Take U Higher (Tamar w/Prince, Nokia Theater)

(Prince photo via; the crappy pics are mine)

Well, what did you want?

Hope can keep you out of a room, expectations can damn you.

Last night’s show at the Nokia Theater wasn’t a Prince concert, but it was Prince’s concert.  Had Prince not been involved, the room wouldn’t have been packed, the lines outside wouldn’t have started forming more than three hours early, the ticket price wouldn’t have been set at such an irregular number ($31.21 – not so much a currency curiosity as a clever bit of pocketbook promotion:  It’s the name of his forthcoming album (a shame it’s not called, oh, 1750).  If Prince weren’t involved, if his presence weren’t guaranteed, it would have been totally unacceptable when the guy in the box office defined the starting time as “between 11 and 12:30 – whenever HE feels like it.”

But it wasn’t a Prince concert.  Had it been, at the 2100-capacity theater, the price would have been steeper (and tickets certainly would not have slipped by on eBay for six cents (!)), fans would have gathered earlier, question marks would have been left at home.

The show was billed as “Tamar – with special guest PRINCE!” – Tamar being a new female singer-slash-“protégé” – and all anyone came armed with were some accounts from a similar show in San Francisco describing His Purple Mountin’ Majesty’s role as a secondary one.  Rhythm guitar?  Hassle and hustle into some candy-coated Times Square room to see a man whose best work came twenty years ago play rhythm guitar?  Why?

Because it’s Prince.  Duh.

I’d never seen Prince, live, and have wanted to for, like, ever;  I remember reading concert reviews during my teen years that described entrances made in royal-hued bathtubs, and other bizarre extravagances.  But he’s too popular, and no matter how big his tub, arena shows aren’t for me; in the end, all of Prince’s music is about sex, and I prefer a more intimate orgy.  While Nokia’s a larger venue than the ones I’ve been frequenting lately, it’s probably the smallest he’s ever going to play in New York City.

And the man’s an exceptional guitarist.  Perhaps the image obscures the music, or the fusion distracts from the musicianship, but that aspect of his work is too often overlooked.  And this made the Prince-as-sideman role almost ideal.

Still, what could I hope for?  How many Prince songs?  Any Prince songs?  Would he be in the background, on the side, or would he just sprint through?  And who is this Tamar person, anyway?  There was a long wait – doors to the theater opened at 11:15, performers took the stage at 12:20 – during which hopes were dashed (Prince songs were included in the pre-show PA music, so they were obviously not going into the setlist) and anticipation was built:  Make all this trouble worth it.

The spare supporting band – a keyboardist, bass and drums – were pushed all the way to the back of a fairly deep stage; images flashed on a video screen behind them (along with, occasionally, STOP/PLAY DVD commands).  Four mics were set up, one right up front, the others in a row a few steps behind it.

Prince entered.  He did so without fanfare, walking briskly from stage left to a door on the other side where someone had been holding his guitar.  His hair was tied up from back to front with some sort of black scarf/kerchief; under the stage lights it looked like he was wearing an orange suit over a black shirt, the shirt open a few more buttons than a 47-year-old man might normally dare.  He took his place at the mic to the far right and started to play.  This was the band.  No second guitarist.  The other mics were left empty, and for a solid minute or so there were thoughts that, maybejustmaybe, it was only going to be Prince.  At least for a little while.

But then three women came sashaying out, backside-to-the-crowd, their one-piece pinstripe minis short enough to afford views of several major European countries.  They turned around.  One stormed forward, took the mic and took the crowd.

Tamar (it’s pronounced TAY-mar, which makes a lousy stage name, sounds like a bargain-basement magician or a sideshow strongman, everyone, please, put your hands together for the aMAYzing TAYmarrrr as she delights and astounds you... besides, it’s taken) may be new to all this attention – “I know you don’t know me from Eve or Adam” she said – but she’s not lacking in confidence.  Bookended by taught, tiny twin back-up singers and sitting half a stage away from a mentor-slash-superstar, she never seemed to be looking over her shoulder.  If anything, she charged forward, ignoring where the spotlight fell if it meant putting too much space between her and the crowd.  Occasionally she was too enthusiastic, trying to corner a savvy crowd into back-and-forths while forgetting to establish the chants and improperly wielding the mic.  But she certainly wasn’t timid.

Or disappointing.  Having waited for so long for Prince, it’s amazing how quickly the crowd was won over by the Other Woman.  The set was smartly designed to showcase a wide variety of songs, the first section moving from soul to funk to smoov R&B, the material mostly unknown – presumably from her forthcoming CD, Beautiful, Loved and Blessed – but sprinkled with classics like “When a Man Loves a Woman.” 

Her voice was solid; the higher-pitched stuff had a touch of nasalish vibrato – like something’s loose, up there – but it was warm, never off-key, and left you kind of stunned when it cleared out in the lower registers.  Hyperactive vocal noodling and arpeggioverdosing was kept to a minimum, always refreshing in this day of American Idolatry.  But I’m not sure – it’ s Not My Department – what makes for a solid R&B diva, these days.  As far as I can tell, such women have shorter shelf lives than Hot British Bands; they’re allowed to drop a CD, do a duet with a rapper, then disappear.  Tamar was certainly capable and had a decent amount of stage presence, but her voice never left me floored. 

One bit of her performance was unforgettable, though:  During one loved-and-lost torch song, she stormed offstage in a bit of playacting.  She returned, dabbing her eyes with a huge white terrycloth towel, the twins pretending at consolation.  Tamar grabbed the mic and, her wide eyes staring out from under a frazzle of Diana Rossy hair, started barking, “Do you think I’m crazy?  You think I’m crazy, when I’m outside your window with a can of gasoline?”  She went on to mention an axe, a pair of rollerblades, and the urge to make a sequel to Fatal Attraction.  Great stuff.

Her voice didn’t have to carry the show:  She had Prince over there dropping perfect little fills, sometimes taking a couple solos per song.  He’s unquestionably amazing, squeezing out an incredible range of sounds.  It wasn’t rhythm guitar, even though the keyboards did the bulk of the melodic weightlifting.  It was textural.  At one point, late in the show, he waved the band to a halt and ordered, “Kick drum only!”  While his drummer stomped her beat, he held a chord and shaped it with his pedal.  Fantastic.

His relationship with his instrument was fascinating; when he was done with it, there was no love lost:  During a rocking single-song (“Red-Headed Stepchild”?) second set he took a baby blue guitar and dragged the drrrtiest stuff imaginable from it; at the end of the number he unplugged it and handed it to the audience (A stagehand retrieved it).  At the end of the show (or one of the other sets), he casually chucked another guitar towards the back of the stage.

He didn’t interact with the crowd much, except to praise his singer.  “Now y’all understand?” he asked once, and thanked us for “being so kind to [his] ‘baby sister.’”  But he never became that mysterious, aloof “Prince” character; the man onstage was emotionally involved with the performance, laughing, shaking his head and just generally having a blast.  He sat out one song, drinking water in the shadows; wowed when Tamar hit and held a note, he grabbed a towel and started exuberantly whipping the floor with it.

A lot of effort was made to close gaps with the crowd.  Early in the show – too early, in fact, as it made for a weird distraction – Tamar singled out a man in the audience she claimed had hit on her and both twins that evening.  “John,” who was “an accountant.”  They brought him up out of the crowd, sat him down, and taunted him with a song whose refrain was “No, no, no.”  Later, the band started into Wild Cherry’s “Play that Funky Music (White Boy)” and Tamar called for someone who could sing it “from top to bottom;” the volunteer  – who seemed an obvious plant – not only knew all the words, but had a professional-sounding singing voice.  He actually grabbed for the mic while Tamar was still giving an intro, and when he kept singing after the first chorus, Prince laughed into his mic and said something along the lines of, “We have to do more than one verse?”  And towards the end of the show – perhaps at the end, I can’t remember the order – Tamar picked more than twenty people out of the crowd to dance on stage; I think this was during Sly Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher.”  Though Prince retreated to the back and the twins scooted dancers away from the mics when they tried to sing, it made the show feel even more intimate than it was.  I knew Prince invited Eddie Murphy’s brother to play basketball; I didn’t know he was okay having audience members on stage with him.

And how much Prince was there?  Technically, very little:  There was only one Prince song, I think – “Partyman,” of all things, from the Batman soundtrack – and Tamar sang it.  Several times the leading lady left the stage, and each time you could feel the audience ready itself for Prince Material... but it never happened.  A break at the forty minute mark led only to a costume change; ten minutes later, another brief break signaled a switch to funkier stuff.  Before the final encore, we were encouraged to start chanting “It Ain’t Over;” the chant died out, then re-emerged... as did Tamar.  There were enough goings on-and-off stage I lost track of where sets ended and encores began; the backing band, functionally, stayed on between breaks (and a second guitarist joined them for the final encore).  The show lasted an hour and forty minutes, swelled by covers of Aretha Franklin (“Rock Steady”), both Jacksons (Michael’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til U Get Enough” and (because “you can’t have the brother without the sister”) Janet’s “What Have U Done 4 Me Lately”), and others I’m sure I didn’t recognize. 

And didn’t need to.  Because while there were songs I wanted to hear – that I may never hear, live – I got to see something more important:  Prince, playing stuff he wanted to play while surrounded by people with whom he enjoys playing.  As it was, the energy was infectious, the band was tight as Tupperware.  Unencumbered by massive set-pieces or audience expectations, he got to put aside his crown for a few small gigs.  Instead of royalty, Prince functioned as Dr. EverythingBalright – and seriously, if you weren’t having fun, there was something wrong with you.

Or with what you wanted.

*

The one real annoyance:  Tamar continually addressed the crowd as “Nokeeeeeeeeyah!”  Not “New York City,” or “New York.”  “Nokia.”  It felt like ongoing product placement.

It was my first time in the Nokia theater.  There seem to be obstructed-view pockets to either side of the stage; the main floor goes back aways before moving up into tiers.  There’s a single balcony.  The sound was clean, but the mix was sometimes odd.  There was – and I’m not being a wise-ass, here – too little Prince.  The man himself kept gesturing offstage, thumbing the air, turn me up, turn me up.  The keyboards were full, but a bit too loud; that Sly Stone song calls for real horns, though.

I’m not sure whether it’s the venue, the performer, or some combination of the two, but pictures were almost impossible.  I’d barely squeezed off a couple out-of-focus shots – no flash, of course – before security had swooped in and asked me to put it away.  Which was fine, I suppose;  but Prince was, like, right there.

*

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tags: prince  tamar  

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