Pick Your Poison: Wednesday 9-26-12

I have a certain admiration for Prince, and it’s not just because of his basketball skills. I’d like to think that almost everyone in the world has at one point or another in their lives enjoyed a Prince song. Whether it’s the millennial staple “1999” or classics like “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Little Red Corvette,” the man has a catalogue most other artists would envy. More unfortunate is that the Purple One hasn’t had a legitimate hit in over a decade. People still love the guy, even if they don’t particularly care for what he’s been doing more recently. In that respect he’s more like a David Bowie, whose last few albums were mere footnotes. Prince has gotten a bit smarter these last couple years, and instead of going around trying to record and push new material, he’s simply touring because that’s one area of his life that’s still very lucrative. People still flock to see Prince in concert, and they’ll pay high prices for it too. Over the last few months he’s been playing around with touring structures too, holding down residencies in several U.S. cities. His biggest residency so far has been in Los Angeles, where he played 21 dates over the course of a month. Now he likes to claim that every show is unique, but I find it hard to believe that you’re not going to run into some similarities when you play 21 shows in the same place. Anyways, it got me really excited when at the start of this month, Prince announced a Chicago residency. No specifics were given, except that there was one show scheduled for September 24th at the United Center. Second and third shows would later be added as well, for the two days immediately after that. Now that they’re finally here, it seems like tonight will be Prince’s last show in Chicago for the foreseeable future. So L.A. gets 21 shows, and Chicago only gets 3? Unless he’s going to announce more Chicago shows, I’m upset. Here I avoided buying tickets to those shows, figuring that with at least 5-10 shows that still might be scheduled, it’d be easier to get tickets later on. Now on this last night, I’m kicking myself. Then again, reviews for the Prince shows in Chicago haven’t exactly been stellar, with most saying his band does most of the hard work, that he barely picks up a guitar, and when he does it’s only for a minute and doesn’t include an extended solo. Also, at the first show there was a debacle involving a second encore. Fans were left waiting for 30 minutes, then the house lights came up and most left. About 15 minutes after those house lights went up, Prince came back out and played a couple more songs. Almost everybody was gone by that point. Waiting 5 minutes for an encore is excruciating, so I can only imagine what 45 minutes feels like. I haven’t checked to see if he pulled the same stunt on Night 2. We’ll see about Night 3 later. Anyways, if Prince announces any more Chicago shows, I’ll be sure to let you know, as I’ll probably be getting tickets myself. So let’s tackle today’s Pick Your Poison. Recommended tracks come from Cold Showers, Communist Daughter, Departures, One Finger Riot, Sons of the West and Triad God. In the Soundcloud section, stream Passion Pit’s remix of Crystal Fighters, The Knocks remixing Two Door Cinema Club, and a brand new Tegan and Sara single.