What’s On – Prince performs at Koko

BABY I’M A STAR – PRINCE AT KOKO, NW1

‘Y’all like my hat?’ Prince asked as he left the stage of Camden’s KOKO for the second time.

To be honest, I didn’t like his hat. It was a floppy, black, fedora-type thing, that atop the diminutive musician’s new-look afro and florid ‘60s threads sent out a conscious message: this get-up was Sly Stone × Jimi Hendrix. A dangerous comparison, you might think. Prince is pushing 60 and in all honesty, it’s been a while since anyone thought of him as the sexy motherfucker of old. But that wasn’t the point. This was a Prince gig. Michael Jackson, Madonna, David Bowie, even – you name ‘em, Prince trumps ‘em.

You’d have to have spent the last couple of weeks inside a tin of beans in a nuclear shelter not to be in the know about the ‘80s superstar’s spate of ‘secret’ Twitter-managed London gigs. He announced his hit & run tour of smaller London venues from a less than fashionable East End address, namely a Leyton sitting room belonging to Brit-soul singer Lianne La Havas, and has spent the last week and a half attracting gargantuan queues to the kind of mid-range fleapits normally associated with VD and no-hoper indie bands.

If the whole ‘spontaneous’ thing smacks more than a little of spin, (after all, is Prince actually capable of selling out a larger venue?) then you’ve really got to hand it to whoever his PR team are. Because however calculated the social media buzz might be, the experience of rushing half way across town to be the first in line to see the li’l Prince and his retina-smashingly cool band is BLOODY EXCITING.

I was in Soho with a couple of friends when we got the call: ‘Get. To. Camden.’ Screamed a panicked voice, ‘NOW.’ We didn’t hesitate for a moment. Having retrieved the rumoured £70 entrance fee, we jumped into a cab we could ill afford and hopped out next to Mornington Crescent tube station, running to jump the queue as far as was humanly possible. Our middle class propriety had disappeared – the prospect of an audience with Prince had turned us feral, ready not only to bankrupt ourselves but to rip our sale-purchase clothes off and draw blood.

After twenty minutes of sustained howling, cackling and not caring whose feet we were treading on, the line smashed forth through the doors and nobody bothered to part us with our cash. A Canadian guy with hair like Wotsits (seriously – you should’ve seen) who I vaguely recognised as the singer of briefly-fashionable dance combo Azari & III grabbed my shoulders and hugged me: ‘FUCK! IS THIS THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?!?’

Call me superficial, materialistic, drunk, whatever, but at that moment, midnight on Sunday, February 16th 2014, I wasn’t anywhere close to saying no.

What we’d only sort of realised in our adrenaline-crazed fug was that Prince had been playing since 6pm. We crashed into the auditorium to a valedictory shockwave of screeching feedback, edging our way through the masses – I hardly registered at the time, but I got punched twice – ever closer to the stage from which Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL, his new, all-female power trio were hammering out the purest, most intensely sexy form of structured noise I’d ever heard. You hear lots of crap about watching genuine charisma in action, and finally I began to understand. I was eight feet away from the band and I was utterly zombified by them, the room spinning as I dribbled and danced helplessly.

If this block of writing doesn’t really constitute a ‘review’ per se, then mea culpa; I was swept up, completely oblivious to the setlist, almost utterly immune to Prince’s various comings and goings, unconcerned about the fact that I looked like the most idiotic skinny white boy this side of a Mr Muscle ad. (plus ça change) The point – as briefly referenced before – was that this genuinely was the sort of ‘once in a lifetime experience’ you cringe at people for droning on about. As a friend told me when we collapsed into the stinking North London night in search of beer and superlatives, ‘now THAT was one to cross off the list.’

You may think those poor saps waiting in line for eight hours outside Ronnie Scott’s today are wasting their time, and 24 hours ago I’d have agreed with you.

But now I’m really not so sure. Forget the received wisdom, forget the forgettable records Prince has been churning out for the last twenty years, the whiff of cynicism, the appalling clothes and my slathering fanboy attitude. Forget even the dodgy hat I mentioned. And if the elevator tries to bring you down – go crazy.

By Digby Warde-Aldam

Become a Gentleman’s Journal Member?

Like the Gentleman’s Journal? Why not join the Clubhouse, a special kind of private club where members receive offers and experiences from hand-picked, premium brands. You will also receive invites to exclusive events, the quarterly print magazine delivered directly to your door and your own membership card.

Click here to find out more