Indigo Chronicles Chapter 3, The
3 CD
Label : Sabotage
Catalogue : #SAB 338-339-340
Disc Length : 73:19 / 76:13 / 79:53
Source : Audience Recordings
Sound Quality : EX- / EX
Year Of Release : 2008
Artwork: Included
Lineage: Silver CD > EAC > TLH > U
Disc 1
3121 Aftershow – IndigO2, The O2, London : 19th August 2007 (am)
1. Intro 2. Superstition 3. Higher Ground 4. A Love Bizarre 5. Sweet Thing 6. The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker 7. Use Me 8. Stratus 9. Satisfied – The Rules 10. Love Changes 11. Baby Love
Disc 2
1. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again) (including Africa Talks To You)
3121 Aftershow – IndigO2, The O2, London : 1st September 2007 (am) [NPG]
2. So What 3. Shake Everything You’ve Got 4. Band Introductions 5. I’m A Woman (I’m A Back Bone) 6. The Chicken 7. I’m Going Down 8. Rock Steady (including Suga Mama) 9. Soul Vaccination
Disc 3
3121 Aftershow – IndigO2, The O2, London : 29th August 2007 (am)
1. Thank You For Talkin’ To Me Africa (instrumental) 2. Anotherloverholenyohead – Rock Lobster (instrumental) 3. Calhoun Square 4. Chaos And Disorder 5. I Like It There 6. All Shook Up 7. Empty Room 8. Spirituality 9. Johnny B. Goode 10. Elephants And Flowers 11. People Get Ready 12. When Will We Be Paid? 13. Baby Love 14. Alphabet St. 15. Guitar
3121 Aftershow – IndigO2, The O2, London : 26th August 2007 (am) [NPG]
16. Suga Mama
COMMENT
Disc 1 and the opening track of Disc 2 contain the 19th (am) August show and out of the 4 currently circulating audience recordings of this show, I’d have to marginally give this the upper hand over the O2verload recording (the best 2 of the 4). As excellent as the O2verload release ‘…For Your Memories – 21 Nights In London Vol. O9’ was/is, this Sabotage recording has more depth and a fuller sound to it. The audience are audible throughout but the only time they actually interfere with the audio is when Prince walks onstage at the beginning and they lose the plot momentarily – other than that, I have no complaints regarding their input. Thankfully any problems with the recording as a whole are also minimal and outside of a little movement during ‘Superstition’ where the person recording sounds like they are trying to find a better spot to stand in, I have nothing detrimental to say as it’s a very nice effort indeed and worthy of the EX rating given. Not one of the longer aftershows of the London stint, in fact at around 85 minutes long it’s one of the shortest, but it’s an enjoyable show with some nice choices for the most part. Mike Phillips and his vocoder warm-up the crowd before Prince launches into 2 back-to-back Stevie Wonder tracks sat at the keyboard throughout – he actually doesn’t appear to move from the keyboard until ‘Stratus’. Highlights of the show have to go to a great, rare performance of ‘The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker’ and a cover of ‘Use Me’, along with yet another blistering version of ‘Stratus’. Alas, 10 minutes of the short show are taken over by Shelby on main vocal for both ‘Love Changes’ and ‘Baby Love’ before the show is brought to a close with an extended near-14 minute jam on ‘Thank You’ with the crowd led through various “Funky London / Freaks On This Side” chants. Great show, excellent recording. Disc 2 contains the NPG’s 3121 performance from their 1st (am) September aftershow. Better than the O2verload recording? I’d say it’s an extremely close call, but once again the Sabotage release slightly wins the battle due to it being almost flawless. The audience are more audible on here than the O2verload recording ‘…For Your Memories – 21 Nights In London Vol. 13’, but they are very much in the background. There is no Prince appearance (although he was briefly present backstage) and the content is pretty standard fare for an NPG show with Marva and Shelby really taking the show by storm with their appearances, and Shelby closing the show on a high with a very energetic ‘Rock Steady – Suga Mama’. Which brings us to Disc 3 and the extraordinary 29th (am) August aftershow – short in length, but the best aftershow of the entire London stay. The recording is superior to the O2verload release ‘…For Your Memories – 21 Nights In London Vol. 12’, which wasn’t too hard a task as the O2verload recording wasn’t exactly great, so that in itself is a major bonus. Again, the audience are noticeable and audible throughout the entire recording, and whilst they are in the background and in no way overpowering or detrimental, they are rather loud and vocal in parts (hey – it’s allowed). If I were allow myself “complaints” about the recording, it would be these ; the opening ‘Thank You For Talking To Me Africa’ is rather thin and the sound appears to be mono in parts with the balance between L & R not being evened-out correctly – my other bitch is that the audience interludes have been left intact, and whilst this isn’t normally a big deal, 6 or 7 minutes of crowd whooping, dog barking and people whistling begins to get on my tits after a few minutes. That said, I’m just happy this recording exists, so pay no attention to my harsh criticism. The less I say about the show itself the better, as words really don’t do it justice, but this is really a rather special concert and anyone in attendance should count themselves extremely lucky indeed. ‘Calhoun Square’, ‘Chaos And Disorder’, ‘I Like It There’, ‘All Shook Up’ and ‘Elephants And Flowers’ from this performance are the stuff of dreams, with the ferocity of the closing ‘Guitar’ being a fitting end to an unusual, unique and sublime show. The release ends with ‘Suga Mama’ taken from the NPG’s 26th (am) August show with the remainder of the show spread across various other chapters. As with the content of the discs, the accompanying artwork and packaging are of a very high standard with a 12 page booklet detailing Prince current band and including some rather sexy pictures – all pure eye-candy, but a pleasure to look at, and rivalling anything Sabotage have done before. On it’s own this is an extremely good release simply down to the excellent source recordings used, however as part of the complete “The Indigo Chronicles” box set it’s an unmissable release.