A lot has changed in the five years since I started this blog. My writing style has changed, and my opinions have changed. Shows I previously loved I have drifted away from, while other shows I never had time for I find myself listening to more often. The biggest change was when the unthinkable happened and Prince sadly passed away. This has had a huge impact on me, as it has with most fans, not just the loss, but the way I consider his body of work and the collection of live concerts I have. While Prince was alive I was dismissive of his greatest hits tours such as his 2010 tour through Europe and the subsequent Welcome 2 America tour. These were songs and shows that I knew too well, I wanted the unknown, the mystery and excitement of an aftershow, or a concert promoting new material, not a greatest hits package of songs I have been listening to for more than 30 years. With the passing of Prince that changed. Now I see these concerts as a celebration of his music, his catalog, of his life. These are concerts designed to make you feel something. Make you feel good, make you feel nostalgic, remind you of the times when you fell in love with the music, when you fell in love with life, when you fell in love with Prince. There is no shame in these songs, they are made to be enjoyed and celebrated, no matter how many years pass, or how many times we have previously heard them. Now every greatest hits performance for me becomes a concert to be appreciated and enjoyed for what it is. Prince knew what the fans wanted and he gave it to them. These are his most popular songs, and although we have heard them thousands of times they still evoke an emotion in us all. That is the magic, and that should be celebrated.
15th December 2010, Izod Centre, New Jersey
This concert from the opening night of Prince’s Welcome 2 America tour has had a variety of bootleg releases, I listened to a decent audio recording of it just the other day, but today I will be looking at the video footage that is circulating. Recording technology has come a long way in the last 30 years, and although this is an audience recording from two angles (one high left, the other lower, and on the right), it is still beautiful looking in its clarity and steadiness. After suffering through a multitude of grainy video filmed concerts of the 1980’s it is sweet relief to have an opportunity to watch an audience recording of such quality. The concert itself is barely a month after the completion of the European tour of 2010, so asides from a couple of cool treats (more on those soon), the concert doesn’t offer anything unremarkable apart from the fact that it is the first of this current tour.
The first of those cool treats I mentioned is revealed with the opening number- a fearsome rendition of “Laydown.” This performance is the live debut for “Laydown” and it is scorching, the song may not be familiar to most of the US crowd (the 20Ten album never getting a US release) but there is no mistaking the reception Prince and the song get as he emerges from the mists, the epitome of cool in his designer coat looking like a fashion-house cowboy, guitar blazing in his hand, all while remaining aloof behind his dark sunglasses. A fifteen-year-old me would have eaten this up in a minute, and even the forty-something me finds it hard not to stand up and give a whoop of thrilling excitement as I become caught up in the moment. Bootleg-wise, it looks better than it sounds. The rush that comes with Prince’s appearance, and the excitement of this new song mask some of those deficiencies, but on repeated listens I do find the vocals a little too loud and touching on distorting. This is mere nitpicking though, and overall the song and bootleg couldn’t have started better.
The second song of the night, and the second treat, come with the only live performance of “Black Muse.” Still five years away from an album release, eventually appearing on Hitnrun Phase Two, this is a rarity and the only fault I can find with it is Prince doesn’t perform it himself here, it is instead left to Shelby J., Liv Warfield, and Elisa Dease, detracting from the fact that this is the only live performance. They play well, but there is nothing here to mark it as a Prince song, and as such, it remains pale and anemic in comparison to the opening number.
Damaris Lewis is credited with being the inspiration for “Black Muse,” but it is Misty Copeland that joins Prince on stage for the following “The Beautiful Ones.” The song is silky smooth, from Prince's slow-burning beginning at the piano, he continues to gently apply the pressure as he mounts the instrument while the song builds into a smoky seduction piece. I am usually dismissive of a dancer on stage, I often feel it distracts from Prince's music, but in this case, I find Misty captivating as she twirls and floats across the stage. The final minutes belong to Prince as he lets the song boil over into its climax, all the while sounding and looking as cool as he did twenty-five years ago.
The concert accelerates at this point as Prince tears off a string of hits in quick succession. “Uptown” has the same drive and energy as it does on record, although the guitar remains too low in the mix for my tastes, while “Raspberry Beret” comes quickly nipping on its heels, all energy and intent but no real bite. The greatest surprise about “Raspberry Beret” is that it fails to materialize hand in hand with “Take Me With U,” an all too familiar pairing that I am quite willing to forego at this stage.
The hits keep coming, there is no time for the dust to settle on “Raspberry Beret” as Prince sweeps the music into “Cream.” A song that seems to resonate naturally through the crowd, this is the moment where the song becomes bigger than on record, the voices and enthusiasm of 10000 people injecting it with a deeper emotion than it is often given credit for, and the next few minutes aren’t about the song at all, rather about the concert itself and the process of being a fan. It isn’t my cup of tea, but it brings the audience and performer together, united by song and the pure love of music.
This celebratory atmosphere is carried over into “Cool” as Prince carries every member of the crowd into his world of cool for the next five minutes. There are moments when we see him for what he is, a fifty-year-old dancing about the stage, but for the most part, the illusion is maintained and he remains the coolest of the cool. There is plenty of audience interaction, along with Shelby, Liv, and Elisa, but this mostly remains off camera. As they say, “out of sight, out of mind”
The concert rolls along without pause as Prince and the band dance their way into “Let’s Work.” This song has always been about the bass to my ears, and sadly here it is lacking. One can hear it bubbling away, but it is never loud enough as the keyboards continue their unwanted dominance from start to finish. “U Got The Look” suffers similar issues, everything stays flat, there is never enough guitar, or anything of the rhythm section to carry the load, and the song consists mostly of vocals. Not the fault of the bootleg at all, just the homogeneous sound that we sometimes get at these greatest hits shows.
There is another debut for the next song – Prince’s gold Stratocaster guitar. It seems a pure rock n roll indulgence, but Prince did auction it for charity, and although an ostentatious display of wealth and excess, Prince had his heart in the right place with his gift to charity. “Shhh” is often the emotional heart of these concerts, but here it doesn’t carry the same heavy emotional weight that it does on other hot and sweaty nights, however, the Stratocaster guitar is well named and Prince takes off into the stratosphere for his solo. The guitar appears heavy, but Prince plays with a lightness that betrays this initial impression, and the song swoops and soars in equal measures as Prince lifts us all with his impassioned playing.
Prince gets a break as Shelby, Liz and Elisa present their take of Sarah McLachlan's “Angel” They are all fine singers in their own right, and I much prefer to hear Shelby purely sing rather than hype the crowd, but I find my interest wane without Prince on stage. A beautiful song, it is unfortunate that at this part of the bootleg I normally wander off to make a cup of tea.
Shelby remains at the forefront of my thoughts as she accompanies Prince through “Nothing Compares 2 U.” It never reaches the heights of the Prince and Rosie Gaines partnership, but one senses the genuine comradery and friendship that exists between Prince and Shelby. They appear to have a lot of fun together on stage, and this infuses the music with real love and an uplifting spirit. The lyrics may speak of a melancholy story, but in the hands of Prince and Shelby, it becomes a love-filled message that fills my heart with hope despite myself.
Prince has the guitar in hand for “She’s Always In My Hair,” but it has a neutered sound and certainly can’t be compared to the explosive versions we would hear from 2012-2015. Prince plays a restrained version, even his solo feels like he is keeping it tightly reined, and the song itself is cut short as we segue into “I Was Your Girlfriend.” Esperanza Spalding joins Prince for the performance, it should be a performance that makes my heart sing, but the sound is disappointingly off and a lot of her vocals remain secondary to what I can hear from Prince. The visuals of them singing and dancing together lift the bootleg, but the music never quite reaches the heights I expect.
“Insatiable” rewards on several levels. Not only do we get Prince dripping his honey-coated lyrics, but there is also time for the rest of the band to contribute, and I find Renato Neto in the final minutes gives me just as much as Prince did in the first few minutes.
Covering similar territory, both sonically and lyrically, is “Scandalous,” and Prince’s performance is just as lush as the previous “Insatiable” The bootleg is at its best through these songs, Prince has complete control of the stage, and the arena, as he pleads and pulls the song through its seductive hoops.
The jewel in the crown is “Adore,” Prince takes to the piano after a glistening opening from his backing singers. It’s an enthusiastic rendition, some of the intimacy lost as Prince delivers it a full-bloodied, not withholding any sense of delicacy, electing to belt it out into the crowd rather than drawing the crowd into himself. It’s a large performance that may not play to everyone’s taste, although I certainly like it for what it is.
There is an alluring start to “Purple Rain,” it is at once familiar, and something new as Prince tinkers on the guitar for the first minute. He doesn’t make his instrument weep, but he does draw a tear to the eye as he finds a new emotion on the guitar. The lyrics come at us as expected, and it is everything any fan in the crowd could want. This song carries a lot of expectation for many fans, after all, it is his signature song, and Prince delivers it straight down the line, with every word and inflection as heard on the album. The same could be said of the guitar break, there is no excess here, Prince keeps it as we have previously heard, and the guitar solo fails to take off in the way it sometimes does in his more impassioned moments. That is no slight at all, the song remains a celebration of the album, of the movie, and of that era in general. There is a lot of love to be felt as Prince plays the song, and there is no doubt that the song means something different to each person, as well as meaning everything to everyone.
From the darkness, the encore emerges as a brightly lit “Kiss.” A crowd-pleaser for sure, I find I am outside the party for this one. The bootleg can’t spin the concert into a fully invested experience for me, and “Kiss” remains aloof and unobtainable. The final dancing is no doubt an absolute highlight for many in-crowd, especially if we use screaming as a gauge, but for me, it is too far removed from the song and drifting further from what I like about the music.
From the opposite end of the spectrum comes “Sometimes It Snows In April.” It is Lalah Hathaway who takes the lead on the vocals while Prince contributes some melancholic guitar lines that would melt the hardest of hearts. The song is almost done too well, it lacks an edge, and there is no raw emotional core that I crave. Sonically though it is just beautiful, and one of the gentlest moments of the concert.
Prince and Lalah Hathaway stay as a pair for the following “Diamonds And Pearls,” another song from the softer side of Prince’s catalog. The song has aged well, and unlike me, there is no stiffness as the music flows easily from Prince’s fingers. As is so often the case though the song is all too short, although the tender moment is extended as Prince escorts Lalah Hathaway from the stage.
Rather fittingly Prince drives the band into “All The Critics Love U In New York,” from his piano, his rhythmic piano playing snowplowing the way for the groove to follow. It is easy to imagine this as close to the definitive version, Prince creating the song in such a fashion at his piano, the entire song and groove carried by his hands alone. Of course, he is not alone, the rest of the band builds up the song, but as much fun as it threatens to be, they are soon enough diverted to “Controversy.”
With the sound of “Controversy” filling the arena there is no mistaking that we are reaching the climax of the concert. The crowd is alive, and Prince does all he can both musically and physically to get them involved. I am feeling generous, caught up in the music and the moment, and in this case, even Shelby J’s “clap your hands and stomp your feet” gets a pass from me.
The party reaches its zenith with “Sexy Dancer” and “Le Freak.” With the stage awash with members of the audience, there is no longer between performer and audience, the music has finally broken all barriers in this final celebration of Prince and his music.
I am no great fan of the “Housequake” interpolation, but it does its job in bringing the rest of the crowd out of their seats and into the concert as the crowd chant on Prince’s command. It feels like a fitting ending, there is no emphatic full stop, rather the party burning itself out
Five years ago I wouldn’t have given this bootleg or concert a second thought, it would have been filed under “greatest hits” and never seen again. I am a far more balanced person now, and I understand how concerts like this fit into the wider context. These shows are important, not just to us die-hard fans, but to those casual fans who make up the majority of this audience. Prince is presenting his most popular music to the widest audience possible, that is something to be celebrated rather than looked down upon. These songs are part of his history, and they are part of our history too, be it good, bad, or indifferent. I have heard these all a hundred times before, but they still retain the spark that I first fell in love with. Sometimes I need concerts like this to remind me why I became a fan in the first place, not because of a snobby musicality born from the breadth and depth of what I heard at the after-shows, but simply because these were the songs on the radio I sang along with.
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