omg, i get the goose bumps every time I see him perform 1999. dude, still looks like i remember him when my mom would bump his music when i was little.
On New Year's Eve 1999, Prince (his stage name at that time still being an unpronounceable symbol) held a concert entitled Rave Un2 the Year 2000 at his Paisley Park Studios Soundstage, and he later vowed never to play it again. However, in August 2007, as part of his Earth Tour, he reintroduced the song to his set after an absence of eight years.
Guess who was at that show
Being the hardcore fan I am, and owning the Rave 2000 DVD, I of course knew that he hadn't played the song at all since then and had claimed that he wouldn't play it again.
Picture the scene. Lights go down at the show and everyone starts screaming cos Prince is gonna come out.
Then......all of a sudden... I hear the words..... "DON'T....WORRY.....I....WON'T HURT YOU.....I ONLY....WANT YOU.....TO HAVE.....SOME FUN."
As soon as I heard the first two words, I completely lost it. I said to my friend who was with me "Dude! This is the fucking intro to 1999 and he hasn't played this song since NYE 1999!!!!"
It was fucking awesome. That was the same night that I met Prince as well. After the 2-hour main concert, he played another 3-hour aftershow concert in a small capacity club within the same venue complex.
Each of the 21 nights of the residency had an aftershow at this place, but it was never guaranteed that Prince would show up at them, let alone play. I went to 5 main shows and 3 aftershows, at one of the aftershows he showed up and played guitar for 10 minutes with Nikka Costa, at one he didn't show up at all, and this night was the third aftershow that I went to. Fucking amazing, he jammed for 3 hours, playing rare material, rock covers, funk covers, switching between guitar, keyboard, bass and tearing it up on all of them. Best fucking night ever.
I met him afterwards, but that's another story
