The galactic release: Melkweg 2Night

In one of my lasts posts in July, I hinted about a galactic release that was about to come to princeland.
And yes, you can hardly get it confused: I meant a set released under the name of "Melkweg 2Night", from Love or Money. It captured the ubermagnificent show performed by Prince and his band during their second performance at Melkweg, on July 26th, 2011.

This set has been my daily music diet this summer. The whole show evidenced a rare, perfectly tight status of the band (even for Prince standards), who was that night enabled to make the most difficult songs to sound deliciously phonky and engaging. The first example smashes already at top power: What's my name, a song which in theory appears to be excessively repetitive, yet in this performance becomes a real jewel, with a bass than gets the definition of "phat", using the words of the artwork.

But that was just the begining, as this show is flawless from beginning to end: in one of those nights when everything fits just right, the audience quickly understood they were watching another unattainable show from Prince, one of those times when Prince and the band manage to get the absolute top in live music performance, one of those times when simply nobody can attemtp to come close.

And then you listen a pure wonder along 144 minutes, with the musicians delighted of delivering a peerless experience to fans, and with fans in awe under such amazing evidence of greatness from their favourite musician. And you listen to many of the attending fans that it was the best show they ever attended. And it all makes sense.

I don't know if it is worth to get into detail, but for the sake of discussion, let's mention the lengthy take of The Ballad of Dorothy Parker, which besides industrial amounts of mojo includes the icing of the lines of "Venus de Milo"; a heartful rendition of Beautiful Strange, once more in a long take, followed by one of the most inspired versions of "Guitar" ever.

Then they achieve to reinvent such a classic as "Kiss" with a funky flavour in line with the rest of the show, something that has shocked some of the most astringent fans around. And non content with that, the enter into the other peak (after "What's my name") of this gig, the duo "Chocolate"/"Mutiny", in possibly the tightest way I have heard. It's pure audio candy, you can't avoid to tap with your full body in face of such a terrific groove.

But there's more, much more, although I won't describe in detail because the best you can do is to look for this release and enjoy it: the ferocious I like it there, the delicacy of "When we're dancing close and slow", the fantastic jam in "Flash Light"... or that warm feeling of listening for the n time the song that made me fan of Prince music, "If I was your girlfriend".

This show was beautifully recorded by devoted fans who could hardly avoid screaming for our listening pleasure, and it has been carefully enhanced by more devoted fans. To top it all, we have phat artwork from another fan, in a design which perfectly fits the grandiosity of the content.

We have a real landmark here, ladies & gentlemen, and I couldn't be happier after deeply enjoying this show last August.