4/20/97 San Diego State

To date, this is the least amount of fun I had at a Prince show for various reasons. Set list was pretty lame, I chose to be on the floor, being nearly squashed to death by a bunch of rude Prince fans, and not a whole lot of differences from the Pantages show I'd seen shortly before.

Got to San Diego State, the venue, early...about 4pm for the supposed 8pm show. They never printed tickets for the show...you just showed the voucher and the people in your party walked right in...to wait in another line. When the doors opened, you had the pleasure of waiting in another line. At 7:30 they let us into the arena, where I secured a spot two rows back of the stage. They made us sit down on our spots, all of us like sardines. I went to the 1-800 New Funk gift shop to see the overpriced items they had for sale

there. First off, the people working the gift shop didn't know what they were talking about regarding the music being sold. There were a ton of people trying to buy stuff from them. One guy was calling out the items for sale. He said "get the whole New York concert on tape for only $20...." I asked him if it was the whole show...he said yes...and read the two-song tracklist to us. They were selling a new cd by Kirk Johnson's group TKO called My Funny Valentine...a 4-track cd-single which the guy behind the counter said was Prince singing... That was $25, by the way... They also had the Truth cd single (for $20) which, though relunctantly, I bought. They were out of the MPLS cd singles they were selling in LA as well as the P Control sweatshirts they were selling. The cheapest item in the gift shop was an ugly white emancipation t-shirt....everything else was much more!

When I got back to the floor of the gymnasium, people were still sitting down. A few minutes later, people began to stand and all of the sudden people began to PUSH their ways to the front of the crowd...I was separated from everyone I went there with and was being squashed from all sides. This was an hour before he even came on!

At 9:05 the Artist took the stage, dressed in his green sweater from the Chris Rock interview and green pants that did match with the sweater. He opened with Jam of the Year...and seemed to be in a good mood. He went into a shortened version (in comparison to the LA Show a couple of weeks ago) of Talking Loud and Saying Nothing where he introduced the band.

Unfortunately he'd already dropped 17 Days, the highlight of the LA show in my opinion. But he did play Purple Rain, where the people were pressed so closely together trying to get to the front of the stage that you could not help but sway with the audience. The interesting thing about that song is that at the end of the song he was talking out some poem about God that he just wrote...I'd bet that it was the lyrics to some new unreleased song...unfortunately I can't remember what he was saying but I'm sure we'll hear it again in the future sometime... A couple of songs later he broke into The Ride (the only song different than the LA show), which it seemed that nobody knew before...The Artist seemed to like the audience reactions to the sexual lines of the song. Unfortunately, The Ride is one of my least favorite Prince songs. Oh well....

Face Down was another crowd favorite. Upon hearing the first notes of the song, the crowd started the "Play that MF bass" chant...which he gladly did. He jammed on bass for most of the show...one of the highlights!

All three guitars got solos at the beginning of Do Me Baby, but not as drawn out as they were in LA. The band also seemed more lively than they did in LA. The Artist came on stage to sing again wearing a midnight blue satin shirt and did a drawn out sexual act to Do Me Baby plus a medley of one line segments from adore and insatiable.... At the beginning of One of Us he invited the audience to sing with the band and then spoke out the chorus to the song. He sang How Come u Don't Call me anymore without the emotion it had in LA...he also did not call anyone up to the stage to sing it to. The regular set list ended with a medley of Take Me with u/Raspberry Beret with him playing guitar and piano at the same time!!!!!

Next was the encore...

The Entire band came out, including the Artist....All were dressed in white from head to toe (the Artist was wearing a small white top hat, which he removed during the performance). The artist said "treat your lady right so she won't sleep around.". After a verse or so from the song, it broke into a long jam. He played lots of bass on the song. The song came to kinda an abrupt stop with the addition of a riff from Take the A Train, then started up again with the crowd shouting "play that MF bass" and him doing it. He also started the chant "play that free music" which everybody did. I was holding up my Truth cd, kinda in disgust for the price, but I don't think anyone else noticed. Oh well.... During the song he also told the audience to put their palms to the air then started a "we gets up" chant.

But he saved the best for last. He mentioned Michael Jackson's baby-- "So the so called king of pop has a baby Prince" then started a long dialogue about what to call him. He told us to call him Mr Happy...then started to play the music to 18 and over, singing 2 verses of Mr.Happy over it and then a verse from 18 and over....he got the crowd screaming with the line about the Pinwheel. I don't think too many of the people there had heard that song before, by the way. Not before long, though, the song was over, but he did play for about 2 hours 15 minutes...or pretty close. My being squashed in by people, being greeted by some couple's elbows to my right side, a woman's greasy jheri curl (which also smelled bad) to the left, and some guy's backpack in my stomach and not being able to move voluntarily at all during the show made it more difficult to enjoy.

This is the set list

Jam of the Year

Talking Loud and Saying Nothing

Purple Rain

Spoken part (probably the lyrics to another new song)

17 Days

Get Yo Groove On/6

The Ride

TMBGITW

Face Down

The Cross

One of Us

If I was Your Girlfriend

Sexy MF

Do Me Baby (long jam) + how come u don't call me/adore/scandalous medley

How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore

Take Me With U/Rasp. Beret

Encore

Sleep Around/Play that Free Music/Take the A Train/We Gets Up chant

Mr. Happy/18 and Over/Play that Free Music

The band was the same as in LA-Kirky, Morris, Rhonda, Kat Dyson, Mike Scott, O(+>, Sugar Blue on Harmonica.

Afterwards, there was a short 20-minute aftershow at a bar called Canes. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well after the show and didn't go.