All Purple Everything

ACT I: Setting the scene
4:30pm-ish: The Baguette Winner and I were wandering around our neighbourhood Sitis Market – basically a Four Square – buying low-calorie, high protein snack foods, and not ice cream (obviously). On the radio we hear a couple of snippets of Purple Rain and When Doves Cry, with some French chatter in betwixt. ‘Hm,’ I said, ‘perhaps Prince is coming to France this year?’ [And wouldn’t that be amazing?].

Sitting around at home, I figured I’d Google “Prince Paris”, just to see whether we might have any luck. Shocked, I was, to discover that not only was Prince coming to Paris, but he was coming TONIGHT (ie, yesterday). Two shows, one at 6pm and one at 9:30pm. As it was nearly 5pm, I (with immense help from the BW) set about trying to find tickets. Eventually, we found a GA ticket for the 9:30pm show, heavily marked-up on a third party website. I have always said that I would happily pay more to see Prince than anybody else, and this ticket was about even with some of the pricier gigs I’d been to. The ticket was duly purchased. I WAS GOING TO SEE PRINCE!

Confusion. Shock. Despair. CYCLING…

After finding a nice hotel where we could print off the ticket, I set about becoming wildly excited.

I also had dinner.

The Baguette Winner and I discussed what time we thought I’d need to get there; General Admission, after all, and I wanted to get a good spot. I checked the ticket to see when the doors would open.

How peculiar: this ticket says the show starts at 6pm (it was now after 6).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They sent the wrong ticket. [I have since double-checked, and I definitely selected a 9:30pm ticket. My lawyer (me) has demanded a refund].

This must be what it feels like to be the President of South Sudan. The power, the glory, the new-found independence. On election night he’s on top of the world. And then the next morning he wakes up and realises he’s the President of South Sudan.

I was in a panic, and the Baguette Winner gave me one simple instruction: “ride like the wind”. [She actually said that!] The concert venue – Le Zenith – was about a 15-minute ride away. So ride I did.

 

ACT II: In Which Sarah Ulmer Could Not Find A Place To Park Her Bicycle

I rode really fast, making great time. I was only going to miss, maybe, the first hour. But Prince would play for 2 hours at least, I figured, and Purple Rain would be right at the end.

Two issues: I only vaguely knew where Le Zenith was. It’s in a big complex – a park which straddles a canal – and the venue could have been anywhere. Also, I was riding a Velib, one of the very affordable subscription-based bikes that Paris offers. These are wonderful when you are not in a great hurry, but sometimes it is hard to find a place to park them. [There are Velib parks all over Paris, but you need one that has a free space to hook your bike to]. For some reason (I blame sin), all of the parks out near the venue were out of order. Eventually, I found somewhere to leave the bike, and began sprinting in the general direction of the venue (I had peddled past it earlier, but wasn’t quite sure how to get in).

By now, it was 7:20, and I knew there was not much left of the show. Desperation; heartbreak; anger at myself for believing that good things can happen to great people.

At this point (I was still running), a man (Turkish, maybe) dressed in black, with a funny little bum-bag called out to me ,‘you want Prince?’

I said, ‘yes, which way is it?’

‘I have two tickets for you, my friend’.

I walked past him, as I already had my ticket, and hurried off down the pathway to the venue. About 100 steps in, I decided that I had NOT come all this way to see 20 minutes of Prince (and who knows when my next chance would be?).

I went back, got money out, and bought a ticket off my "friend". [This ticket was literally half the price of the one I had got online, which wasn’t even the right fucking ticket!]

And I went in to catch the last 20 minutes of the first show.

Act III: In Which Dreams Come True

I walked into a surprisingly small, surprising not full venue. Standing, as I was, at the back, I was maybe 15 metres away from the stage. The next 20 minutes are a complete blur. I remember coming in to the end of a very funk/rock number that I didn’t recognise. He then played Something In The Water (Does Not Compute), which I also didn’t know, but was amazing. 

And then it happened. I had been in the room for 10 minutes, when the first few notes of Purple Rain kicked in. And I cried a bit. [In that totally masculine way that girls respect because it shows you have feelings and aren’t a robot.] It was one of the most surreal moments of my life. And 12 minutes later, Purple Rain had finished and the house lights had come on and I was off to wait in line for the real show.

Evidently there aren’t the same liquor bans over here as in New Zealand. People, knowing they’d be queuing for awhile, had brought a few beers down to pass the time. You could also buy them a number of people who had set up stalls around the queue. Although I didn’t have one (I was petrified of having to leave my spot to find a toilet), I thought it was nice. Nobody was especially drunk, by the way, just having a couple of beers on a Sunday evening.

After about an hour in line, and half an hour in the General Admission area, Prince came back. [He actually did a couple of laps on a bicycle outside to see all the crowds lining-up (separated by a huge fence, of course)].

The show started with a cool funk/rock version of Let’s Go Crazy, and then Take Me With U. I had actually been pretty worried about the setlist. This was a small venue, and he is in Europe all the time. He is also with a new band, and they are releasing an album sometime soon. I was worried that it was going to be a whole load of new stuff, as well as some other obscure miscellanea that I would not recognise. It was neither of those things.

Prince proceeded to play almost nothing but hits, and he played them pretty honestly. He also seemed to have a marvelous time doing so. Raspberry Beret; When Does Cry; Sign O’ The Times; Kiss – all the big names were there. Early on, he announced ‘At our parties, we play the songs we want to hear!’, and went into an awesome re-working of Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough. He played Little Red Corvette, the whole thing, and it was incredible. He sang a long version of Nothing Compares 2 U, and it was pompous and camp and spectacular. And then he went off-stage.

For the encore (one of those encores that’s really part of the set), he came out on his own and gave us a medley on the piano: Diamonds and Pearls, The Beautiful Ones and a great version of How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore, the song he wrote for Alicia Keys. And then it was Purple Rain again. The feelings this time weren’t quite as powerful as the last time around, but the spectacle was better. For one, I was in the fifth row back from the stage, and when the purple confetti dropped it was everywhere. The guitar solo was (obviously) sublime; both true to the original, but with some vamping in there to show he was trying. It’s a pretty remarkable thing that this was so affecting, when you consider the backbreaking number of times he has had to play this song. 

And then he went off-stage.

The people of Paris were not content with one encore (although I had now been standing for 6 hours, and was pretty content). 5 minutes of cheering and screaming later, and Prince was back onstage again. He played three songs in this encore, and while I didn’t know any of them, it was still a grand ol’ time. He went away again.

More cheering and screaming, and back he came. The highlight of this encore was What’s My Name, which I didn’t really know either. [I can’t find a video of this one, sorry]. This involved a lot of really silly dancing from Prince, while police sirens blared over the chorus. It was really excellent. He went away one more time.

This time he came back and played the only song that I was hoping to hear, which he was ever actually going to play. [I would’ve died if he’d played International Lover, but that was never going to happen]. The final encore was a beautiful, passionate version of Sometimes It Snows In April, which you will remember from the end of the film Under The Cherry Moon (obviously). And then he was gone again, this time for good.

It was, without a doubt, the best concert I have ever been to. Seeing Prince in a 6,000-seat venue (which wasn’t even totally full) was pretty much the best case scenario, and he played every song I could’ve requested. 

The only downside was that he HATES people filming or taking photos, and he had security people shining bright lights in the faces of anyone holding up a camera. I still managed to get a couple, however, so that will do. I will say that the lack of phones being held up did help to keep focus on the show, so maybe it was a net positive.

I rode like the wind home, stopping only to buy a poster on the way out. I triumphantly strode through the door at 12:30am, where I was promptly told off by an angry Baguette Winner, who had been expecting me back at home 3 hours earlier. But it was all worth it when she saw the beautiful purple confetti centrepiece on our coffee table...