Prince review – return to stadiums provokes hormonal spontaneous combustion

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/18/prince-review-manchester-arena

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"Manchester, are you ready to go crazy?" asks Prince Rogers Nelson, and 21,000 voices yell in the affirmative. With the crowd providing the "Oh no, let's go" refrain in Let's Go Crazy, the Minneapolis funkster raises one eyebrow, reels off a blistering Jimi Hendrix-style guitar wail and disappears in a cloud of smoke.

If Prince's career-rekindling series of guerilla gigs in small venues in February felt like a unique experience, his return to arenas provides a stage worthy of one of pop's great showmen. He uses every inch of the vast space and makes everybody in it feel part of the performance.

Sound and lighting technicians are subjected to various commands ("More guitar!" "Turn the lights off!") as songs are delivered with the house lights on (Kiss; U Got the Look; Controversy) or in pitch-black (Diamonds and Pearls; a sublime The Beautiful Ones). With the simplest gestures, he controls the audience's singing and waving like a conductor. His request for people to not use mobiles initially feels mean-spirited, but makes sense when he yells, "Cellphones out!" during Hot Thing, and the arena explodes in a sea of twinkling lights.

Not everything he tries comes off. The dread phrase, "Is it OK if we jam awhile?" leads to one or two funky workouts that threaten to dampen the party atmosphere, but any such moments are more than made up for by storming renditions of the likes of When Doves Cry or 1999, which demonstrate that pop music can still reduce human beings to a state of hormonal spontaneous combustion.

With his supreme new band 3RDEYEGIRL, songs are slowed down, elongated or totally reinvented as they rampage from James Brown-y funk to psychedelic pop. The album track Something in the Water, from 1982, is transformed into an epic showstopper. Prince dictates his own agenda. With guitar rock currently unfashionable, he plays more guitar than ever and grins like a fascinated toddler at the array of wonderful noises he conjures from the instrument. After two hours of cerebral-physical music and dance steps that are probably illegal in certain countries, the elfin 55-year-old looks physically exhausted. However, he's already said "Goodnight" twice before he returns yet again in darkness, and his fingers pick out the distinctive intro to a triumphant Purple Rain. "Nobody does it like Prince," he cries. Indeed.

• At LG Arena, Birmingham, on 19 May. Then touring. Details: 3rdeyegirl.com