Publication: De Volkskrant (The People's Paper) [?]
Date: March 27, 1995
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Title: "Hello Holland This Is Not a Prince Show"
Reviewed By:

How serious does one need to take him? The man who formerly was known as Prince may have placed many riddles and mysteries around him, his music was not really surprising anymore. Last year's release 'Come' was not exactly a great CD and the single TMBGITW cannot be regarded as a milestone in rock history as so many hits of Prince can. His role as innovator seemed to be over, no matter what name he uses.

'Hello Holland, this is not a Prince show. Prince is DEAD. Long live the new power generation', he told the audience just before the concert. Years ago the audience was in great excitement and anticipation just before a concert, now they seemed just amused. 'The Artist Formerly Known As Prince' (ok: TAFKAP) had obviously no more surprises for the fans. Another sign was fact that the concert wasn't sold out, something un-imagenable in the times of Prince. TAFKAP had something to prove and he knew it wouldn't come easy with the dutch spectators. Something very good should come to

And it happened.

The concert is the most daring, and in this very successfull, experiment ever done by a mega star. For two hours he was on stage, ignoring all the hits that made him great. But the new material is very good. TAFKAP seems to have sworn all the innovation, and being the no. 1, off him and is consistently working on a real TAFKAP-style. The source for this style is present in the music of Prince. But will this mature it needs to be isolated and breeded completely without the inheritance of Prince, so he must have thought.

The old work was only shown on a video screen prior to the concert. The band is small, two keyboard players, a drummer and a bassplayer. The sound of the songs is, due to lacking of a horns section, less complete, although the electronic samples of the horns were very present. The TAFKAP-style is still the own-defined mixture of funk, rap and soul. The psychedelic breaks may be less present than in the music of Prince, TAFKAP knows how to stretch the songs into interesting jams. The first hour TAFKAP improvised a lot on his guitar, showing the influence jazz guitarplayer George Benson has had on him.

At times the question raised how TAFKAP wants the new material sound in studio recordings. It is hard to imagine that the freaky structured jams can be captured in a studio recording. At those times a wish for just one real song popped up. 'Pussy Control' was the answer, a song just as vulgar as the title promises, and it worked.

With his sexkitten Mayte he did some poses but more than ever the music was central.

And the music was so arrousing that the stage set uggliness became unimportant ('the Endorphine Machine'). It was not the complete decor, two third was left in London. Too expensive? Anyway, TAFKAP wanted to make some extra bucks, announcing right after the Gold Rain in the song 'Gold' that Saturday he would give an extra concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. He is famous for the aftershows in which he usually plays never released material. But that's exactly what he is doing during the regular shows, so could it be that TAFKAP, unpredictable as he is, would play the Prince songs in the Paradiso? No, TAFKAP played partly the same songs. 'Days Of Wild' and 'Get Wild' sounded even more dense and impressing. Also the excellent musician that is inside TAFKAP came more noticable. Bass, guitar and hammondorgan, he plays it all with the same ease. The big difference with the regular shows is the much higher tempo TAFKAP races through the songs and the very raw sound of this new material. It was also very pleasing that the audience did not have to shout 'Prince is dead' all the time, everybody is aware of this by now! A show as the Paradiso offers a peep (view) in the kitchen of a superstar. Back home in MPLS they probably excercise like this and for those who have the privilege to be present at such a show can count him/herself very lucky. At Sunday he did another show at Paradiso. Why not one whole month every night a show like this?

Whatever his name may be, he still makes the most exciting music thinkable. There are no more doubts!