Klavs.net - Prince - The O2 Arena - London - 2007-08-10 - Live [concert review] [Rating: 3/6]

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KP says:

Prince - The O2 Arena - London - 2007-08-10 - Live

Rating:

Updated:

2007-08-16 17:26:57

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concert review

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Prince - The O2 Arena - London - 2007-08-10 - Live (concert review)

My concert buddy and I had managed to get quite great seats for this one (C2, Row Q) instead of our first allocation of near-the-clouds seats (405, Row C). I admit that you are a bit too close to the stage in C2, Row Q but at least you can see Prince from a few meters away when he decides to jump around near the front of the symbol stage. The sound at our seats were very muddy and not great at all. I was wondering if that would be the case for the entire arena but I later discovered that it wasn't.

Beverley Knight opened the show and while I am not into her type of music at all I must admit that the lady can sing. Quite impressively actually. It is never easy to open a show this huge but she did very well indeed.

The Friday show itself was too much show and too little music. Almost all the songs were cut short or played as medleys and he did far too much teasing like "You're not ready for this, London" etc. Prince spent a lot of time going up and down on his elevator platform and the dancing-on-stage bit with karaoke and "Play that Funky Music White Boy" covers for more than 15 minutes is a complete waste of time and ruins the flow of the show. I wasn't happy at all with that part of the show.

The setlist was not the best imaginable but Prince's guitar playing and the fact that even on a not-so-great night he can entertain like no other human being on this planet and also the super energetic sexy dancers (The Twinz) made for a great night anyway. Highlights were the opener "3121" that is totally awesome live and makes for a fantastic opener. "Controversy" was very good as well (despite that he seems to apply censorship to a textline or two). Prince doing a solo electric guitar encore playing "Little Red Corvette", "Raspberry Beret" and "Sometimes It Snows In April" was certainly on the plus side of things as well.

The show ended with Shelby singing a great "Crazy" and then they played "Get on the Boat" that has to be one of the worst Prince tracks ever and this live version was even worse than the CD version. Yuck. The best thing about this evening was that it certainly wasn't over yet. In fact it was just about to become really interesting. We headed for a burger and then the aftershow at the Indigo2. Not yet knowing what was about to hit us.

Please note that when I rate a Prince gig I compare it to other Prince gigs I've witnessed. This gig was being compared to LoveSexy, Parken, Copenhagen (show highlight) and One Night Alone, Falconer, Copenhagen (music highlight). This particular gig was not nearly as great as any of them.

SETLIST:
3121, Girls & Boys, Down by the Riverside, Purple Rain, Cream, U Got The Look, Shhh, Musicology, Pass the peas, Play that funky music (Prince vocals), The Dance (Renato), Nothing Compares 2 U, Satisfied, Let's Go Crazy (1 verse + "medley" ending), Kiss, If I Was Your Girlfriend, I Feel For You, Controversy (incl. Housequake chant.)

ENCORE 1:
Solo Prince on electric guitar: Little Red Corvette, Raspberry Beret, Sometimes It Snows In April

Full band returns: Crazy (Shelby vocals)

ENCORE 2:
Get On The Boat

[O2 Arena, 2007-08-10], [O2 Arena, 2007-08-11], [O2 Arena, 2007-08-14],
[Indigo2, 2007-08-10], [Indigo2, 2007-08-11], [Indigo2, 2007-08-14],
[Photos from The O2 Arena and Indigo2]