Purple Rain

Last month, B called to tell me that Prince was coming to San Antonio and she wanted to get tickets. I wasn't all that excited about driving down to San Antonio on a weeknight, and I knew it was going to be expensive. She was adamant about going to the show, so I agreed to get tickets and attend with her. I like some of Prince's music, but I wasn't so sure about going to see him in concert.

Yesterday, I left work early so we could try and get a jump on the traffic on our way to San Antonio. It rained the entire way and my mood was turning sour. When we finally arrived at the SBC center, they charged us $10 for parking. Now, this really pissed me off because I knew that most of the money to build the SBC center came from a local sales tax increase and an increase in bus fair. Reluctantly, we paid and drove in.

After the trek from the parking lot to the entrance (and getting rained on the whole way), we got in line and handed a ticket taker our tickets. She scanned our tickets and informed us that we needed to report to guest services. As we walked in a young lady handed both B and I a copy of Prince's new CD. We were told that everyone gets a copy of the new CD with the price of admission. When we arrived at guest services, we overheard that certain parts of the stadium had been closed and we were to be moved to new seats. All we could afford was the mid-range section so I started to get a little irritated knowing they were going to move us up even further. We handed the guest services worker our tickets and received our new tickets.

We walked all the way around the stadium to find our section. We finally reached our section...Section 22. We walked in to the stadium and realized (you know where this is going don't you?) there was a sign for section 22 and the arrow pointed down towards the stage. We walked down until we reached the fifth row from the stage. The seats were elevated so we were eye-level with the performers. I was shocked. These were phenomenal seats.

When Prince came out on stage the crowd came to life and you could feel the surge of energy in the stadium. He played some new songs as well as a few old favorites. Then, each member of his band was introduced and they performed a solo. I hear Prince call out Maceo Parker's name. I realize that Maceo Parker is playing in front of us. He's backing up Prince tonight. After the solos, Prince returns and he plays some of his popular hits with an acoustic guitar with no backup. It was amazing. He worked the crowd like a master, exclaiming at one point that "their ain't no lip syncing going on tonight, you didn't come to the circus". His band returned and they played for another hour, returning for a real encore and closed with Purple Rain. Almost three hours. Truly amazing.

I can proudly say that I am now a Prince fan. Thanks B.