Prince at the Troubadour: May 11th, 2011

Part 2 of of our 2011 musical journey with Prince didn't take place the LA Forum, like the other concerts. Rather, this took place in the legendary 300 person club in West Hollywood, called The Troubadour. After Prince-insider Dr. Funkenberry led us on an entertaining but fruitless wild-goose chase for a secret show on Tuesday night, official word hit on Wednesday at 2pm, moments after more shows at the Forum went on sale:

Prince. 2 shows at the Troubadour. $100 each.

L was in a team planning meeting, and it was our night with Z, but this didn't stop me from instantaneously clicking buy on the two tickets I was able to grab for the early, 7 pm show.

True Prince fans know that an "aftershow" in a small club is the nirvana of Prince. I've seen two of these before, and bored people endlessly with the huge impact it had on me. This was about to top that.

After waiting patiently with a bunch of other gracious, good-humored Prince fans in line, we got into the club, and 10 feet from the stage. Prince came on late, as always, but after opening with aftershow standard "Stratus", it was like he reached into L's brain and started extracting every song she wanted to hear. And he wasn't just playing these songs in his alligator-toned suit - he was living them, he was breathing them, all the while giving his bandmates chances to shine. Smiling, loving the vibe, and clearly relishing the impact he was having on his devoted crowd.

The show can best be described as a love/sex/jazz/rock set. It wasn't as guitar heavy as his second show was reputed to be, but he pulled out more rarities, and slowed them down in a way that L and I would never have traded shows for the world. This was guaranteed out the gate, as Prince announced that they were Prince and the Power Fantastic. He then kicked into this revered, little-known B-side from the Miles Davis album, the house lights blue. We swooned. It was only the first time among many that L turned to me and practically cried, "This isn't really happening!".

Yes, yes it was. Prince turned songs into astonishing jams, none of them lasting less than 8 minutes. Knowing that L wanted to hear "Shhh", John Blackwell beat into it. When Prince changed it up midway into a completely different song, L moaned, "this doesn't count". When he brought it back around to the big finish, replete with possibly the best Prince guitar solo this side of Purple Rain, she shrieked, "Yes, this counts!". He kept hitting L's sweet spots with "Colonized Mind" and a sultry new song called "When She Comes" (which was not an euphemism).

Prince was in rare form, with a band that more than met his match. He played for 2 1/2 hours, pulling out Joni Mitchell's "A Case of U", a hopping version of "Controversy", while pointing out people trying to snap his picture, who were summarily ripped out of the crowd by aggressive security. When Prince started into Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On", I almost groaned at the cliche nature of it, but after Mike Phillip's sax and a glorious vocal treatment by the stunning Andy Allo, I decided it was the greatest version of "Let's Get it On" that's ever been done. Yes, it was that good.

He left us gasping, and practically stumbling out of the club. We spent the next two days on a complete high that didn't let up until... we saw him again.

Feel free to read Part 1 of our Journey with Prince if you missed it.

Click here to see a deduped list of all 66 unique songs we heard over the course of 5 shows.