On Saturday Owen and I made the schlepp out to Greenwich to see Prince at the O2 aka Millennium Dome. The last time I saw Mr. Nelson was nearly 5 years ago in the.. er... more intimate surroundings of Hammersmith for his ONE NITE ALONE shows.
Well compared to the O2 it's intimate.

I have just had an add-up and Saturday was my tenth time seeing Himself.

1986's PARADE tour - 1988's LOVESEXY tour - 1990's NUDE tour (x2) - 1992's DIAMONDS & PEARLS tour - 1993's ACT II tour (x2) - 1996's GOLD tour - 2002's ONE NITE ALONE. I also noticed the gaps between seeing him became longer, a reflection of his troubles with Warners obviously.

My days of being a rabid Prince fan have lapsed slightly. His erratic output has been troubling and even the acclaimed return to form MUSICOLOGY yielded only a number of memorable tracks but there really is no more spellbinding performer than Prince live.

After the obligatory Mexican-Wave-inducing delay we were treated to a laudatory video of bods such as Joni Mitchell, Wendy & Lisa, Pharrell Williams and Salma Hayak telling us about his genius which was nice but like... we know... that's why we're here. It was there to draw one's attention from the band's entrance into the auditorium towards the in-the-round stage shaped in the famous O(+> and in their midst a strange small-person-type box!

With a blaze of light there he was, and he launched into... PLANET EARTH, the opening track of his controversial new album. I had just about got worked up to a state of excitement through the various video clips shown during the opening film so felt a bit stymied by this meandering ballad. An obvious choice for the tour but not the best to get the audience from 0 to 100. It wasn't long before tho' until a slow deep voice boomed out "DON'T WORRY I WON'T HURT YOU..." and Bang! we were back into the late 20th Century fear of 1999 and normal service was resumed!!
As with Madonna it's usually the case of trying to forget what favourites were not included in the set and concentrate on what was played so here, as far as I can remember is what he played:
PLANET EARTH, 1999, GUITAR, SHHH (which showcased the excellent drumming of Cora Dunham), CREAM, MUSICOLOGY, U GOT THE LOOK, KISS, IF I WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND, BLACK SWEAT, a magnificent, emotional PURPLE RAIN, I FEEL 4 U, a great CONTROVERSY, NOTHING COMPARES 2 U. He also included cover versions of HONKY TONK WOMEN, THE LONG & WINDING ROAD (a song I always think I like till I have to sit through it) and CRAZY - the latter raunched out by his fierce backing singer Shelby J who also sang a lovely version of Nancy Wilson's FACE IT GIRL, IT'S OVER - which of course was the signal for half the audience to start talking and head off to the bar.

Sadly this activity marred Prince's solo spot at the keyboards too. He played through a medley of LITTLE RED CORVETTE, CONDITION OF THE HEART, DO ME BABY, DIAMONDS AND PEARLS, THE BEAUTIFUL ONES, HOW COME U DON'T CALL ME ANYMORE and SOMETIMES IN SNOWS IN APRIL.
As always he was non-stop... working the stage, working the audience, working the band who were drilled to his every hand gesture. A special shout-out to Maceo Parker, as always thrilling on the alto-sax. The show was a joy to watch as well, the stage bathed and awash in deep vibrant colour.

The night was a pleasure, the Hell getting home was not.

It took forever to get out of the O2, the punters funneled through the circumference of the place past the bars and restaurants - now why do you think that could be? We decided it would be nice to take the boat along to Waterloo as they were promoting it inside the arena: make full use of the river, boats leaving every 20 minutes etc etc - they didn't mention that the pathway to the jetty was under-lit with a tiny 20"x30" poster pointing the way or that the queue for tickets was about 30 minutes due to one slow sod in the ticket office. We shuffled closer to the window - thoughts of Prince ebbing away - to get within 2 people of the ticket office only to be told by the guard "You can pay on the boat mate"! Waterloo tube was closed by the time we docked so another lengthy wait for a taxi was in order. We walked through the door 2 hours 30 minutes after Prince left the stage!