One of the benefits of growing up in Point Edward, an hour away from “the Motor City”, was the wealth of radio stations we’d get. College radio from Port Huron, nearly a dozen stations from Detroit and Windsor, 2 or 3 from Sarnia and fm96 from London, provided us with all of the variety our music hungry minds could handle.
One station I remember stumbling upon was a short lived funk station in the high hundreds in fm. I can’t remember its name (“the Jam” perhaps?) but I remember discovering a lot of great funk, soul and R&B music on there.
This was the station that introduced me to “Grand Master Flash and the Furious 5”, “The Time”, Rick James and of course Prince. This was just prior to the music video craze so I got all of my music from radio or raiding my Brother Rob’s music collection. Shortly after I had discovered Prince tunes on this station from Controversy and Dirty Mind, Rob brought me 1999 to borrow. He never got it back.
For my sister Jo-Anne and me, it was like nothing we had heard. It was sultry, funky, danceable, “sing-alongable” and just naughty enough to make our mom cringe whenever we dug the album out. It was super sexy before we had any notion of individual sexuality. But when Purple Rain came out almost 2 years later with the movie release, I was at the store buying the LP on release day.
“Joee” and I begged our mom to let us see the movie which was surprisingly PG and at 14 I could take my then 11 year old sister to. Every word of every song became ingrained in our young minds. It was a musical bond between highly rivalrous siblings that saw us become and to this day remain best friends.
Naturally when we heard that Prince was coming to John Labatt Center in London, Joee immediately texted me to make sure I knew about it. Sadly with Jo-Anne just having been laid off and myself not having a lot of freelance work coming in, we didn’t think that either could afford to go. Jo-Anne had a surprise of 2 tickets greet her in her mailbox from a secret benefactor. Then she suggested to me that I try for the twitter “JLC Reviewer” program so I thought I’d give it a shot.
Without going to great details on what I did or if or why I deserved to be a JLC reviewer, we all know that I got the “job” & this is why you’re reading this now. So I have to thank Jo-Anne who introduced me to it and to all at JLC for allowing me the opportunity and especially Chris Campbell for all he’s done with the JLC Reviewer campaigns. Prince was one of those concerts on my “bucket list” along with The Police & RUSH and I am proud to have been a part of music history in London.
So when I found out I was going to be a JLC Reviewer I had to figure out who would be my guest for the show. Of course a mere mention of the show on Facebook and Twitter garnered dozens of queries from friends from all over, one as far away as Winnipeg! I was trying to think of who was as big a fan of his purple holiness as me and looked at the 1999 cover. Brother Rob’s 1999 LP cover! I sent a text for him to call me. “Rob, I know it’s a busy time for you, but can you be in London for Dec. 5th? It’s a Monday”
“I doubt it very much” he says “Why, what’s going on?”
So I told him about the extra seat for Prince and he responded with an emphatic “YES! Why the hell not? I can make it work. How much do you want for the ticket?” I told him I didn’t want a dime. It was as much a gift to him as it was me. And so for 2 weeks the excitement built and then there we were at the John Labatt Center.
I got a call on show day from Chris who was part of selecting the JLC reviewers. He explained what he liked to try and do for the reviewers normally but that things were different for the Prince show. He had some high up seats and he had some seats right beside the stage in a cabaret style with tables. While I might have been thrilled to sit at the stage side with my brother, I couldn’t help thinking that’s a spot for you and your sig. other. I knew that the other reviewer was taking his fiancée so instead of a coin toss and potential disappointment; I said “Give them to Brian and say ‘Happy Engagement from Ian’”.
You can read Brian’s reaction here.
Our seats ended up being in the 300s. I was actually quite happy with them as on a couple of the 3 other occasions there were limitations to the view I got of the stage. RUSH was pretty good as we were center of the rink & midway up, but for Merle Haggard we were right at the side of the stage with obstructions and not very good sound and then for Alexis On Fire we were on the floor at the back with not a very good view at all.
These seats were fine as we got a full view of all of Prince’s custom “symbol” stage and everyone on it, great sight lines to all the stage screens and prime location for sound quality which overall was much better than almost any show I’ve seen at the JLC previously.
From the first note the band didn’t skip a beat for what I counted to be nearly 45 minutes. When they did stop the silence between tunes was brief and Prince and “the New Power Generation” were back into full swing.
Somewhere in that opening set he played the opening licks of “Darling Nikki” to screams and Prince chuckles “Just testing the house y’all”.
The overall show format reminded me of a Vegas style review. Everything was well timed and seamless. People would bring Prince his signature Fender telecaster guitars (I don’t remember seeing the famous “Cloud Guitar” once!) and when it was his time to solo he proved why he is so popular among music fans and musicians alike. His solo for Purple Rain was incredible and skillful and was put up on the screens as a close up on his hands.
Everything about the show was sexy and scintillating. He would often ask the light guys to illuminate the house and when we could see the floor below it was littered with bodies gyrating and writhing with arms flailing about. Every once in a while I would glance around me and the people surrounding me were doing much the same despite the limited room. Prince was playful and interactive with the crowd as were the crew and band as evidenced by lights going on and off prior to the show & encores, or band members tossing T-shirts and tambourines into the crowd. He was always changing up what instrument he’d play if any at all. At one point he took the bass from “Niva” and did a kick ass solo.
For Nothing Compares 2 U he took to the piano. At one point as he announces “Mr. Hayes” his keyboardist for many years and says “We bring you real musicians playing real music!”
The set had many hits; Pop Life, When Doves Cry, Dance Music Sex Romance, Raspberry Beret etc. and then a few unexpected covers like Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”, Sarah McLachlans's "Angel" plus the opening Garth Brooks hit written by Bob Dylan.
For me as a musician and an audio professional, I see shows in a different light. I criticize shows on overall production and performance values. I can’t say when I last saw such a polished 2 ½ hours straight of performance. It highlighted a band that is highly skilled and experienced and that love what they do night in and night out. His technical crew were obviously also highly skilled at what they do and it made for a pleasing experience right from the start.
So thanks ever so much once again to the John Labatt Center for allowing me to be a part of what was really a dream come true for me and providing the forum to express myself about it. I was honoured and privileged to be there to see one of my true heroes and to share my love for him with over 8000 others.
