Prince at the DNA Lounge- late show, Wednesday night April 24

Prince and 3rd Eye Girl in Vancouver. The lights for the DNA show were set up differently, but the vibe is similar.

The word from the Swede, who had gone to the previous night's late show, was that is was guitar-heavy rock and roll, with almost nothing he recognized during the first hour, but with which the mostly younger audience seemed well-versed. He said he wanted to get in line for the next night's show at 8:30. Having worked all day at my day job (people are constantly surprised I have one- as if this  beast somehow paid my bills) I needed a wee bit of downtime before meeting up with him.

Sometime around 9:30 I found him near the front of the line, and once I had made friends with the folks around us he ditched me to get a half-pint of Makers. Returning, he opened the bottle and took these little itsy-bitsy swigs, then took out a pack of blue American Spirits, lit one, and then gave one out to everyone standing behind us. I was the only one not smoking and not drinking and I taught this fucker the pleasures of both bourbon and cigarettes and there was something about this entire situation that was just incredibly wrong.

The line to get into the 800 capacity club was incredibly long, snaking all the way down the block. I had no idea how all those people were going to get inside, but I also didn't really care because we were pretty close to the front of the line. I know I mentioned that already. I know I'm gloating. So?

Soon the line began to move and I noticed a half-pint of Beam, more than 3/4 full, sitting on the sidewalk, discarded next to the bus stop. It looked so sad there. I knew the Swede's Makers was going to soon join it and even though I gave up booze over a year ago, I still hate to see it go to waste. Fucking amateurs, just leaving it there on the sidewalk for the bums. Pros like me had soft-sided flasks. That's comme il faut.

We got inside and staked out a spot about 15 feet from the microphone placed center stage. A voice came on the PA and said anyone taking pictures with their phone would be removed from the audience. The Swede said they weren't joking about this, since he saw them give people the boot the night before, but as it turns out I did see a couple of people who thought this didn't apply to them turn out to be right.

When these shows were announced, along with their hefty prices, I took umbrage to a comment I saw on a friend's Facebook that the audience would be full of "douches" because obviously who else could afford such tickets. This ended up becoming an online debate between us as I stuck up for my peers, who had just been called douches by some 30-something slacker/hipster, and though the crowd was for the most part quite nicely appreciative, enthusiastic, knowing and behaved, I did have the distinct misfortune of standing next to two of the most obnoxious assholes I've encountered in a very long time, one of whom felt the need to tell everyone within earshot that Slash is the worst guitar player ever and Jeff Beck is the best. Repeatedly. 300 fucking times. Okay, maybe only six times before I looked at him with an annoyed look and asked him to shut up. What an asshole. Only creepy douches walk around telling people Jeff beck is the world's greatest living guitar player. What an asinine thing to say. Jeff Beck isn't even in the top ten. Everyone knows that. Try humming a Jeff beck solo from after 1971. See? Idiot. Jeff Beck. Jesus. Dumbshit. Then there was his pal, who was just a creep, trying to manipulate this young guy who was there with his girlfriend, saying he shouldn't let her out of his site because someone might give her a roofie. He seemed like just the type of Humbert Humbert wannabe scumbag who would do such a thing. He really creeped me out. Meanwhile, however, the young guy's girlfriend, who was also Swedish (but raised here), felt it incumbent to keep pressing her large breasts forcefully into my back and arms and resting them there. As if I should know them. And I wanted to. Douches aside, so far the show was great and Prince wasn't due onstage for at least half an hour.

The lights went down at 11:35, the crowd went crazy, and Prince and the three women who comprise 3rd Eye Girl walked onstage and accommodated us with a slowed-down, grungy blues version of "Let's Go Crazy" and I immediately wished I had brought some ear plugs, as I could feel every hair on my body rise and begin to move like underwater plants. It was incredibly loud, to the point of painful, but it also felt good and soon my ears adjusted to the volume.

Now let me state this without reservation: 3rd Eye Girl- Donna Grantis, guitar, Ida Nielsen, bass, Hannah Ford, drums- is the perfect back-up band for Prince when he's in a rock and roll mood, and that's exactly what this tour is about. . While Grantis gets to trade licks with Prince, it's really Ford's drumming, and her never-ceasing exuberant smile, which propels the band and makes this foursome rock solid. It's also a seamlessly tight band, but the audience expects that from Prince at this point.

At the age of 54, he's just starting to show signs of aging (it's almost imperceptible, but you can see it in his skin and in his body movements if you look closely and pay attention) but musically the man is still in his prime and obviously going strong. Of course it helps to have a body of work like his, which he made plain to the crowd when he taunted "Do you know how many damn hits I have?" in the middle of a medley of some of the bigger ones later in the hour and forty-five minute show. But the new material- guitar oriented, hard driving, muscularly beat out with slashing chords and a stomping beat, sounds hot, and the band played both the new and the old with equal fervor. Still, the funk was there. During "Housequake"(my favorite of the night if only because I didn't expect it), Prince commanded "Everybody jump up and down!" and we did,  to the funky beat, and it was good. It was fantastic. It was like 1987 because for some reason Prince decided to play more songs off of Sign O' the Times than any other album, and who would have expected that?

If you didn't already know Prince was one of the greatest guitarists of all time, then this band and these shows may not be for you. For those that do know, and that's a lot of folks, it doesn't get much better than this. Loud, raucous and funky- this band kicks ass, and with the electric lights pulsing behind them, the music cranked, the women shredding and smiling,  it's like they're the house band in a Tarantino remake of Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! 

The set list, as I could recall it the next afternoon...

Let's Go Crazy
Let's Work
You Got the Look
Endorphine Machine
I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
Screwdriver
Bambi
Guitar
Purple Rain
Adore
She's Always in My Hair
I Like It There
FixUrLifeUp
Boom Stratus
Sign O the Times
Hot Thing
Housequake
I Would Die 4 U
When Doves Cry
A Love Bizarre
Alphabet Street
Fragments of Nasty Girl/Single Ladies
Pop Life

Let us bleed: the high price of concert tickets

Of course it's only rock and roll...

After reading comments on his Facebook page about the high prices of tickets to the upcoming Prince DNA shows and Stones concerts, I challenged my friend and fellow-blogger Gordon Elgart, who is Editor-in-Chief of the website Spinning Platters, to a debate on the subject. He believes acts like the Stones and Prince are sticking it to their fans with these high-priced concerts, and worse, that younger music fans lose out when prices get to the level where they are obtainable only by people with large amounts of disposable income. I disagree with him.

You can read our exchange here.


but I still like it. Yes I do.

The Best of a Beast: 2011

In compiling this year's "best of" list I knew two things before I even began:  Prince would get the top spot and there would be very little opera on it. Part of the reason for the latter is because I didn't travel to L.A. or New York this year (though there was much I would have liked to see in both cities), and the other is locally it wasn't a good year. San Francisco Opera's Ring Cycle had some great moments, but overall, director Francesca Zambello's production failed to leave a lasting impact after the thrill wore off of having a Ring Cycle in town. Regrettably, I missed SFO's Xerxes, which was their only other production to get solid reviews and word of mouth. Half of SFO's fall offerings were so uninspiring I didn't even bother to attend them and those I did were severely flawed. However, I really enjoyed Merola's Barber.

The void left by the lack of good opera created a list dominated by contemporary performance pieces and recitals. Two shows, The Tempest: Without a Body and Necessary Monsters, were presented by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA). The organization is dedicated to presenting the work of living artists and they consistently deliver challenging and provocative programs. It's become an increasingly important source of culture for me this past year. I'd also like to acknowledge the success of the San Francisco Symphony's Centennial Season programs, both onstage and within the community- this is truly a special year for the organization and their hard work is paying off handsomely.

As has been the case in the previous two years, it was difficult to narrow it down to ten-  in the end I cheated.

The ranking is in order, starting with the best:

1. Prince
Prince played three wildly different shows, each with a unique set list.  More impressively, he struck a completely different tone as a performer every night- on the first he was a sexy crooner, the following evening he was the funkmeister, and finally, in the last show (my favorite) he was a blazing guitar god for over three hours. I've never been more impressed with a musician. Prince is a genius, and in his prime as a performer.

2. The Tempest: Without a Body
Eight months later this performance by Lemi Ponifasio's MAU company, it still frequents my consciousness. It was dark, disturbing and unforgettable and I don't think I could stand to see it again. Still, I would if given the chance, because I've never seen anything else that moved me in quite the same way.


3.  Orphée
Ensemble Parallèle proved again that an opera company doesn't need tremendous financial resources to put on a great production- just talent and imagination. It's been years since San Francisco Opera did something this well. Get ready for their production of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby in February.

4. Necessary Monsters
Like The Tempest: Without a Body, Carla Kihlstedt's work also left a lingering impression long afterward. An enchanting work-in-progress that will make you think about the Necessary Monsters in your own life, see it if you have the chance.

5.  The San Francisco Symphony's Mahler's 3rd
San Francisco Symphony's Centennial Season has had numerous highlights so far, but this exquisite performance was truly spectacular.

6. Yefim Bronfman
Bronfman turned in another brilliant performance this year, made all the more heroic because he didn't let on that he had seriously injured two of his fingers during it.

7. Jonas Kaufmann
He came and conquered the audience with an extremely generous performance. Never have I heard German sung with such eloquence and beauty.

8. Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Hvorostovsky's recital was an early highlight of the year. He's never sounded better and the material he chose was perfect. The encore was thrilling.

9. Goran Bregovic and his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra
The most fun I had at a show all year, maybe ever- and on top of that, these folks can play.

10. tie: Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester, Alexander Melnikov, &  The Robert Glasper Experiment
Initially I was going to make this year's list a dozen so that I could include all three of these performances. Let's just call it a three-way tie instead because at one point each one occupied the tenth slot.

Honorable mentions are due to The Wild Bride, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Elizabeth Rowe, Jay Hunter Morris, The St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Keith Jarret Trio,  YoYo Ma & the SFS, and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, which has been consistently spectacular over the past year.

Prince returns to the Bay Area next week...

May 18th... Fresno (okay, not really the Bay Area, but not really anywhere else, either)
May 19th & 21st... San Jose

Tickets on sale tomorrow, 05/14 @ noon.

That Saturday performance would be the one I'd want to see, after all, that is the night of Judgement Day, and who better to spend it with?

The Oakland concerts were fantastic- if you missed them, here's your chance.

Prince in Oakland

Prince came to Oakland for three nights and though I didn't plan on it, I ended up going to every show. When he announced this tour Prince said every night was going to be different. That proved truer than I would have ever expected. While it's true no two concerts or performances are ever alike, the Purple One gave this maxim an unprecedented spin.

The first night Prince was in kind of a Teddy Pendergrass mode. It was essentially an updated version of TP's "For Ladies Only" concerts back in the 70's. He had his guitar over his shoulder for half the concert at best and seemed more interested in preening and teasing than playing it. The first show had some great parts- Santana coming out to burn it up on "Soul Sacrifice," gorgeous renditions of  "Purple Rain" and "Adore," and finally some scorching Hendrix-flavored guitar during "Dreamer," but it wasn't enough to make me forget how awesome he was back in 2004 when the Musicology tour hit town and blew everyone away. This show was what I expected back then, and since he raised the bar so high the last time, while the first night was good, very good at times, I wouldn't say it was great. I have more about the first night here.

As I approached the arena on the second night (Wednesday) a woman was looking for a ticket and I almost sold mine to her. I wasn't very hopeful the second show was going to be much better than the first, and I almost didn't go at all. But I decided I really didn't want to waste the money and I knew the setlist would be different so my curiosity won the day. I skipped the opening set by Graham Central Station this time around completely, arriving at the arena at about 8:45 and I settled into my seat just as they were ending their set.

At 9:15, just like on Monday, the lights went down and I soon sensed this was going to be a far different show. Opening with "Let's Go Crazy," Prince started off with four songs from 1999. There was a keyboard player way off to the side of the arena I hadn't even noticed on Monday and when Prince called him "Mr. Hayes" I thought "wow- Isaac Hayes is playing with him tonight!" I was really looking forward to hearing Prince do the "Theme from 'Shaft'" for the next hour or so until I remembered Hayes died a couple of years back. I have no idea who this Mr. Hayes was, but he did resemble the dead one (at least while he was alive) and musically he injected some serious funk that was missing from Monday's set, especially on "Kiss" which received a harder treatment, including the extended part from the 12" single version, and "Controversy"- done in a raunchy, crunchy "Batdance" way.

The 1999 songs had already put this show on a far different footing than the first night, but as Prince began chanting "People call me rude- I wish we all were nude..." (absent in the version from Monday's show) it hit overdrive and never turned back. Prince picked up a bass for the next song and soon was leading the New Power Generation through cover versions of Chic's "Le Freak," the Ohio Players "Love Roller Coaster," and Wild Cherry's "Play that Funky Music." And the funk just went on and on.

More than an hour later, he closed the show with The Time's "Jungle Love." I walked out of the arena feeling like I had just seen a show by a completely different performer than the one I'd seen Monday. I called Fetkuk to see if he wanted to play hookey from work so we could catch the next night's show. I was kind of bummed he'd seen Monday night's version instead of this one and now I was hyped to see what came next. He thought about it and then declined, but when I got home at around 1 in the morning I went online bought two tickets anyway, hoping the Femme Fatale would go with me.

The Femme was sick and irritable so I found myself looking for someone else to go with. It turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. After asking four people, the Minister's Rebellious Daughter texted me back after initially declining and wrote "What am I thinking? YES- if you still have the ticket."

I tried to dissuade her from seeing Graham Central Station but she was having none of it, so we met at the arena at 7:30. There were noticeably fewer people coming to this show and though I bought tickets for the same price for Monday's show, these were in the lower level and much better seats. In fact they were great seats. The first two shows were filled to the rafters all the way around the arena and completely sold-out. On Thursday night sides of the upper section were curtained-off and it was obvious two days notice wasn't enough to fill the hall, despite the online buzz about the previous night's set.

If you've read this blog for awhile, you may recall the Rebellious one and I go back a bit and we have some traditions, mostly centered around drinking copious amounts of liquor and going to the theater- usually in that order, though not always. As we stood in line for our second round of doubles (it was way past the starting time for Graham Central Station based on the previous nights) we ran into Anne Enigma- the only person I have a longer history with in the Bay Area than the Rebellious one. Introducing them to one another, I was suddenly acutely aware of how long I've lived here- the Rebellious one was a teenager when we met and Anne was a bit of a wild woman when she hit on me at the Holy Cow almost 20 years ago. Now Anne's married and has two kids and the Rebellious one runs her own successful business.

We were still in line for more booze when the lights went down at 8:30 and I thought this was going to be a long night if it was just getting started. But it wasn't Graham Central Station onstage, it was Prince, alone with his guitar, playing "The Love We Make." It was the first sign this show was going to be something altogether different than the other two.

For the next three hours Prince hardly left that guitar alone. The setlist had more than a dozen songs he didn't play during the previous shows, including "Nothing Compares 2 U" and "She's Always in My Hair."

"Guitar" however, was the key moment for this show, setting up everything that was to follow. Prince's skills on the guitar are often overlooked or under emphasized. That's to be expected I suppose for someone with so many other obvious talents and he himself downplayed them during the first show by barely playing the thing. But on Thursday he showed those skills off with a formidable display, turning "AnotherLoverHoleInYourHead" into a metallic jam, riffing on "Rock Lobster," rocking hard on "Alphabet Street" and issuing a blistering solo before Sheila E. took the stage to play the fiercest version of "The Glamorous Life" of the entire three night stand. He simply burned on guitar for almost every song.

When he eventually turned to the piano after a couple of hours, playing sampled bits "Darling Nikki" and "Single Ladies" among half a dozen others, the audience was going nuts. The Rebellious one proclaimed the Purple one to be "sexual chocolate and tiny porn" and said the entire audience wanted to have him (she put this slightly differently). For the duration of the show most of the audience remained on their feet. When it was actually all over- the encores featured at least eight songs- I was amazed.

Three nights, three completely different sets with very little overlap, and most impressively, three completely different performances that felt unlike the others. Who else can do that? I don't know, but the last night was one of the best performances I've ever seen. Considering all three together, I suspect it will be a long time before anyone impresses me as much as Prince did last week.

The setlists:
Monday, February 21
Wednesday, February 23
Thursday, February 24

Prince setlist: Night 3 of Welcome 2 America, Oakland

If you were there you probably don't care. This night was the best of the entire stand. The first night was Prince as soulful, seducing lover. The second was the Purple One as grandmaster of ceremonies at the funkiest party you've ever been to. Tonight, a true guitar hero hit the stage and shredded it for more than two and a half hours. In two words, it was fucking incredible. Details and more thoughts to follow, but here's the initial (and likely incomplete- to be explanined and rationalized later) list:

First song- set starts at 8:35- no opening set by GCM. Set lasts almost three hours.

The Love We Make
Take Me With You
Guitar
AnotherLoverHoleInYourHead (total metal verion)
Rock Lobster
Shhh
Glamorous Life (toughest version of all three night)
Controversy
Straight Up???
A Love Bizarre
Controversy Reprise (not at all like the previous night)
Nothing Compares 2 U
She's Always in My Hair
Welcome 2 America
Let's Go Crazy
Delerious
1999
Little Red Corvette
Mountains
Everyday People
Alphabet Street
Lady Cab Driver
Thank You Fa Lettin' Me Be Mice Elf (again)
Purple Rain
Kiss
I Wanna Be Your Lover
Snippet: Single Ladies
Under the Cherry Moon
When Doves Cry
Darling Nikki snippet
The Most Beautiful Girl in World
Cool
I Would Die For You
Sign O' the Times
Pop Life
Rasberry Beret
Cream
Let's Work
U Got the Look

The last medley, starting with Single Ladies, isn't in exact order and Anne Enigma helped put some of this together. What can I say? It was a three hour show.
The Minister's Rebellious Daughter put it best: it was an evening of "sexual chocolate and tiny porn."

More details to follow. the setlists for the other nights (complete) are here- just look for them.

These shows got better as each night unfolded, and each night had an incredibly different vibe than the others. These weren't only great concerts- this was three nights of intense musical theater. Incredible.

Prince Setlist: Welcome 2 America, Oakland night 2

The second night of Prince's Welcome 2 America tour layover in Oakland was far superior to Monday night's show. Though Fet Kuk will think I'm saying this just because he wasn't there, a comparison of the setlists will tell you all you need to know. Too bad if you missed this one. The Superstud seducer from the first night was banished, replaced for this show by a ringleader/MC ready to throw a seriously funky party.

This time Prince didn't play with openers Graham Central Station. Here's how it went down:

Start time 9:15
Let's Go Crazy
Delirious
1999
Little Red Corvette (extended, scorching and sexy)
Sheila comes onstage and does Glamorous Life
I Love U But I Don't Trust U Anymore
Controversy (a badass, tough, stomping version that sound like Batdance in places with an extended final chant)
I don't know what the next song was, but Prince was playing bass on it.
A Love Bizarre (featuring a furious guitar solo)
Play That Funky Music
Thank You Fa Lettin' Me Be Mice Elf (with Graham Central Station)
Le Freak
Love Roller Coaster
A snippet of Housequake that ends with a Controversy reprise
The ladies sing
Sarah McLaughlin's "In the Arms of an Angel"
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Kiss (with an extended ending based on the 12" version of the song)
Purple Rain (Sheila E. on the drum kit)
Sylvester's Dance With Me in the Disco
Baby I'm a Star
Medley: When Doves Cry/Nasty Girl/Sign O' the Times/Alphabet Street
Forever in My Life
A snippet of Darling Nikki
Pop Life
Single Ladies Put a Ring On It
Jungle Love

End time: 11:20

Now you tell me, Fetkuk, do you really think I'm just saying it was better 'cause you weren't there? Would I do that to you?

It was funky good time, that's for sure. Prince said when he announced these shows that no two were going to be alike it looks like he wasn't kidding. I may just have to back tomorrow night to see else he has up his sleeve. As CC told me after the show- F*#king Great!

For Thursday night's set go here.

The Prince and I: Welcome 2 America, Oakland version

I may not be a die-hard Prince fan like Anne Enigma, but my history as ardent admirer goes back quite a ways. Here's an interesting "less than six degrees of separation" story for you. Back in 1981, KROQ started playing tracks off of "Controversy"- I thought it was great stuff, the title track and "Let's Work" especially, and soon I was playing Prince regularly at my DJ gigs. At the time I was kind of dating (more like consistently messing around with) a girl named Lisa Cholodenko. Yes, the same Lisa who's nominated for an Oscar this year. I have no idea if it's true or not, but I've long suspected I may have been the last guy she ever dated. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I try not to think about the ramifications of such a fact if it's indeed true.

I asked Lisa if she wanted to go to see the Rolling Stones, who were going to do a gig at the LA Coliseum in support of the Tattoo You album. The opening acts were the J. Geils Band, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, and Prince, in reverse order. This was the infamous concert where Prince got booed off the stage. I remember Lisa saying "who the fuck is this guy- he sucks," or something like that, echoing the thoughts and jeers of 90,000 yahoos who were booing him. I told her I thought he was actually pretty good and it's too bad the obvious racial undertones to the booing were derailing a performer who obviously had some chops and the goods. You don't end up on a Stones tour for nothing. Besides, didn't these idiots know that without Black music there would be no Rolling Stones?

The irony of ironies is that Lisa eventually ended up with Wendy Melvoin as her partner- the Wendy of Wendy and Lisa, famously of Prince's Purple Rain era. Now isn't life odd? I lost track of Cho for years shortly after that era and now she's a well-established, Oscar-nominated filmmaker and I'm just this guy who writes this blog under a pseudonym. That's life. And we all know what happened to Prince.

A couple of short years after that the only rival he had was Michael Jackson. I kept going to his gigs, but eventually, by the time he released Emancipation, I had grown interested in other kinds of music and keeping up with everything was simply too much. Whatever Prince was up to fell by the wayside and he became an artist I used to like, rather than an artist I was still actively engaged in following. It happens.

So a good ten years goes by and while I still broke out my 12"s of "Housequake/Hot Thang" and "When Doves Cry/33 Days" from time to time, the last tunes of his that really grabbed me were from 1992's Glyph album- "My Name is Prince," "Sexy MF," "Seven"- you know the stuff- it kicked ass.

So when my then-girlfriend said we were going to see the Musicology tour in 2004 I was dubious. It sounded like a lame, last go-round, money-milking endeavor to me. But I agreed and she and I, along with the elder Swede, the Reverend Brown and a few others, went and we had the fucking time of our lives. No doubt in part due that I had seriously low expectations, it ended up being one of the very best shows I have ever seen. And trust me- I've seen almost everybody of a certain era and I'm pretty damn critical. That show in my mind was akin to seeing James Brown at the Olympia in the late 60's or early 70's. It really could not have been better. It was "Musicology" alright- a master class in funk, soul, and R&B delivered with searing precision and giddy force without a weak link nor a dull moment. Total. Complete. Brilliance.

The show has stuck in my mind ever since not only an example of how to do it right, but also as a prime example that while the best material some musicians will ever write may be behind them, their chops and musicianship- their understanding of music- only grows with time- like the Rolling Stones, now that I think of it.

When I saw the announcement for the Welcome 2 America shows in and around NYC, and read the phenomenal Esperanza Spalding was going to be part of it, I wanted desperately to go. Sadly, it didn't work out. No more gigs were announced until last week and suddenly it was going to be happening here in a matter of days.

A missive to the usual suspects only netted one taker- the elder Swede, for the Monday show- last night.

We had dinner beforehand at Puccini & Pinetti- a place we used to frequent back when they had a manger who really tried to cultivate locals to their Union Square location. Now it's a ridiculously over-priced tourist trap but they still make good Manhattans. But seriously- $25 for lasagna? No thank you.

The lights went down and for some reason I thought we were about to see Cee-Lo as the opener but instead I was pleased to hear Prince himself introduce Graham Central Station, ex-Sly and the Family Stone bass-player Larry Graham's local funk ensemble. They were tight and engaging and after a few songs began to dig into the Family Stone songbook and tore the not-yet-full house up. 2/3s of the way through their set Prince and the NPG join them, starting with "Mountains" and soon there are 18 people onstage performing "Everyday People" and "I Want to Take You Higher."

Not a bad start, even if it wasn't The Time. As we waited for the Purple One, the screens above the stage played videos of Wilson Pickett and Ike and Tina Turner. Damn, Tina Tuner was hot.

Prince took the stage at 9:15. I've already posted the setlist here, so I'm not going to revisit it, but there are a number of other things I found striking about the show.

First, with the exception of Prince, the drummer and one of two keyboard players, everyone else onstage is female. Sheila E. on percussion, vocalists Elisa Fiorillo and Shelby Johnson, sax player Candy Dulfer, and a couple of others. This had a significant impact on not only the material presented but on how it came across. This wasn't Prince schooling the audience on how to get funky. No, this was Prince schooling the audience in what a superstud he was. Can he pull that off? Of course he can. But instead of evoking James Brown at the Olympia in 1971, this was more like Elvis' comeback special in 1968. Yeah, the talent is all there, and being put to good use, but it felt like it was only one side of the man, albeit one that's fascinating to watch. It's just necessarily the side I'm more interested in. Fully in command of the audience, making asides like, "Oh no, if I sing this it's going to cause a divorce," it was like a Teddy Pendergrass gig from the 70's- except the guys were invited along because really, who else was going to shell out $300 for a ringside seat in order to impress their girl and insure "It's Gonna be a Beautiful Night"?

"Scandalous," "Adore,""Insatiable," and "If I Was Your Girlfriend"? The only one missing from this pack was "Do Me Baby" and "Let's Pretend We're Married"- neither of which I think he sings anymore because of his refined beliefs. He only held a guitar half of the time, and preened his way through the majority of the set, not turning on the guitar pyrotechnics until "Purple Rain" and the near-closer "Dreamer" which really is a damn shame because in truth Prince rivals any living guitarist. Did it work? Hell yes, and the capacity crowd ate it up- myself included, but I still felt like it could have been a lot more.

It felt spontaneous, which is always a good thing, but it also felt loose where it should have been tight, easy instead of challenging, and finally, cocksure instead of cocky. Much has been written in the past 48 hours about how only Prince could announce concerts of this size 5 days in advance, put the tickets on sale two days later, then sell the shows out and and add another one to boot. My take on the crazy scheduling of this tour so far is that Prince is just eyeing vacant arenas and swooping in at the last minute to book halls which would otherwise be dark at rock-bottom prices. It's a rapacious and brilliant move, which only someone like him could pull off. But that uneasy sense of easy-pickings for maximum profit made its way onto the stage. You don't take a show this on the road sporadically here and there and make it work as seamlessly as it did last night. The talent needs to be paid while it's sitting around wondering where they are going to be in a week or three, so there must be a plan afoot, even if it doesn't look like it. So far, as it was after the NY shows, no follow-up dates have been announced. As I said to the girl in the brown mini dress on the upper level during intermission- Really? Really? Really.

I'll be back for more tomorrow night. Why? Because while I know I'm being done, and done hard ($13 beers?),  it sure does feels good while I'm getting it, and I'm a glutton.

For another take, the review of the show over at SFWeekly is the best one I've read so far and has some pretty good photos from the night.

Set list: Prince's first night of Welcome 2 America, Oakland style

For those of you expecting something along the lines of the Musicology tour, Welcome 2 America is an entirely differenent animal. Details to follow, but here's the setlist from tonight's show:

Prince performing with opening act Graham Central Station:
Mountains
Everyday People
I Wanna Take You Higher

Prince's set (starts at 9:15):
Uptown
Rasberry Beret
Cream
Cool (The Time song, written by Prince)
Let's Work
U Got the Look
Glamorous Life (Sheila E. spotlight- no Prince)
Carlos Santana appears onstage and performs "Soul Sacrifice" playing Prince's guitar.
Duet by Shelby J and one of the other female singers
Misty Blue? Rude Boy?
A Love Bizarre
Controversy
Purple Rain
Kiss
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Insatiable
Scandalous
Adore
Dreamer
Bambi
"Welcome 2 America," but to me it sounded more like One Way's "Cutie Pie."
Set ends at 11:15

For Wednesday night's setlist, go here. For Thursday night go here. For a review of the first night, go here.