Prince & 3rdEyeGirl @Kings Place, London (SECRET SHOW)

Prince & 3rdEyeGirl @Kings Place, London (SECRET SHOW)

Alejandro De Luna

Photos: The Guardian/Kate Hutchinson

There is no need to go into details about how Prince has conquered London with an unconventional PR strategy based only on rumours, speculations and ‘hit & run’ tweets. Yet, thousands of fans remain in permanent panic (I´m not exaggerating) for not knowing clearly the next steps from the purple wizard. In London, to check Prince related updates on Twitter, has become a stressful activity and yesterday, the so-called Hit and Run Tour returned after Shepherds Bush´s gig and offered – until now, the most intimate opportunity (350 capacity) for seeing the most gifted musician in the history of popular music. The venue this time: Kings Place, just below The Guardian Headquarters. The doses: Two legendary shows in one single night.

READ: PRINCE & 3RDEYEGIRL @RONNIE SCOTT´S (SECRET SHOW)

With Prince, anything can happen and once more, he broke the established rules when the promised full acoustic set composed initially by “Raspberry Beret´s” timeless classic; a tribute to The Clash and Wild Cherry; 3RDEYEGIRL´s single; and a funk obscurity, mutated into sonorous guitar solo driven mayhem and electric madness with decibels that possibly exceeded the permitted limits. It was like the phrase “acoustic set” printed on the ticket was just a joke and Prince was there for destroying our eardrums with his genius. Believe me, it was fuckin´loud.

Is not easy to be next to the multi-instrumentalist mastermind on stage but 3RDEYEGIRL do really rock hard. The girls sound tight, precise and powerful next to the master. And so the electric hysteria began with Billy Cobham´s  “Stratus” that was converted into a monstrous jam. It felt like if we were in front of the toughest and loudest band on the planet (again, I´m not exaggerating) with a massive sound covering every inch of the venue. Spliced guitar solos and distorted bass lines lead to the essential “Let´s Go Crazy” into more of the guitar driven hysteria.

“Endorphinmachine” from his  phase; “Screwdriver” and “She´s Always On My Hair” (another classic) continued the utopia for the 350 lucky ones. “Funknroll” returned with  a wild version that included a stage invasion as a request from Prince that left everyone wanting more. After massive clapping and fans desperate for more from the purple wizard,  Prince sat on piano to play as an encore, “Purple Rain” that ended the surreal night.

To see Prince live is to gather all the phantoms of great music from the past decades. From soul to funk; from blues to rock n´roll; from pop to hip hop and from the heaviest guitar solos to the sweetest piano ballads. Is all there in one single persona. Is like if the genius of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Sly Stone, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and definitely Jimi Hendrix is compiled on that mysterious legend. 

“I’m not a woman, I’m not a man, I am something that you’ll never understand” preyed assertively the purple messiah in 1984, and is probably true. The multi-instrumentalist; the arranger; the composer; the performer; the dancer; the producer; the beast. Prince is something we will never comprehend.

It was fantastic; it was short, too short but legendary. Just epic.

 SETLIST

ACOUSTIC

Raspberry Beret (acoustic)
Train In Vain (The Clash cover) (acoustic)
Funknroll (acoustic)
Pretzelbodylogic (acoustic)
Play That Funky Music (Wild Cherry cover) (acoustic)

ELECTRIC

Stratus incl. The Sailor’s Hornpipe interpolation (Billy Cobham cover)
Let’s Go Crazy incl. Frankenstein interpolation
Endorphinmachine
Screwdriver
She’s Always In My Hair
Funknroll
Purple Rain