RTP-area local music and culture

[Bo Williams <bo AT mrboboto.com>]

That Plum Crazy show is still one of the five greatest things I've ever 
seen.

grady AT ibiblio.org wrote:

> OK, the only thing I've heard so far is that the traditional post-show 
> Prince appearance will be at The Office in Raleigh. Can anyone confirm 
> that they've also heard this from someone other than me?
>
> I'll be out of town (why does this always happen?) but the reports 
> from last time (if you recall, Prince hit the stage at an obscure 
> joint called Plum Crazy after the show the last time he was in town) 
> were so uniformly positive that I hadda pass this along, even though 
> it's slightly more rumor-ish and less solid than I'd usually prefer.
>
> The thread from the '97 appearance: 
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&th=ba809086d33736fd&rnum=1 
>
>
> You really need to read Sean's whole post about the Walnut Creek show, 
> but if you're pressed for time, here's the salient bit about the 
> afterparty:
>
> "    As Bobo said the afterparty was at Plum Crazy, this huge dance 
> club I had never known exsisted.  After a madcap adventure of 
> following Dave Heller's driving with Cy Rawl's directions we make it 
> to Plum Crazy.  It seems like it can fit around 800-1000, but no more 
> than 300 were there.  It took $20 and a ticket stub to get in ($25 w/o 
> the stub).  I had the amusing experience watching the 20 year old 
> Claire T. Jarvis get asked "Are you over 21?"  "Yes"  "can I see some 
> ID?"  "Yeah"  (She reaches into her pocket, clearly at a loss of what 
> to do)  "Don't worry about it, that's cool.  Go on in."   YES!  Claire 
> wins the badass award of the evening.  Nerves of steel!
>
>       I was about 20 feet away from the stage, and since the crowd was 
> pretty small (I'd say no more than 200 peeps around the stage), no one 
> was more than 25 feet from the stage.  So there was no jostling or 
> pushing.  In fact the crowd was the best behaved club crowd for a 
> major act I've ever seen.  For big shows at the cradle (or the god 
> forsaken ritz) you get all kinds of crazy shoving and pushing.  Not 
> last night. Heaven.
>
>      So Prince comes out at 12:45 or so in a skintight midriff 
> revealing green metallic shirt and really tight pants.  He carried a 
> scepter!  He worked the crowd like a master.  The NPG set down a funky 
> groove and he would play some keyboards, then he would prance the tiny 
> stage hamming it up playing with the crowd.  He had complete and utter 
> cointrol of his band.  He'd stop them on a dime, tell members to drop 
> out, tell them to solo.  They played lots of funk standards (Booker T 
> and the MG's "Green Onion,"  James Brown's "Talking Loud and Sayin 
> Nothing."  There was a weirdo disco cover, and bits of "Turn this 
> mother out)"  I could go on and on...  He played for an hour and was 
> called back onstage for one last Jam.  At 2am we all head home.  "
>
> Ross
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