Pantages Theater, Los Angeles, 4/11/97

After an endless line to get tickets to this show at the Pantage, which holds around 6,000 people and is used primarily for theatrical plays, I was looking forward to this show, which was to be the first time in Los Angeles since 1993 that Prince was to play any of the songs that made him popular, and coincided with the release of his first non-Warner Bros. official cd, Emancipation. Tickets were on a lottery system, where you lined up and got a random wristband and wherever the magic "start number" ended up, you lined up in that order. I took a half day off from work to get these tickets, and my number (and seats) weren't very good. Oh well...

At the time, this show seemed like the greatest show ever, however in retrospect, this tour was one of the worst I've ever seen Prince play. The setlist was short, the jams were endless and nearly incoherent, and most of the songs weren't played complete. He also did only a few songs from Emancipation, which in my opinion was one of his better cds.

Well, several nights before the show I heard that the San Jose show had been cancelled and then got a disturbing cryptic message from a friend that the show in LA was going to be cancelled. Turns out the show didn't get cancelled after all.

My brother went to the theater early and saw the artist enter it at 5pm...the show was slated for 8pm. Mayte was not with him.

Anyways, they let us into the theater around 7pm, but the line was extremely long and it took awhile for everyone to enter the theater. 1-800 New Funk was there, selling all of the things in their brochure. The prices were as ridiculously high as they are through the mail, but at least you could save on postage. The most outrageous prices were on 8x10 photos of the artist...yours for ONLY $40 EACH!!!!!!! The scary thing is that by 8:30, almost everything had been sold out of the gift stand...

Though I didn't buy these items, several soon-to-be-rare cds were sold at this show, including the cd single for The Truth/Don't Play Me, and the unreleased MPLS/Ryde Dyvine and Kirky Johnson's band TKO.

At 9pm, an hour after the show was to start, the Artist's lawyer, Londell McMillan came on stage announcing that the Artist had the stomach flu and wanted to perform on Sunday or Monday...he actually gave the audience a choice, holding up a cellular phone to the audience as he heard the verdicts. Then he announced the artist would be coming on stage in 20 minutes.

At 9:40 the lights dimmed and Jam of the Year came on. The Artist was dressed in black. During this song, he said "So...I'm supposed to be sick today" and gave a wicked smile. After this song, which was similar to the Emancipation concert version (with the exception of a piano jam later in the song) came a 10-minute version of James Brown's Talking Loud and Saying nothing. During the song he said...."so... the king of pop music has a prince.....hmmmm....." referring to Michael Jackson (this ended up as a lyric on "Fascination on the Truth cd). This got a laugh out of the audience. He used this song to introduce the band and gave everyone in the band solos. Next was 17 days...with a couple of killer guitar solos. Unfortunately, only one verse of the song was played, before he broke into his signature "Purple Rain" next, and the artist seemed to forget a couple of lines from the song...

Get yo' groove on followed with the artist jamming 6 on the goldaxxe at the end of the song. TMBGITW followed with an extended jamming session at the end of the song with some sampled scratching in the background.

I can't remember the order of the next few songs, but he also played:

Face Down (similar to the NY version)

Do me baby (he changed clothes during this song to a red outfit, so everyone in the band got a solo before the vocals began)/Adore/Insatiable/Scandalous-about 2 lines from each song

The Cross

One of Us

Sexy MF

If I was your girlfriend

How Come u Don't Call me anymore (this was really cool....just like he did it on the Purple Rain tour). The most interesting part of this song is that he did that "was he fine does the man have an ass like mine" thing....and said "your little prince don't like to be alone." Hmmm... He invited some woman to the stage to sit on the piano so he could sing to her.

An abbreviated medley of take me with u/raspberry beret

Mr Happy, which had nearly the same music as Face Down....he gave a long speech during the intro of this song that his name is pronounced Mr. Happy and he started a chant of "freedom is a beautiful thing". He sang the first verse,chorus and rap part of the song, then rapped the first verse of 18 and over.....it was great to hear that one live again! With that, the first set was over.

After an 8-minute standing ovation, the band came back out all dressed in white (the artist was the only deviant, wearing that lime-green sweater from the Chris Rock show). He played Holy River, which was the only real rarity on this show, being that he only did it a few times. During this song, he admitted that he missed Mayte since she was in Minneapolis and did not come to LA. He also apologized for looking the "way he did because he was sick." Following, a 15-minute jam on Sleep Around that included Take the A Train and the beginning of 2 nigs united 4 west compton. During this jam he said "you all can go home, we're just gonna jam right now"...of course nobody did. Then he whispered to everyone in the band something, then played Johnny to end the show. The show lasted just over 2 hours.

Celebrities spotted at the show were Billy Sparks, Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, Damon Wayans, MC Lyte, Chris Tucker, Najee, Cyndi Lauper, Heavy D, and Jamie Foxx.

After the show was over, I tried to find some of my friends...who could not decide which club to go to for the "official" after party. Since I was having problems finding them, I wandered over to where the band entrance was to hopefully hear something there. I asked a person traveling with the band about the aftershow and he gave me tickets to get in and told me where it was.

Though the artist never showed up, I met the entire band there (they were all very friendly). I was surprised of how short bassplayer Rhonda Smith was (I didn't recognize her). I asked her when the band would be playing southern california again. She told me that she didn't know, but that they were "probably going to play northern California next weekend." I also saw Carmen Electra and Waymon Tisdale, ex-basketball player turned jazz musician, there.