Prince

It is an interesting fact that the more this man involves talented people to play with him, the more his own formidable abilities seem to be watered down. Tonight, his band is the slickest I have ever witnessed in a group of musicians. With each hand movement, they punctuate Prince’s wishes with horn stabs, or funky bass turns.

The drummer punishes his drums with surgical precision, hiding behind a Perspex wall to isolate the sound for a perfect onstage balance.

The bass player looks as though she is relaxing in the bath while slapping the funkiest chicken this side of KFC. The keyboard player conjures up sonic fantasies that mock Jean Michel Jarre.

And the horn section,(featuring the delectable Candy Dulfer) turn on a dime.

Yet this magical musical melee would be upstaged by a single guest appearance by Wendy, or Lisa, or even a dance by Cat.

The whole first half of the set is a run through of the new material (Rainbow Children) and is fantastic funky and jazzy like no one else can even touch. The songs are musically streets ahead of anyone, and Prince astounds with his guitar skills that outstrip Hendrix, and his keyboard playing that probably rivals Liszt at his romantic peak. YET…..It is only when he throws in “Raspberry Beret” and “The Beautiful Ones” that the crowd is REALLY with him. It is almost painful to feel these tantalising glimpses into what the man was.

He seems to feel it, while laying claim to “Nothing Compares to You” and the recently Alicia Keys covered “How Cum you Don’t Call Me Anymore?”_ A message is implicit…. "wrote these as well, and don’t you forget it.” That said, the man is still a genius, and if you can open your heart to him, he takes you on a private journey that never ends at commercial success, and will never compromise the MUSIC that he feels, and I think that is the point. Why try to please the public writing paltry HIT songs, when you already have 2 decades of chart dominance to look back on?