Prince's Olympic Quintuplecast

Tonight at 9PM the fearsome Viacom empire will air a 30 minute Prince concert on 5 of its channels: MTV, VH1, BET, MTV2 and VH1 Classic. Each channel will show the same concert footage buth apparently each will have their own different interview clips. The concert was taped last week at NY's Webster Hall nightclub, in front of a small studio audience that included myself.

He started out with Musicology, the same as he's been doing it, followed by Mr. Man. Then he did a great solo acoustic set, all different songs than he did on the LA simulcast. Started with Cream, never my favorite but he had a lot of fun with it here. The crowd was doing a call and response with all the backup vocal parts, and he really seemed to enjoy performing for fans who know his stuff like that. Then he did "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man," and afterwards asked "remember that from high school? ..well here's what I remember from high school" and started playing "Sweet Thing." He let us handle most of the vocals which was cool with me cuz it let us enjoy his guitar work, especially the way he played the chords for the chorus.

Then the full band came out again, and mashup of "Hot Pants" and "Life of the Party," and then Kiss. I'm thinking this segment will be cut from the telecast? Something has to go, cuz he played for more than a half hour.

Afterwards we all stayed around for the star-studded celebrity party, where Mike Piazza and Stevie Wonder could be found bumping elbows with Dead Prez and DJ Kuttin Kandi. Actually it was a funny scene because all the "regular folks" were having a great time dancing and partying on the main floor, while the industry people were huddled in one corner having no fun at all, stressing out and arguing with the ornery bouncers who wouldnt let them go upstairs to the VIP area. In other words, everyone was so caught up in the industry status game they had to spend half the night fighting to get upstairs, just so they could do the same thing they could already be doing downstairs, except upstairs they get the validation of doing it with other Important People.