The Prince show started out poorly, for us anyway. Club Black holds about 2,500 people, and when we got there at 12:30 am the line stretched most of the way around the block. And those are big blocks (56th and 11th). I saw Fred Armisen stalking around in a black suit as we tried to find the end of the line. We quickly met up with our friend Scott and his friend Alexis, a bartender from the Knitting Factory who had just sung "7" at the Prince tribute show at B.B. King's. We had a good time waiting in line, chatting about music and clubs and rollerderby and hockey while the cruel wind off the Hudson scythed through us.

Prince had just started playing when we made it inside the club at around 1:10 am, and then it was ten minutes of being crushed to death before we even got to the will-call window for our tickets. Then we were directed with the other cattle toward the main floor of the club, but it was so crowded we were stuck in this entry corridor with a bar on one side and couldn't get far enough forward to see around the corner to the stage. Of course, everyone else was trying to get far enough forward too, except for the people who had already tried and given up and were now trying to go back the way they came. At one point I smelled what I thought was candle smoke, and I nearly shat myself at the thought of getting trampled or crushed in a stampede. But it passed, and the crowd kept their cool. Seriously though, there were moments when it was hard to breathe in the press of bodies. And it was hard to forget that 4 people OD'd there over the weekend.

When we first got in, I believe it was "Shhh" that Prince was doing. That turned into "D.M.S.R.," which sounded great but we couldn't see. Someone said that Big Boi was onstage too, but I can't confirm that and suspect that he was just in the audience and Prince gave him a shout-out. Others stars in attendance who got shout-outs later included Anita Baker, Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, Andre 3000, and Alicia Keys.

Finally █████ and I figured out that we could go back out, traverse this strange maze, and find our way to the second floor and watch from one of the balconies. At first we still couldn't see, but then we found a couple of padded footstools lying around and dragged them over from the lounge. We stood on them to see over the crowd, and finally we could see Prince and most of the band. And that's when the evening became seriously fun.

The next hour of the show was amazing. The man puts on a great show and has a riveting stage presence. He played some big hits, and a lot of deep funk and soul with a four-piece horn section that included Candy Dulfer on tenor. His costumes were outrageous, including one with high heeled red boots with flashing lights in the heels. And sometimes he strapped on a guitar, and we were reminded that on top of everything else he's a world-class guitar player. All in all, he seemed to be in a fine mood, and we were happy happy happy to have been there.

Tunes included "I Feel 4 U," "Controversy," "The Beautiful Ones" (and the Purple One was in fine voice for that one), "Nothing Compares 2 U," "Insatiable," "Sign 'O' the Times," "The Question of U," "The One," "Let's Work," "U Got the Look," "Life of the Party," "Soulman," and "Kiss."

I saw Fred Armisen again wandering around on the second floor balcony during the show, and then spotted Paul Shaffer sitting in the sound booth wearing big black horn-rimmed glasses studded with rhinestones. When "Kiss" ended and the band exited, the crowd clamored for more, but after about five minutes the house lights came up and we began to disperse. It was nearly 3:30 am, and we felt good.

On the way out, we saw Paul Shaffer ordering a big drink at the second floor bar. He stood around sipping it as the crowd flowed past him, apparently wanting badly to be seen. I used to see him doing this a lot at a sidewalk cafe in front of the building I used to work at across from Lincoln Center. He was always there at an outside table, nothing low-key about him at all.

It wasn't nearly as hard to get out of the club as it had been to get in. As we were crossing 11th Avenue, I spotted Fred Armisen again and pointed him out to █████ (who had missed him both the first two times). Then we realized that he was walking with Rachel Dratch and Maya Rudolph, and we strolled past them casually whilst checking them all out. Okay, mostly I was checking out Maya Rudolph. Okay, entirely I was checking out Maya Rudolph. As █████ said, she is luminous in person.

We walked all the way to Broadway, giddy then caught a cab home. Got to bed just after 4:00 am.

On the prince.org forums, there's a very good description of what it was like trying to get into the club, and how scary that was. Glad the evening ended better than it started.