Me and Lisa went to London August 3rd and saw Prince play live at the O2 Arena in North Greenwich, London, in his second of 21 performances almost completely FULL (16 of them are sold out).
You must be wondering why the hell we did it, besides everyone knowing I'm a big fan, but the fact that Prince was in the Montreaux Jazz Festival a couple of weeks before and the chepaest ticket on the black market was nearly 200 euros, made us feel a bit frustrated.
It was then I got an e-mail from the former NPG Music Club - now rebaptized 3121 Connection - offering extra tickets available for fans only, at the price of 31.21£...me and Lisa looked at each other and - with the help of Easyjet - we got the tickets and the flight to London at a much cheaper price than 200 euros per person!
There he was, the coolest ever genious artist/composer/dancer/guitarist/pianist/drummer in the world, in a full 20.000 arena, starting the jams with Satisfied, Cream and U Got the Look, just for starters. Then, I remember listening to I feel 4 U, Lolita, Musicology, Joy in Repetition, Controversy, Black Sweat, Kiss, the inevitable Purple Rain, Let's go crazy (encore), Take me with U and Guitar (encore). He also did some covers by other artists and Maceo Parker did a fantastic saxophone solo of "What a Wonderful world" (Louis Armstrong).
I could go on and dissertate here about Prince's career and the fact that he agreed to distribute his new Planet Earth album on a british newspaper, which reached 3 million copies sold (and for which he was payed a reported half-a-million dollars). Prince has done a lot of revolutionary things in terms of exposing the lucrative record-label business and the lack of interest of this business in music itself, and this explains his relative absence from the mainstream public in the last years. He started his own label and distributed most of his music either through independent labels or the internet. It was only last year, with 3121 (Universal) and now Planet Earth (Sony BMG), that he returned to the classical distribution system. However, it was not the system that helped him become popular again, but a series of performances on TV (Brits Awards, MTV, Alma, Grammy Awards - where he performed a fantastic duet with Beyoncé) that made everyone cry for more.
I was finally able to explain to Lisa why I have all of Prince's records (more than 25) and still wait for a new album every year, with the same excitement. He rules!
I told her I was able to chat with members of Prince's band at aftershows in 1993 (Tony M.) and 1998 (Mr. Hayes) and had the time of my life seeing a complete instrumental aftershow in Lux, Lisbon, where the house almost came down with so much funk. I later saw Prince live in Stockholm 2002 with the Rainbow Children Tour (for me, the best of the 4 times I've seen him live, more in terms of music than in terms of show).
If you can, go to one of his concerts, wherever he'll play, he's unbeatable!
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