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| From | "Mark Eichelberger" <markeichelberger@comcast.net> |
| Subject | Re: Prince Musicology Concert Review |
| Date | Wed, 25 Aug 2004 21:48:00 -0400 |
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After sending this out, I realized that the link I provided may not work, or
force a user to register to view the online review. Sorry about that. Here
is the text of Tom Moon's review.
Prince, 4ever the musician, delivers a hot show
By Tom Moon
Inquirer Music Critic
'Right about now we need to do some shout-outs," Prince told the capacity
crowd in the middle of his show Sunday at the Wachovia Center, during a rare
moment when the music wasn't roaring. "I'd like to shout out to all the
lip-synchers... not!" he said with a grin, to loud applause. "I'd like to
shout out to MTV... not!" "Like to shout out to radio... not."
Finally, the Minneapolis multi-instrumentalist and singer shouted for "real
musicianship," the endangered aesthetic he had poured considerable energy
into reviving all night long. This time he meant it, and to underscore his
point, trombonist Greg Boyer and alto saxophonist Maceo Parker appeared by
his side wearing caps and gowns, playing a sassy little horn phrase that
dipped and swerved as if it had been cribbed from Louis Jordan's jump-blues
playbook.
The message was clear: Prince is not happy with the status quo. Having
battled radio, MTV and large corporations, this industry veteran and new
member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as the show's opening video
montage self-servingly reminded us) sees his tour as an ideological mission,
a door-to-door crusade to rescue core musical values he believes have lately
been trampled in the pursuit of heavily marketed hits.
No individual on the planet is better equipped to make this point.
Sunday's whiplash-intense performance - the first of a three-night run that
ends with tonight's show, for which some tickets are still available - was a
striking contrast to typical pop-concert fare, those exercises in poseur
pageantry in which the stars look super-fine, but lack the basic musical
skills.
For more than two hours, Prince tripped back through his catalog, a trove of
pop hits, funk curiosities and psychedelic experiments that in terms of
sheer invention has no equal in recent pop history. Much of the show was
done medley-style, with brief renditions of old favorites knit into a
seamless assault: An early high-speed chase through material from Purple
Rain pushed "Let's Go Crazy" into a jittery electronic "I Would Die 4 U"
into "When Doves Cry" into a stunning new groove for "Baby I'm a Star."
The diminutive star sang with impressive flexibility - on several
selections, including the pirouetting ballad "Adore," his falsetto ad-libs
were more elaborate, and more thrillingly demanding, than those on the
original recordings. He routinely made the guitar talk, and sometimes what
it said amounted to a dissertation on rock ax-men as cliche peddlers. On Led
Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," one of several bold covers sprinkled
throughout the show, Prince transformed the undulating rhythm into a
writhing, hypnotic journey that was equal parts spacey Brit-rock mysticism
and relentlessly melodic post-Hendrix virtuosity.
First appearing in a natty suit that was black on his right side and white
on his left, Prince hit the stage - which was configured like a plus sign in
the center of the arena floor, with four ramps for cavorting - in a whirl of
motion, and didn't let up for nearly an hour. He elongated the form of "When
Doves Cry" to accommodate a new dance routine, which found him pantomiming a
la Charlie Chaplin one minute and moving with robotic precision the next. He
did his usual conductor thing, shouting to the band for stop-time sections
and using commands such as "kick drum" to build grooves from quietude to
utter frenzy that kept the crowd in motion for virtually the entire show.
Wiggling as if his spine were spaghetti, he made a James Brown medley (which
included "Shake Your Money Maker" and "Pass the Peas") into a physical tour
de force, with each move catching and celebrating a different syncopation.
There were many highlights - the obligatory encore "Purple Rain," the
rumbling "Life O the Party" from the current Musicology, a treatment of "I
Feel 4 U," the Prince-penned Chaka Khan hit - but perhaps the biggest
surprise came during an "unplugged" set featuring just Prince and acoustic
guitar. First he reimagined "Little Red Corvette" as a coffeehouse
meditation. Then he dabbled in a bit of blues that featured a blistering
guitar solo, then "I Wanna Be Your Lover," then he interpreted "Cream," a
minor hit from his 1991 Diamonds and Pearls. That song, which included a
mouth-percussion beatbox interlude and a rap about a beat "tight like a
rimshot on a new Roots joint," illustrated the depth of Prince's gift: Even
working with material that is clearly in his second tier, he was clever,
uplifting, utterly transfixing.
Early in the evening, Prince made what seemed, at the time, to be a boast:
"You are about to witness the tightest show of your life." By the time he
finished, that claim was an accurate assessment of the night.
Those who have followed Prince through the rocky last decade probably
weren't surprised. Though he's riding a wave of "comeback" media attention,
the fact is Prince never stopped performing at this relentless level of
energy. He might have leaned too much on Bootsy Collins one-chord vamps
during some shows, and been stingy with hits on others, but he never lost
either the commitment or that increasingly exotic ability to galvanize
listeners with "real musicianship."
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