When Prince announced his Hit & Run Tour Part 2, Leeds was one of few cities to be graced with the legend of Psychedelic Funk’s presence.
Fans were greeted to a purple lit arena, followed by a purple screen on stage, before the show began with Prince’s band 3rdEyeGirl entering the stage to cheers of the crowd, to not only ensure their psyched up, but to inform that they want them to be present for the entirety and “see the show through their eyes”, thus, prohibiting all cameras and phones. Those fans who attempted to photograph or video during the show were quickly informed of the consequences by rapid security! After asking if the crowd were ready, 3rdEyeGirl said “good” because they were too, and that’s when the house lights went off, the brilliant spoken intro to ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ began, and the word ‘FUNK’ appeared on the curtain before it suddenly dropped, revealing the legendary Prince to us all.
Prince plunged into a set list of over 30 songs, consisting of that many hits, it’s hard to pick out crowd favourites, though the obvious and clichéd answer is ‘Purple Rain’. With ‘1999’, ‘Kiss’, and ‘Raspberry Beret’, also massively pleasing the crowd. After performing a string of wholesome hits, Prince had the crowd hanging on every riff and word, as he teased them during a sampler set, including ‘When Doves Cry’, ‘Alphabet Street’, and ‘I Would Die 4 U’. After joking with the crowd on numerous occasions that there were too many hits, and they could be their all night, Prince chose to perform a beautiful rendition of ‘Purple Rain’ before his first encore. The performance was accompanied by mass amounts of purple confetti, and the crowd participation was spectacular. It was a pleasure being part of the Prince lead 13 thousand people draped in purple, at the request of the band on social media prior to the show. Though he joked about his mass amounts of hits, Prince performed 5 covers, consisting of ‘Sheila E – A Love Bizarre’, ‘Vanity 6 – Nasty Girl’, ‘The Family – Nothing Compares 2 U’, ‘The Time – Cool’, and mass crowd pleaser ‘Wild Cherry – Play That Funky Music’.
The first encore was an odd one at that, with the house lights coming on after only 90 minutes, and with Prince’s fondness of doing things on a whim, nobody was 100% sure what was happening. The crowd cheered and chanted for 15 minutes before Prince returned to the stage alone, stating that he thought everyone had left, before placing himself behind a piano to perform a solo, before a stripped down version of ‘Diamonds and Pearls’, in which the house lights went off, filling us with the satisfaction that we had Prince for a bit longer, as he performed a piano set, before his next encore, then his final encore of ‘Sometimes It Snows In April’.
The basic stage 3 screens above the band, Prince’s logo on his microphone, and lights which Prince controlled, often asking to see the crowd, reminded us how Prince can own any stage, and lead any crowd (though I don’t think any of us ever doubted that did we?!) It also reminded us that it’s about the music, and if it’s as good as Prince’s, then the stage is irrelevant.
Prince proved that he’s still as prominent and detrimental to the music scene as ever, and with his trademark dance moves, I refuse to believe that he’s 55, and it’s not still the 80’s. The show has left high levels of anticipation for his new material, as new album ‘Plectrum Electrum’ with his current band 3rdEyeGirl was announced over a year ago. It’s safe to say that it’s going to be a good one with the title track making a great live impact, as well as other new song ‘Funknroll’, which was premiered on the Arenio Hallshow in March.
All hail The Purple One.
By Laura Dean – @modestlaura
