prince

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z8cX9cgrRU

absolutely amazing

lol @ prince kicking kim kardashian off of the stage

that may be like my third favorite Prince guitar solo at 3:07. Truly breathtaking.

Oh, and those instrumental tracks are actually the trio of Andre Cymone, Bobby Z Rivkin and Prince, not Prince on drums.

which tracks? prince is a great drummer, and it's him on dirty mind, controversy, and 1999 afaik.

The tracks referenced somewhere above. It's him playing drums through "1999," sure, but while I won't fault his playing, and it's perfect for what he's doing, it's really mostly serviceable beat-keeping (esp. compared to his abilities on everything else).

While I agree his drumming pales beside his keyboard and guitar skills, listen to him on "Tambourine" and the better tracks on Musicology.

?uestlove on prince's drumming:

prince on the other hand

his fluctuating rhythm gives you the sense that an actual band is playing his stuff.

best demonstrated by his "careful or you'll drop it" drunken pace on Dirty Mind's title track. his overexcited virgin getting some muppet animal style of "irresistible bitch" the maniac drumline snare solo of "lady cab driver" and the inventiveness of Parades first four song suite.

when i jam with him (actually with them--once at P's crib) i dont channel the WW?D page. i channel the WWsw and WWpD page.

last month when he grabbed the bass i knew exactly where to go: ive learned when you jam w/ prince you get better results playing the drums as he woulda played it. which in my case worked like gangbusters (our "cloreen" was about 25 mins and marked the first time that 2 hour night he sang on the mic)

was gonna cite "Lady Cab Driver."

okay holy shit @ that cee-lo/prince collabo

^ (but what happened at 4:55?)

Thurs night, 2/24/11, Oakland, Ca, Oracle Arena

So my fiance fails to tell me that we have fucking AMAZING seats- on the floor, he's playing in-the-round, with the stage in the shape of that goofy symbol, but our seats are basically in front of that, just off to the left- His piano is like, maybe 50 feet from our seats..
No opening act, the house lights go off, the stage fills with purple smoke, and he pops out of the middle of the stage with a gold fender Strat-the place goes babanas.. he does 3 tunes, then disappears, stage lights off. Lights slowly come back on as Sheila E. pops outta that same spot with her Timbales- The place goes fucking apeshit! Remember we're in Oaklnad, she's a hometown hero and her family, the Esovedos have deep roots here in the music world, especially in latin Jazz-they even own their own club in Oakland.. She looks hot!!- skin tight white leather dress.. She plays her one and only hit, kicks over a cymbal stand like Keith Moon, and walks off the stage-ripped it! They move her drums off to the side, and she and the Purple one come back out, she's his percussionist for the rest of the set... Hit after hit after hit, everyones singing along, having a good time, lots of goofing off between Sheila and Prince.. He sounds great, his voice was spot on, and every guitar solo-which he's the only guitarist in the band-was top notch-improvised and just shredding..His command of the band is striking, a nod to James Brown I'm sure..
THeres a small break in the action.. then you here some thundering bass tone-Larry Grahm from Sly and the Family Stone (more Oakland legend shit) comes out and they funk the place out! They do like 3 Sly tunes, and Prince lets Larry take over, he goes and place percussion with Sheila, but he smack his hand with a stick at one point, and Sheila laughs at him-cute..
That little purple midget does 5 encores-one of them after the house lights came one and he had a pretty grand finally with invites to people surrounding the stage to get up and dance on stage.. House lights were on for about 15 minutes, in which the crowd never let up in its cheering, even with ushers shooing people out, the crowd styed to have him comeback for two more.. whch put the set just shy of 3 hours.

I'd have to say, that this show was one of the best shows I've ever seen, up til this point it was James Brown who I saw in '92. That show was raw as shit, but this thing was a spectacle.. And most important, was looking over and seeing my Girl, smiling, dancing, singing along and having a blast.. we even slow danced during Purple Rain in the isle.. very well worth it!

http://www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/watch-while-you-can-prince-rehearsal-videos-1984/
^anybody know if these exist anywhere now?

Sounds like Sean had a good time. I dread to think how much the tickets were for such good seats.

forks, some of those were on youtube last time I looked

Put it this way, I was worried about the rent.. lol! There were more expensive seats, but they seemed further away, but had a more direct line of site.. And there were these cocktail seating spots write against the stage that were even more expensive, with ever worse veiw cuz they were so up against the riser of the stage...

fuck that sounds awesome

Not bad from the sound of it:

Prince and the New Power Generation at the Forum, April 14

DMSR
Pop Life
Extraordinary
Uptown
Raspberry Beret
Cream
Cool (Time cover, featuring a sojourn into Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough")
Let's Work
U Got the Look
Purple Rain
Let's Go Crazy
Delirious
1999
The Beautiful Ones
Little Red Corvette
Kiss
Medley: When Doves Cry / Nasty Girls / Sign of the Times / Darling Nikki / 777-9311 / Single Ladies
If Eye Was Ur Girlfriend
Insatiable
Scandalous
Adore
A Love Bizarre (Sheila E. cover, featuring Sheila E.)
Play That Funky Music (Wild Cherry cover)
Controversy (with Housequake chants)
The Glamorous Life (Sheila E. cover, with Sheila E.)
Peach (with Sheila E.)
Dance (Sylvester cover)
Baby I'm a Star
Stratus (Billy Cobham cover)
Sometimes It Snows in April
Laydown
Endorphinmachine
She's Always in My Hair
Dreamer
Welcome 2 America

wow, I always thought that this was exactly the kind of show he didn't play

he's been doing these kinds of all hits+deep cuts shows for at least a decade

like I'd say that's almost the exact same set I saw him play on the 1 Nite Alone tour almost 10 years ago

Stratus (Billy Cobham cover)

ha

just played drums for another prince tribute show, this time we got the whole thing on video. it was a blast, will post soon.

When P plays 'Uptown' live it means God is pleased with us...

I was at the Forum show last night. First time seeing Prince in 29 years (only other time was when he opened up for the Stones at the LA Coliseum in 1981). Stunningly on fire show (NPG bassist and drummer just killing it).

Also, the crowd and security were completely cool and into the show. By the third encore we made it onto the floor (not bad for $25 tickets!)

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5190/5622835694_a58c14975a.jpg

wow! not bad at all.
was the show not sold out?

I'm not 100% sure this show was sold out because it was announced only on Tuesday of this week. I think next week's shows are sold out though...

Also, when I took the picture we were already 3.5 hours into the set and a lot of people had already left by then - probably thinking that the 15 minute stretch between the first and second encore (when the house lights were on) was the actual end of the show. Folks, you don't leave the building until Prince leaves the building.

look at all those empty seats....leaving a prince show before he's done--d'oh!

maybe they were making sure they'd get to the club for the after-party set before it filled up

i went to one of those...Roseland after the Garden, 1987(?)--he played til 5am. i was in the very front row, catching the sweat off his electric blue body suit. WHOA! best show over

best show ever...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erJbpv0ZSb4

dope imo

Tweets from my friend Michael at tonight's show:

Prince has been playing for 17 hours, done 104 encores and played every single song ever. Literally, ever. Best show ever? Has to be.

I think there are no more songs left. Someone needs to write a song quick so Prince can come back out and play it.

If Prince ever runs into the problem of an audience just not leaving and demanding encore after encore, he can just come out and do that Vikings song. Guaranteed venue emptier.

that is why prince will never die, and will become a constellation.

I've always loved the covers Prince chooses to do live.

so at Dan's suggestion I got Emancipation and Come cuz both were cheap.

Why is Come so hated on by some? It's definitely one of his more challenging album and it screams of a "fuck you" record, as it isn't as catchy as most of his albums, but by god is it funky and danceable and the title track alone! "Loose!" is great!

It's mostly because Prince himself was nasty about it because it was a contract obligation album.

I will admit, though, that I had owned it for about 3 weeks and hadn't gotten past the title track (which is so so so so good) until a friend told me his favorite song on the album was "Papa"; after playing that song I think I just put the CD player on endless repeat and cycled through the album for the next month.

yea I remember that was his last album as Prince for a while but while I can tell he purposefully made it cluttered and noisy and not very melodious in places and threw in an 11 minute opening track it still sounds damn good!

oh and yes the title track is faaaaaaaaaaaab.

my fave on the album nowadays is probably "Letitgo" but yeah, the whole thing is brilliant

Have you gotten to Emancipation yet?

I recorded a version of me singing Letitgo and doing all the harmonies once. thing is an earworm!

yep I've gotten through 1.5 discs of Emancipation. I'm really enjoying how much variety it has. like "Courtin Time" was a fav from disc 1, "One Kiss at a Time" is what I'm back on now and dear god is this shit smooooth.

oh dude, there's so much more left for you to hit, disc 3 is a MONSTER IMO

awesome. i'm gonna have to hit the last disc up late to night, damn busy schedule. don't suppose 'listening to 13 year old Prince album' is a good excuse to get out of commitments

OH MAN @ "Emale"...........

^_^ yeah, that song = hotness

I am also partial to the "Joint 2 Joint"/"The Holy River"/"Let's Have a Baby" sequence coming up

Come is drastically underrated
SOLO