Last night's Prince aftershow

[bouche]

Prince just played 2 shows in L.A. and performed an aftershow subsequent to each.

Last night, he played a full on jamfest for his aftershow, and managed to pull a STAGE Dive.

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Thank u get wild for sharing.

"House of Purple" review - Aftershow 6/5/04

You know, I was explaining to a first-time Prince concert-goer before the Late Saturday night Prince show at the House of Blues on Sunset that with a club show like that, you never know what you're gonna get...he could play

the most awesome show ever filled with random, jazzy versions of your favorite songs, or he could essentially sing the phone book. And I think for most of the show, the set was somewhere in between.

To me, from the second Prince appeared on stage and moved the microphone from the center of the stage to the side, where it was for most of the night, it was pretty clear that he didn't feel much like singing, and that

the show was going to be mostly a jam. And being a veteran of countless Prince shows, I was right...he didn't hardly sing at all last night, but instead played some fierce guitar, and showcased his amazing band (and guest

stars Sheila E. and Wendy Melvoin).

After waiting towards the front of the stage with some generally coolfans, it was really hot before Prince ever got on stage. At 1:30, the curtains opened and we got to watch the sound engineers do the soundcheck, this time

without Prince on stage as he had been at the Thursday night show.

For the show, I noticed that they had an alarm clock on the side of the stage with the time displayed really big, so that the band could know what time it was, and at exactly 2am on that clock, John Blackwell started the show with a blistering drum solo which became a 20-minute instrumental

version of "The Rainbow Children," allowing everyone in the band other than Prince, who did not appear on stage until the second song, to have at least 2 solos.

Here was the setlist of the show:

- Blackwell Drum Solo

- Rainbow Children (instrumental)

- Whole Lotta Love

- More Bounce to the Ounce - California Love long funk jam

- All the Critics Love u in LA (instrumental loose jam)

- Bambi (instrumental)

- Villanova Junction

- Down by the Riverside

- Shake everything you got (maceo parker on vocals)

- Girls and Boys

Encore

- It ain't over chant / Peach

- Alphabet St

- Houseparty

Through the first part of the show, the only song that featured vocals was Whole Lotta Love, which basically Prince sang one verse of and jammed on guitar on a slower version of the song than he has been playing in concert

lately.

For the next song, saxophone player Mike Phillips used his vocoder to start with the chorus to "More Bounce to the Ounce", as guest Sheila E. came out, this time with a rhythm guitar while Prince danced around on stage. Prince

kept talking to band members during the show, appearing to tell them what to do next. He was in a very loose mood, laughing with most of the members in the band and even doing a stage dive into the audience...the first time I

can recall ever seeing him do that. The jam turned into a really long, nearly 20 minute California Love long funk jam, as Wendy Melvoin came out to guest on guitar for awhile. The audience went crazy when Wendy came out on

stage. Other than the Tavis Smiley TV appearance, to my knowledge this is the first time that Prince and Wendy appeared on stage together since 1988.

Sheila and Wendy stayed on stage for the next few songs, which were areally loose jam which included parts of All the Critics Love u in LA, and during the song Sheila replaced John Blackwell on drums. And after this song,

Wendy and Sheila went backstage for a few songs before coming back out later.

Next was an instrumental version of Bambi, which Prince extended the end guitar solo of the song, before going into a drawn-out instrumental cover of Jimi Hendrix's Villanova Junction, which I've never heard Prince play before.

A short pause, as Prince walked around to band members and told them their next song would be Down by the Riverside, which featured more solos by everyone in the band, and was much longer than the version of the song he played at either of the other LA House of Blues shows earlier this

year or at the Fillmore. At one point during the song, Prince acknowledged how hot it was in the club by saying that "I know it's hot, but I don't care. We're

hot too!"

Sheila and Wendy came back on stage for a really long chant of James Brown's Shake everything you got, featuring maceo parker on vocals (with the shades he was wearing, it appeared that he was doing his best Ray Charles

impersonation), before the "crown jewel" of the show, a long, different-sounding 10+ minute version of Girls and Boys, featuring background vocals by Wendy and Sheila E. Sad that this is a highlight, but Prince actually sang the lyric "she had the cutest ass I'd ever seen" Unfortunately, this was really only the second time of the night that

Prince sang, through nearly 90 minutes, but I digress. Sheila, still playing rhythm guitar, put it down for a little bit during the song to "play" the water bottle as she did during Thursday night's show. And with that,

the regular set ended.

Several minutes later, the band came back with a long instrumental intro to Peach, complete with the "it ain't over" chant which sounded similar to the version they did on the "it ain't over" cd, before Prince sang the first

couple of verses to the song. Next came a couple of verses to an incredibly funky version of Alphabet St., and ended with Sheila and Wendy on stage on Houseparty, which featured vocals by Maceo Parker. At one point during the

encore, Prince was showing Sheila how to hold the guitar, giving her a makeshift funk lesson from behind the keyboard section. And it must have worked, as Sheila was playing so hard during the encore that a string from

the guitar broke! And with that, the show ended close to 4am.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time at the show, and was really happy to have gone. However I think the show would have ranked higher on my list of shows I've seen had Prince been singing.

The only celebrity sightings, other than Sheila and Wendy, at the show was Shermar Moore.

After the show, Prince held court on the back patio of the House of Blues, hanging out and talking with band members for quite awhile.

Tune in next hit (or aftershow in Los Angeles)...

-Alan