Saturday night was a hell of a night! I went to the Ordway Theater in Downtown Minneapolis to see Tamar featuring Prince concert. Tamar is Prince's new protege, and damn, did she kick ass!
The night started with my roommate, his daughter (who was celebrating her 7th Birthday), and a friend of ours heading out and grabbing a bite to eat at the Applebees on Block E. We then walked to the theater, and met up with a couple other friends. When we got our tickets from the ticket office, things got exciting in a hurry as we found out we had front row tickets. Vince and his daughter had seats right at the center isle, so there was a couple of rows of people in the orchestra pit in front of them, but still great seats. My seats were right at the edge of the stage, so the only thing between me and the stage was a frail old security guard. I also had four concert speakers an arms reach away, and huge row of speakers directly above me. I was so close to these speakers that muscles in my thighs shook with each beat of the kick drum.
The show started with Prince's new band taking the stage. His band is now just made up of Morris Hayes on keys (Morris has been around for a long time, but he's been out of the band for a few years) and a husband and wife team on the base guitar and drums. Then Prince came out with his guitar and the band tore into a nasty, funky groove. Then out came Tamar and her two backup singers. Her singers are Twins, and holy-mother-of troy are they H-O-T. They played a few of the new songs that will be on Tamar's upcoming album, and then spent the rest of the night doing some old-school R&B cover tunes and damn, the show kicked my ass. Prince's bands are always tight, and they were on top of their game. Tamar has the voice of an angel. There were many times that I got goose-bumps just from the sound of her voice. The energy her and her singers bring to the stage is freaking increadible. Tina Turner would be impressed with the show these girls put on. They played for 90-some odd minutes, and I would have been exhausted after one song with how hard they all danced around the stage. The fact that they kept it up for the entire show, while singing (there's no lip syncing at a Prince show) was amazing to watch in itself (of course, the fact that the Twins were H-O-T didn't hurt either).
The highlight of the night for Vince (my roommate) was that during one of the songs, they picked some people to come up on the stage to dance up there with the band, and they chose his daughter (did I mention she was celebrating her 7th birthday?). So she got to dance up on stage with Prince for about 7 or 8 minutes. She was beyond excited well after the show ended, and as we made our way up the center isle after the show around 10-12 different people congratulated her on her dancing up on stage.
There were two surprising things from the show. 1st, one song they didn't play was Tamar's new single. They just performed it on Saturday Night Live a couple of weeks ago, so as we were leaving we wondered why that song would be left off. The other was they performed more Michael Jackson songs than they did Prince songs. They played about half of Prince's "Party Man" song from the Batman soundtrack, and they played a funkey-ass version of Michael's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", that lead right into Janet's "What Have You Done For Me Lately".
How good was the show? I already said it was fantastic, and it was so far above my expectations. But don't just take my word for it, here is a link to the Minneapolis StarTribune's review of the show. And consider this, after the band walked off the stage, the crowd obviously got loud waiting for another encore. After a few minutes, the house lights came up and the crew started taking down the set. Looking at the crowd after 10 minutes of the lights being on, no one left. It was still a packed house and everyone was still there hollering for more.
The good news was that was not the end of the night. We left the show, and went and dropped of Vince's daughter with her mom. We then proceeded to head out to Paisley Park for the after party. Prince always follows a concert with another performance at an after-party. When he is here in town, they are always out at his Paisley Park studios. So, we got there and found out it was a $25 entry fee. Normally it's either free, or they might charge seven bucks. But $25? After paying that, we were really looking forward to another kick ass performance. Well, there was a performance, but it wasn't Prince. Dr. Mambo's Combo performed instead. The Combo is a fun, enjoyable band that I've seen many, many times as they have a regular gig every Monday night here in town. But they are not Prince. Kind of. The drummer and base player were both in Prince's band for many, many years. Margie Cox, who is one of the lead singers, has spent time recording with Prince, and she used to head one of the original house bands that performed each week at his old Glam Slam night club. And G-Sharp, another one of the lead singers, used to be in Margie's band, and then also headed his own band that performed every week at Glam Slam. So, that part of the night didn't go as planned. So we all figured that if he wasn't performing, then we will probably get a listening party to his new CD. Nope, didn't get that either. But the night was far from a loss. We got to hook up with many, many old friends that we haven't seen in way to long of a time. Over the years, with all of the parties that Prince has thrown, we have made many, many friends out there. Unfortunately, most of us only see each other when there is a Prince event going on, which are few and far between these days. So seeing everyone again, getting our grooves on again, and just being back at the sound-stage at Paisley all made for an incredible evening.
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