Being asked what the best concert you’ve ever seen is a common query for a music critic, and now I don’t have to go too far back to answer. Prince at City Winery in the early hours of Monday morning.
The midnight show was billed as the last of a six-show residency by the New Power Generation (Prince’s long time backing band) — but following his appearance at an earlier show last week, there were high hopes the Purple One would materialize again. The rumors turned out to be true, and at 3:15 a.m, Prince arrived onstage sporting a hat, an elaborate gold chain and that raw sex appeal that doesn’t seem to wane with age.
Prince’s arena shows are usually a feast of Top 40 hits from his long history. But for the two and half hours he was onstage at City Winery, hits such as “1999” were the exception, “Days of Wild” and other deep cuts were the norm, and there was simply no way of knowing what he would do next. But seeing the 55-year-old so close-up and playing with such abandon is what made it all so exciting and kept the 700 people inside moving way past the point of exhaustion.
Stylistically, there was nothing that Prince seemed reluctant to try. An extraordinary gospel take on “Nothing Compares 2 U” was followed by “Courtin’ Time,” which turned into an improvised jazz interlude with Prince acting as bandleader, ordering solos from his musicians at will.
For the final act of his main set, the brassy funk of the NPG combined with the guitar-based power of Prince’s new backing group 3rd Eye Girl to deliver a lightning hot “Act Of God” medley which featured snippets of The Jackson 5’s “Dancing Machine” and Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately?”
A short blast of Prince playing solo piano only served as a palette cleanser for the succession of encores that followed. The first was a little more generous with the classics; “Take Me With U” and “Raspberry Beret” both bristled with life before a version of “Cool” (recorded by the Time but penned by Prince) was given the hip-hop treatment thanks to a guest slot by Doug E. Fresh.
By this point, the venue had emptied by more than half but Prince was still not finished. With the dawn light beginning to seep through the windows, he invited Sly and the Family Stone’s Larry Graham (who had earlier played his own scintillating set) onstage to work through a blues jam.
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The last word came courtesy of the dynamic instrumental “Plectrum Electrum” from 3rd Eye Girl, who indulged themselves in the rockier sound that has informed his recent comeback and allowed Prince a platform to briefly blind the audience with his searing guitar work.
“We got about 50 more songs we could play, but we gotta go,” he said before finally calling time on the show at just after 5:40 a.m. As his hard-core fans filed out into the street, a sense of disbelief was dominant. “Did I just dream all that?” wondered one show-goer out loud as he stumbled into a cab. He was only saying what we were all thinking.
After all these years, Prince is still unquestionably the biggest badass around and thanks to his almost superhuman exploits, the city that never sleeps will need to take frequent naps for several days to come.