I realized that maybe I didn't want to do a review at all. The main reason for that was the way we totally got the shaft. Let me explain.
Prince played two shows at the Air Canada Centre, November 25 & 26. We went to the Saturday show. On the Friday, Prince and the NPG played probably one of the most epic sets of all time. The Purple One once made Toronto home, so he has a special place in his heart for the city. Which is great, if you went to the first show.
Check out these two setlists:
Taken individually, these are two amazing shows. Taken together, and you can see why the people on the second night got a bit of the shaft. Thanks to social media & the web, we knew going into the show that there were six (6!) encores on Friday, and that Saturday was going to be a hell of a show. Well, the weight of expectations sort of brought that down and we couldn't help feeling disappointed. Which is kind of shitty, actually. If Prince had only played the Saturday show, I could easily have said it was one of the best shows I'd ever been to. But with the knowledge of what the audience got the night before, I can still say it was one of the best shows I've ever been to, but that's tempered with the mild bitterness of having missed the show the night before. The cynical side of me thinks this was due to the fact that every journalist would be out in full force on the first night, giving effusive praise, and that the second show would be basically ignored by the same press.
Wait... I guess I should write about the music too, right? Of course. Well it was phenomenal. His Royal Badness can still play the fuck out of the guitar, and his band is absolutely dynamite. They played a bunch of hits, but the surprising thing was all the cover songs the band played. Lots of classics, as you can see from the setlist link above, but the one sort of oddity was Sarah McLachlan's "Angel", which a couple of the lady backup singers came out and sang while Prince did a costume change. You will notice the Friday show did not get to enjoy such a treat. So take that, suckers! The second night also got "Mountains", so there's that small victory.
A bunch of random notes, and things I enjoyed about the show:
-"I'd like to call a special guest to the stage... my guitar!"
-"Turn the house lights up, I want to see all you people!" - this happened about 15 times during the show. Seriously.
-Prince finishing a guitar solo at the end of a song (I forget which one), then handing the guitar to one of the ladies from the audience who had come up on stage... the lights went down, and shadowy figures came on stage and quickly retrieved the guitar. Tough luck!
I hardly remember the way the show ended, and the alcohol was only partly to blame. He came out and jammed on the piano with some backing tracks... which is fine, Prince can do whatever he wants, but it was out of place given the killer encores from the Friday show. It felt like everyone in the building was expecting more than one encore (greedy!), and after about 10-15 minutes of the whole building chanting "Prince!", a voice came over the PA to tell everyone where the after party was being held, effectively letting everyone know that the skinny man had left the building.
Sort of an anti-climactic ending, but really it was our own fault for building up expectations instead of just going with the show.
But, like I said, a great show, maybe one of the greatest I've been to, and perhaps time will take the sting out of seeing the second best show of two, when the first was up there with the Artist's greatest shows ever.
The moral of the story is: Prince is so awesome that he can make one show of a lifetime pale in comparison to another show of a lifetime.
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