Concert Review: Prince's Musicology
by Stephen Fusi

His Majesty rocked South Carolina last night.

The musicology tour is awesome!!! Three straight hours of Prince being Prince, killing the guitar and seducing everybody up in there.

He started off with musicology, then did a medley of old favorites like, I Would Die 4 U, Controversy, Kiss, When Doves Cry. He did an old Tevin Campbell song and well as a Chaka Khan song.

The "intermission" came when the New Power Generation, Prince's badarse band, rocked solos one-by-one for about 45 minutes. Two sax players, John on drums, bassist and guitar player. And then the keyboardist. Oh my! Let me say it again, Oh my! Folks was all cryin' and mess when he was done.

Prince

Prince started off in a red bias-cut suit coat with white silky bellbottoms and a white ruffled shirt. He added about six inches (to his height) with some white, Lucite-stilettoed boots.

Post intermission, he pulled out a stool and purple acoustic guitar and rocked Little Red Corvette and some other songs that I didn't know. No drums, no horns. Just guitar and it was golden. Prince was clownin'. At one point, he asked us to sing background with him. When people started singing Prince's part, he checked 'em - "I said background, not lead!" Everyone bust out laughing.

He also told us to make sure that performers actually perform live, not lip sync. And he brought a bunch of ladies up on stage for an entire hour. They were jammin'. Prince asked this one woman to sing along and she declined. He feigned disappointment and kept asking her. All in good fun.

So after about an hour of acoustic guitar, he went into Let's Go Crazy and a few other oldies but goodies. He bid us all farewell and good night. Then it was done.

Or so we thought. After 10 minutes of 'Encore,' and, 'We love Prince," he came back out and rocked Purple Rain. And it was golden. Then it was done, really.

He simply rocked it. It was rocked and could not be rocked anymore. I can't believe I waited all these years to go see Prince.

And, everyone got a free musicology cd. The full thing, not a teaser. I rocked it on the way home. I'm rocking now, actually.

Prince's new album "Musicology" is available via his NPG Music Club website.

****

Stephen Fusi is a graduate of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering.

He is currently a manager at a Fortune 200 diversified industrial manufacturing company, where he manages relationships with several key technology partners. Married with one young son and one large German Shepherd Dog, Stephen has accepted a scholarship to join the class of 2006 at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. You will find him on the MBADiversity message boards pontificating under the very secretive nom de plume, "stephen."

Have you seen Prince in Concert? What did you think?

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