prince review

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Average Ratings

Value for Money	10/10
Overall rating	10/10

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By 80smetal4ever on 17th Apr 2004

80smetal4ever's Ratings

Venue	Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh Pa
Year Of Performance	2004
Seen Before	No
Value for money	10/10
Overall value	10/10
80smetal4ever's recommendation

Good Points

This was a very good show. He played at least 20 songs, and the length of the concert was between 2 and 2.5 hours. His band was one of the best I have ever heard, they are all talented in their own right.

Bad Points

He wanted to play as many of his hits as he could, so he shortened many of the songs by a minute or two. This is not a "sounds just like the cd" type of concert. You will not hear the exact versions of his songs that you hear on the radio.

General Comments

I attended the Prince concert at Mellon Arena, in Pittsburgh, on Wednesday 4/14/04. There was once a time, that when you went to see national touring acts, it was truly a "rock n' roll show", not just a band playing their songs exactly the way you hear them on the radio. There were bands like Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and more recently Dave Matthews, who not only entertained audiences with their music, but with a full 100% creative effort, and also played longer than the standard 1.5 hours that seems to be the norm for a top act these days. This show by Prince tonight, was a magical experience.

He must have realized that he has so many hits, that he can't possibly play them all in one show. What he did, was shorten them by a few minutes each, to try and get in as many as he could. His band was incredible. They truly "brought the funk". He had two keyboardists, two saxophonists, a drummer, a bass player, a few guitar players, a trombone player, and probably others that I didn't see. One of his saxophonists was Candy Dulfer. She is the most talented, and most attractive female saxophonist in the world. I didn't realize that Prince gave her the first break here in the US, back in the day. She is from Holland, originally. The bass player was Wendy. I am not sure if she is the original Wendy from "Prince and the Revolution", as well as the movie "Purple Rain", but she was very good. I don't know who the other band members were, but they were all very talented!! There was about a 20 minute period during the concert, when the band members just jammed. I haven't heard horns like that in a very long time. It was truly amazing.

Here are a few of the songs that he played: I feel for you, Let's go crazy, I could never take the place o' your man, Nothing Compares 2 U, Sign O' the times, Diamonds and Pearls, Little Red Corvette, I would die 4 u, Kiss, U got the Look, Cream, and Purple Rain. The show was broken down into four parts. The first part was Prince and the entire band playing songs. By the way, he had red lights built into the heels of his stilleto boots, much like kids have in their sneakers these days. The second part was Prince solo, playing an acoustic guitar on a bar stool. The bar stool could spin 360 degrees, so he could sing to all parts of the arena. The third portion was the entire band back together, and they let about 10 girls from the audience come on stage to dance for about 3 songs. Whoever hand picked those girls, had very good taste. He actually let some of them sing portions of the songs. Well, you can imagine that is a "hit or miss" type of thing. One girl was very good, and didn't want to give the mic back to Prince. On the other hand, one girl, didn't even know the words to one of his most popular songs. That was SAD! The fourth portion of the show, was the encore.

The stage was set up "in the round", so it was exactly in the middle of the floor of the arena. It was a unique stage, in that it was set up as a plus sign(+), so that Prince could run back and forth and play to all areas of the crowd.

With Prince being such an enigma as a person and a singer, you forget how talented he is at playing the guitar. He must have used at least 5 guitars during the show. He had some moments, where he was giving Eddie Van Halen a run for his money. He was wailing on the instrument, and made great use of the "whammy bar". His guitar was screaming so loud during "Purple Rain", that it sounded like it was literally crying. Other great musical moments for the band included the two saxophonists taking turns trying to outdo one another - very impressive.

Something many people don't realize about Prince is that he has given songs to other artists to use, which have then become hits. "I Feel For You" was a hit for Chaka Khan. "When You Were Mine" was a hit by Cyndi Lauper. "Nothing Compares 2 U" was a hit for Sinead O'Connor.

The encore put on by Prince was absolutely stunning. I can't remember if it was 2 or 3 songs. The closer was "Purple Rain". He stretched that song into a 10 minute masterpiece. The lighting of the stage was all a brilliant shade of dark purple. He was at the top of his game both vocally, and on the guitar. The lighters were out in full force, and it was just like being back in high school, when I had heard it for the first time. In fact, Prince's "Sign of the Times" was the first double cd I ever purchased, and they were the 3rd and 4th cd I had ever owned.

The classic composers are all revered in our time: Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc. Prince is no less of a musical genius. His talent crosses so many fields: songwriting, instrument playing ability, sense of style, etc. The only songs I didn't hear that I wanted to were: "Raspberry Beret", "1999", and "Alphabet Street". I normally complain if an artist doesn't play enough of their popular songs, of if they don't give their audience a true effort. I will tell you this, Prince and his band are so good, if they just played music for 2 hours without any words, it would be worth the price of admission. Speaking of time, they really rocked out tonight, the total concert clocked in somewhere between 2 and 2.5 hours. Get out to see him if you can. There is talk that he may retire certain songs to never be played again live after this tour, which would truly be a shame.

Total Respect: +1