholenyohead", "Joy In Repetiton", and, best of all, "Controversy", which was unbelievably good. As for the troughs, well, there were far too many cover versions, and it seemed like there were too many slow or "unknown" (to most of the audience) songs, so every time the momentum was built up it all fell apart again.

The show ended in disarray. After umpteen cries of "thank you - goodnight!" from Prince as he went down on his lift yet again the lights suddenly came on and there were loud - seriously loud - boos. After a few minutes we saw the band reentering from round the back of block F on the floor, followed by Prince being wheeled in on his box, and they started up again but with all the house lights on for a couple of minutes before the place was suddenly plunged back into darkness. A couple of songs later they all left the stage again, the lights came back on, and nobody knew what was happening. There was activity on the stage from some of the roadies but nothing seemed to happen, until a recorded voice boomed across the PA that the venue was closing and could we please make our way to the exits.

The worst thing about the show on Friday though was that Prince seemed completely disinterested, as though he was just going through the motions and didn't want to be there at all. I was bitterly, bitterly disappointed with the show myself and can honestly say that it was probably the worst concert I have seen so far this year, and certainly the worst show I have ever seen Prince play (it was the seventh Prince concert I'd seen since 1990). Some of my friends went along too, having a nightmare 9-hour drive from Manchester and only just arriving before the show started, and they rang me on their way home to say how bad they thought the show was. I was devastated, hearing my friends say the show had been poor, knowing in myself that it had been pretty bad, and feeling terrible as my girlfriend had bought me the tickets for my birthday. Worst of all, I knew I was going again the next day. Would Prince let me down again?

Overall rating from me for the Friday show: 4 out of 10. Really not impressed at all. Sorry, Prince.

Saturday 4th August

I woke on Saturday feeling terrible - slightly hung over, but mostly upset about how bad I'd thought the Friday night concert had been. Would Prince disappoint me again?

We had a great day in London, taking in all the sights, enjoying the fantastic weather (sunburn!) and having a lovely Greek meal before we went to the show. We also decided to take the Thames Clipper too, and although it was a fair old hike to get to it (Waterloo Pier, in front of the London Eye, which was a few miles walk from our hotel near the Tower of London) it was well worth it. The tube from our hotel was about £12 for the two of us on Friday and was cramped, stuffy, and not very pleasant, whereas the boat took about the same amount of time, was airy, you had a cracking view of London, and cost £18 for the two of us. Well worth it. Top tip: don't go by tube, "get on the boat"!

I was very hesitant on the way in, muttering "please be good, please be good" as I looked at the tickets and my now fifth and sixth copies of "Planet Earth", and we made our way to our seats in block 106. This block is right at the point of the symbol and our seats on row F (seats 199 and 200 - hello to anyone who was around us) were in a brilliant spot.

Anyway, the lights went down and unlike Friday the screens showed the clips from Sonny T, Michael B, Wendy & Lisa, Joni Mitchell and Beyonce etc. from the hall of fame induction, and then the keyboards struck up the opening chord of "Let's Go Crazy". Everyone was on their feet - THIS is an opening, not "Satisfied"! Right from the start Prince was on fire, playing his guitar non-stop for the first 50-55 minutes, dancing far more than Friday, and the set was so tight and brilliantly paced. "Do you want a slow jam or do you wanna keep dancing?" he asked. "KEEP DANCING!" everyone screamed. "Me too," he smiled, and launched into another funky track. "Controversy" was again the song of the night for me, and I enjoyed it so much that I kicked our drink over and ended up dancing by seat 196 so I'd danced my way down the row (apologies to the lady next to me if she's reading this!)

The sound was great on Saturday, as was the lighting. The only thing that was missing was the confetti during "Lolita" (still not a song I'm that keen on - seems like it was written in five minutes as a throwaway). Prince was absolutely on fire though, playing his guitar almost all night, dancing like it was 1986 again, and the set list was just perfect. After the main set had finished and the lights came on, we waited to see if there was an encore and after a very short break (a couple of minutes?) the lights went out and we could hear an electric guitar being strummed, and a single spotlight picked Prince out on his own on the stage. The encore was just wonderful - solo, almost acoustic versions of "Little Red Corvette", "Raspberry Beret", and "Sometimes It Snows In April" (joined by Renato for this one). After this, "Crazy" popped up again (still wish he wouldn't do so many covers - he doesn't need them!) followed by a fantastic "Nothing Compares 2 U", and that was it - it was over, and after the disaster that was Friday Prince had truly redeemed himself to me.

So, not quite the best concert I've seen this year - Muse at Wembley still holds that title - but the best I've ever seen Prince play, either on stage with my own eyes or on video or DVD.

Any regrets? Just one. I'm not going again during this 21 night stay. I'd absolutely love to, but it is pretty hard to get tickets now, and I'd be scared I'd get another repeat of Friday. Last night though, well, it was perfect. 10 out of 10.