The Purple one Reigns yet again!

There were no words to describe Friday night’s performance of the smallest, yet mightiest king of all things musical. On this 21 night London run of sell out gigs of his greatest hits mixed with recent tracks from Musicology, 3121 and the latest release Planet Earth, Prince has said that this will be the last time the great classics will be performed live. For once something great has come to London, and don't we feel privileged that the Minneapolis native chose the UK for a 3 week stint and the final resting place for his classics to be heard.

Thank god someone actually turned this waste of space venue, the O2 arena ("the building formerly known as the Millennium Dome") into a great London concert venue which will certainly give Wembley Arena a run for it's money. We, the taxpayers, shelled out over £700 million to get this place built in the first place only to be left a defunct venue of pure non-interest as 'The Dome'. Only in the last month since it's official launch, Justin Timberlake & Timbaland, Barbara Streisand, Bon Jovi, soon to be the Rolling Stones, Elton John and now Prince has taken over and graced it's stage at the O2 and the IndigO2 for official after show parties, (one of which I have a ticket for next week on the 14^th, whether Prince decides to turn up and jam for a few tunes is another matter, if not, I’ll have a good old time just partying.) A once was lifeless space in Docklands being maintained and paid for by us, is now the home to some of the globes greatest talent in a classy and well put together venue.

Back on the to main man himself: Can somebody please tell me, how a man a smidgen shy of 50 years old, 5’2 in height, wears heels and make up and is sometimes (think back to his symbol and slave drawn on his face days) just a lil ‘out there’ crazy, be so overly sexy? Yes overly sexy! I just don’t get it, neither do a lot of men I suppose either. But his stage presence alone, the ability to sing, prance around on stage, and those overdrawn guitar riffs played with such ease. Put that all together with the mystery that surrounds the Purple one and I can see why. You don’t see height with this man, whereas you would with another. Whether deemed strange or weird. You just see musical genius. And that's exactly what he gave us on Friday night.

You really cannot begin to appreciate this man or his music until you see him live. Purple Rain came out way back in 1984 and has been deemed by many as one of the greatest songs ever written, not to sure if the movie will ever be hailed as great as the song, but it's definitely now a cult movie. It’s definitely #1 on my list and that’s saying something being a die-hard Mariah Carey fan. Of Purple Rain as you hear the infamous guitar riff that precedes the 10 minute version he delivered on Friday night, there were deafening screams, lighters and anything that lit (including cell phones) were in the air along with the harmonious crowd singing the infamous “woooh ooooh oooh ooh”, which doesn’t appear till ¾ of the way into the song, along with his guitar solo from beneath the symbol shaped stage before he rose to sing "I never meant to cause you any sorrow", I had to laugh to myself it was almost like a spiritual moment, it was the only way to describe it. Funnily enough reading on some Prince forums after the show, many others had described the performance of Purple Rain exactly the same way.

You can tell whether you loved Prince from the first day he appeared on the scene in the 70’s or you just got dragged along to the concert as you had nothing else better to do on a Friday night, the fans and hangers on alike would not have been satisfied with his electrifying concert performance until this infamous song, now 23 years old, had be performed.

If word is indeed true that, this concert is a farewell to the old material of Prince and he’s never to perform these classics again, then I’m glad that in my lifetime I was able to see one of the greatest artists ever lived to have performed them live, especially Purple Rain, you can’t get better than that alone! That's a moment within itself. - Naomi Miller

Friday's Playlist

01. Down By The Riverside
02. Satisfied
03. Cream
04. U Got The Look
05. Musicology
06. Play That Funky Music
07. Wonderful World
08. Joy In Repetition
09. Anotherloverholenyohead (feat. Rock Lobster)
10. Peach
11. Lolita
12. Black Sweat
13. Kiss
14. I Feel For You
15. Controversy (feat. Housequake chant)

Encore 1
16. Purple Rain

Encore 2
17. Crazy (feat. One Nation Under A Groove chant)
18. Let's Go Crazy

Encore 3
19. Take Me With U
20. Guitar.