Hit N Run Tour, Palladium, Hollywood 5/4/01
Just got home from the Hit N Run Show at the Hollywood Palladium. It's been awhile since he's played Los Angeles...though lately it seems I've been to a bunch of shows recently in Vegas, Oakland, MPLS...pretty much everywhere except LA. But enough about that.
This show ranks among the best shows with the most energy by
Prince among the shows he’s played in Los Angeles, but either I was tired, or something,
because I just didn’t feel that way. I
was in the front row in front of the speaker where he did the non-sequitir new guitar
solo from I Could Never Take the Place of your Man that didn’t go with the
song, but I guess I just didn’t like short snippets he was playing.
As for the Hit N Run show at the Palladium, a small club in
Hollywood, when I got to the venue from the Tonight Show taping, the line to
get into the show, which was general admission standing-room only viewing,
wrapped around several blocks. As usual, the NPG Music Club continued to
deliver its benefits...today in the mail I got my copy of the Rave In2 the Joy
Fantastic, and then all premium members got in first to the show, and most of
the front rows were NPGMC members.
By the way, in case anyone DOESN'T want to see the set list
for what he played tonight, don't read anymore of this post. If you do, keep reading. I hate to spoil the show for you if you haven't
already seen it. If you have seen it,
he pretty much kept to the same set as he's been doing recently during the
regular concerts....a medley of hits, mostly one verse long (except Sexy
Dancer, which had no verses but seemed to last 5 minutes) and Housequake, which
he also didn't sing any of the verses of the song.
When we got in, I bought a couple of the new cds at the gift shop...in case anyone is planning on going to the show to get those new cd singles, be sure to purchase the Peace single early because that one sold out first at both Oakland and here... oh well....
As we waited to get in, we could hear part of the soundcheck
permeating the walls. The songs we
could make out were:
Uptown
Let's Go Crazy
Thank U Falletinme Be miceelf again
Anyways, the concert was supposed to start at 10 but they
were about a half hour late (I'm impressed--Prince has been more punctual these
days...). There was no opening act
(man, I really wanted to see Millenia too! :) JUST KIDDING). I actually really liked the Funky Bald Heads
last week in Oakland but they didn't play either. Oh well...
Here is the set list of the concert:
DAT Intro
Uptown
Controversy
Mutiny
The Work
Cream
Little Red Corvette
I Wanna Be Your Lover
Sexy Dancer
Housequake
Ballad of Dorothy Parker/4
Some Day we'll all be free (Kip Blackshire vocals)
U Make My Sun Shine
I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
Do Me Baby
Scandalous
Diamonds and Pearls
The Beautiful Ones
Nothing Compares 2 u
------------------------
Encore 1:
Let's Go Crazy
Take me with u
Raspberry Beret/Mr Happy Outro
Darling Nikki
When Doves Cry
Computer Blue (Najee Instrumental)
The One Intro
I Would Die 4 U
baby I'm a star
God Instrumental
Purple Rain
----------------------------
Encore 2:
Come On
U Got the Look
Kiss
Gett Off
Prince opened the show by saying "You're gonna have the
best time of your life tonight."
Well, if that time would be spent by hearing a one-verse medley of his
hits, then he was right. It seemed that
the 2 songs where he showed the most emotion were The Work and U Make my
sunshine... the rest of the show was fairly standard, though he's cut another
verse out of Scandalous from the last time I saw him last week in Oakland. The work was much longer than the version
performed on the Tonight Show, and he sang it again in his normal voice, not
his falsetto. Am I the only one who
thinks he should do a medley of the Work with Pretty Man? :) On Someday We'll All Be Free, Prince sat
back and sort of mouthed along with Kip's vocals. He announced that it was a
song he loved by Donnie Hathaway when he was growing up.
I enjoyed hearing U make my sun shine live. I think it's his favorite song to perform
live now, as Anna Stesia, Get Wild, I Wish U Heaven, America, Peach and others
have been at various points of his career where he likes to do long extended
jams on them. On this track, he went
into a speech about how his woman was bad...and was treating his microphone as
if it were a woman. Reminded me of If I had a Harem from the Lovesexy tour.
The guitar solo at the end of ICNTTPOYM really jammed--as
expected. That solo gives him a good
chance to showcase his guitar skills...wish he would sing the whole thing
though...
Skipping the entire first encore since it was exactly the
same as I saw in Oakland, but the second encore was much better.
During Come On, he brought people from the audience up on
stage to dance, and my brother was one of the people picked...it was cool.
:) Come On continued to sound good
live. I still have that song in my head from the concert. U got the look
included an opening guitar solo that I thought was gonna become Alphabet St.,
but it didn't. Oh well...
Celebs spotted in the audience were Jermaine Dupri, Mayte and her new boyfriend, Magic Johnson, Wesley Snipes, Mick Jagger, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Beyonce from Destiny's child (weren't they supposed 2 be in New York filming SNL tonight??) among others....Prince mentioned Nia Long, The Williams Sisters (tennis) and Eddie Murphy but I didn't see any of them there.
After the show, Prince and several celebrities including
Eddie Murphy, went to hang out at a private party at a bar on the Sunset strip
leading into the wee hours of the morning.
Anyways, all in all I enjoyed the concert, though I do wish he'd play more complete songs instead of the medleys...