Prince - Welcome 2 Australia Tour

As mentioned in Part I that included the background I went to the Prince Concert at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre last night. I'd been following the news of the Sydney and Melbourne concerts on prince.org an unofficial fan website.

An article the previous day had focussed on the rapid availability of the concert on websites due to the widespread use of smart phones. It's funny how everyone seems to have one nowadays, but I was switched onto this going back to 2002 with the Sony Ericsson P800 smart phone and many PDAs before it including the Apple Newton.

I'm going to start with the bad parts about the concert from the start so we can get that out of the way. The response on prince.org in relation to the Brisbane concert ie. an absence of any real posts possibly speaks about how the feeling is. I agree with the comments there that people felt short changed.

I bought the gold reserve tickets for my wife and I, but had considered the Purple Reserve while they were briefly available. I would definitely have felt totally ripped off had I paid the $300+ that those tickets cost.

The concert was literally less than 2 hours in content when the tickets had an 8:00pm to 11:00pm inferred time. We waited in our seats from 7:30pm all the way to 8:20 or so when a classical guitarist started off the proceedings with two instrumental pieces. So 20 mins was dead time and another 10+ minutes of supporting act. It was after 8:30pm that Prince came on and he was gone again by 10:15pm. Two very short encores, one of which had a very flat "Dance Electric" followed by a much better "Kiss" with the best dancing he did for the night.

The reason for the short show? All through the concert Prince mentioned the "afterparty". He said it at least three different times saying he thought "it felt just like the weekend" and that he would take his time, and that we could have the after party right there. It turns out that an official after party had been decided upon to be held at the HiFi Bar in West End. At $100 for entry with lining up to commence at 10:30 pm most at the main show had no chance unless they left early. The lower Purple Reserve became very empty at some point near 9:45pm suggesting they knew what was going on.

In this light it comes as no surprise that Prince and the band packed up early to make their way to the after party. The room lights had come on at 10:15pm and an official American accented voice announced over the auditorium loudspeakers the afterparty location, so this was definitely all official.

It made me somewhat angry because people who had paid far more than $100 were sitting right there in the auditorium ready for more song and dance. And they had been officially abandoned sooner than they expected.

Prince after parties have a folklore of their own, and had I been younger I would most certainly have tried to get to one. The mystique of the after party though is that Prince did them impromptu. You would never know where he would go and decide to do a show. It was about being at the right place at the right time. He did it as a surprise, in his own time, and without stealing from paying concert goers time. If money is that important to him, then surely the money of the paying fans is also due a service.

That's the really bad stuff as I saw it last night. There were also sound issues. The speakers were badly clipping and distorted at points and way too loud to begin with. I had taken ear plugs and had to put them on for at least the first half hour during the loudest parts of the show. It was uncomfortably loud. My hearing is worth more than the ticket price so it was disappointing to have to put in the plugs but even with them in it was loud.

Now the good stuff. The set list had two surprises. Songs I hadn't ever heard before but instantly aroused a strong liking to them and it will be no surprise to those who read Part I of my post that they were both ballads. I guess it wouldn't have mattered if it was any other of his ballads but this choice by Prince to do those two ballads is what made the night for me. The moment he started "Shhh" (as I later found out the name of the song was) I knew this was special. Prince's wonderful falsetto voice was amazing for an artists at his age. When many artists would have lost it long ago, the magic of Prince's rendition was sublime. Very moving and like all his ballads having words filled with meaning and a story. Next up was "Empty Room", another ballad that I had never heard. Again his voice was sparkling and delighted.

Later Prince did a wonderful "The Beautiful Ones" followed by one of my all time favourites "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore". Truly amazing. Those four ballads are what made the night for me.

He sung, he danced, he played his beloved guitars, piano and kept us entranced in a way I had not expected. I understood that he had to keep the general fans happy by playing the well known hits that he has probably played more times than he'd care to remember. But all of that was tired to my ears. A commercial necessity, and somewhat enjoyable to all but I would guess a little dull to the real fans.

I hope I can see future concerts where Prince plays the lesser known stuff, especially his ballads again and maybe that's what the after parties are about. I'll probably never know.

Today I have had to search the internet for some of the content I had missed out on. I had a recording of the concert made with my wife's and my iPhones and watching "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore" once again really impressed us. What an amazing device it is. Even the sound quality is eminently listenable and the quality of its video puts top of the range consumer camcorders of several years ago to shame. Totally blown away by that aspect of technology and I'm sure that many others today relived the concert by watching their iPhone recordings.

I hope Prince does make it out to Australia again for perhaps some smaller concerts for his true fans who appreciate the ballads and lesser known stuff. To hear a set list including the following in no particular order would be amazing:

The Ballad of Dorothy Parker
Joy in Repetition
How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore
Anna Stesia
Adore
The Ladder
I Can't Make You Love Me
The Love We Make
Love Bizarre
Scandalous
Empty Room

But really, Prince is so prolific and has so many amazing songs that any concert is going to have its own special quality. I guess my experience of Prince live was as good as I had expected it and had it not been for the spoiling element of the official after party which cut into our time with Prince it was definitely a show that we will remember.

My final note on the concert is the observation of how much I am reminded by the starting notes in Purple Rain of the later song "The Ladder". From his "Around the World in A Day" album (that has other favourites like "Temptation" and "Tambourine") it is to this day one of my favourite Prince songs. Hearing this I almost felt I was listening to the start of "The Ladder" and I was reminded of that songs theme of seeking the path to Truth and Love.

Stars like Prince are one offs. There'll never be someone like him again. We don't get to choose which era of the world's history we live in; but Prince's presence in this era in which I have lived is a special element of my life. I have more thoughts on Prince and after watching some interviews he's done see things in his personality and mode of thinking that I dislike. My enjoyment of his music is tempered to some degree by these feelings.

I know what it is like to be privileged in society. I have enjoyed the good fortune of living in a first world country and in a profession which is well rewarded both financially and through what I can do for others - specifically helping them to see. But I sometimes wish that I could help minds to see, rather than eyes.

Great performers deserve the fame and fortune their special talents bring to the world. But in the monetisation of the intellectual property of artists there lies great evil. Monetisation which I will write separately on in the future is where things can go astray. I think the great disparity between the earnings of the common man and the privilieged in society is a recurring theme in man's struggles to create societies. The artist is probably only second to the banker in my estimation of usuriousness in the ladder of societal roles. I will elaborate on this in the future I hope.

I hope Prince can in future see through the falsehood that is present in every direction and may find a way through it. Surely that is still a ladder that he seeks.