“How do you like your rock ‘n roll?  I don’t know about you, but I like mine funky.”  Early on in Prince’s “Early Show” Wednesday night – the second evening of his two-night engagement with 3RDEYEGIRL at the tiny 800-capacity DNA Lounge in San Francisco – he let us know what we were in store for over the following hour and a half.  And that was the theme of the entire night… funk.  Since I already gushed over how the “Late Show” the evening before was one of the best concerts I’d ever been to in my life, I was hoping for more of the same.  Well, it was another epic show, but somehow was altogether different from the show the night before.  This gave me a different perspective on these concerts, which as precision-driven as Prince is, the concerts overall seem very much like a ripping and spontaneous jam session.  A perfect collision of the planned and the unplanned…  I got the feeling that there is an overall framework, and incredible planning and timing in all of it, but within that framework is a genius at work – inspired, reacting, and making up brilliant music set pieces as he goes along.  He’s not there to please any particular sensibility or set of expectations.  He’s there to rock the place out.  And boy did he deliver.  The highlight for me was, funny enough, when he took over the bass guitar and played that thing in a way I’ve never seen or heard a bass played before.  And it was all about funk, without any doubt.  $250 plus fees for these shows is a high point of entry, but had I known what I was in for, I honestly would have found a way to go to all four shows in San Francisco this week, they were that amazing.  The must-see show of the year, hands down. [Read more…]