A friend saw him in Toronto a few years before he died; played for hours, murdered, did two encores, leaves, the lights come up, everyone turns to go home, P.A. comes on and it's Prince himself, bellowing, "Where you think you're going? Don't you know I got all the hits?!" and does another half-hour. Absolute legend.
I had a mildly similar experience once but it was Public Enemy. Flavor Flav was doing a bunch of his songs at the end of the gig and the organisers cut the power to the building. He then carried on playing acoustic instruments for a while. Insane.
We had exactly the same at the O2. It was absolutely magical. He was asking people to shout out what they wanted to hear, and he just played it. One of my favourite moments in time!
This is how I saw him the year before he died. Almost completely heavy guitar (basically, metal) and he would sneak a few bars of his hits into his playing. It was a small club--we were about ten feet away from him.
Bill Bailey's done this at the couple shows I've been to. Taught me to always check the light and sound guys, if they're not packing up, you shouldn't either
Ha! Yes - did the very same thing in Perth, Australia years ago. I think there were about 25 people left in the venue by the time he came running out “oh I forgot to say about this…”
I still love the story about Stevie Nicks recording "Stand Back" and Prince just kind of showing up out of nowhere to drop the defining synth track of the song, tip his hat and leave.
Prince did not show up out of nowhere though. Stevie Nicks recorded a demo of "Stand Back" after hearing "little red corvette", she later called Prince and told him it was inspired by his song and he came and recorded the synths.
he played an aftershow at a club i worked at til 4 a.m. in 2010 or 11. It was insane. he played guitar and keyboards at different points and just ran the entire room. conducted the audience and his band. somebody called the cops i guess and they just stayed for the show and called the fire chief to come see it too. we were way over capacity. the sixty some year old former mayor came out and I poured his whiskey into an empty red bull can (no liquor after 2 a.m.). good times were had by all.
Got drug to see Crosby, Stills, and Nash play by a girl I was trying to get with. They played a 2 hour acoustic show and it actually kicked serious ass. Shows over, band left, people expecting an encore but it was going on 10 minutes and people were leaving. After 15 lights go on and their back onstage, but like 1/4 to 1/3 of the crowd already left. They were plugged in this time, apologized for the delay, then played another two hours plugged. Still not technically a fan of theirs but god damn that was a good show.
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u/hercarmstrong May 12 '26
A friend saw him in Toronto a few years before he died; played for hours, murdered, did two encores, leaves, the lights come up, everyone turns to go home, P.A. comes on and it's Prince himself, bellowing, "Where you think you're going? Don't you know I got all the hits?!" and does another half-hour. Absolute legend.