Prince – Electric Ballroom, London 05/02/14

8am. Eight in the bloody morning. That’s when people started queuing to see Prince play the Electric Ballroom. By the time these most dedicated of obsessives actually make it in to the 1000-capacity venue, they’re crying, hugging new found friends, and suffering from disbelief and wonder in equal measure. Their kindly idol had gifted them purple umbrellas and food from a nearby restaurant to aid their wait, but come on, it’s got to get pretty boring queuing for twelve hours. It’d even get pretty boring queuing for twelve hours if, at the end of that queue, you got the antidote to a virus you’d contracted that was due to kill you in twelve hours.

Once inside though, hanging around is not the order of the day. People are still shuffling in as Prince and his all female “funk and roll” backing trio 3RDEYEGIRL launch in to a tempo down, groove up version of “Let’s Go Crazy”, the first of many drastic reinterpretations of beloved classics that pepper tonight’s set. It’s a far grander, showier affair than the previous night’s bizarre but brilliant “open soundcheck”; if that night was for the band, this night is for the fans – the kind of fans who queue since 8am and are actually happy that, upon arrival, the setlist is full of brand new songs and epic versions of 29 year old b-sides like the magical “She’s Always In My Hair”, a synth-heavy pop number recast as a power ballad singalong, with added reference to Prince’s impressive new afro. One cannot doubt their dedication.

These reinventions of back catalogue gems play to 3RDEYEGIRL’s strengths – that of a powerhouse rock band who can kick the funk as hard as any band going. They aren’t particularly versatile – you can’t imagine them pulling off a particularly successful, faithful version of “Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)”, with all its subtle electronic wizardry, but their new version is just as impressive, a justifiably bombastic take that draws a sultry menace out of the song I hadn’t noticed it possessing before. A similar going over is given to Sign Of The Times’ “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man”, the band recasting this good time jaunt as a minor key monster, whilst Prince – on the form of his life, it must be said – lyrically admits a rare moment of chivalry.

Though it’s easy to focus on the fresh wonders of these elder songs, like old friends looking fiiiine in their new clothes, one has to admit that the new Prince material is the best stuff he’s released since at least 2006’s underrated 3121. It mightn’t see him at his most experimental, or even tuneful, but watching him kick out an earthquake-sized jam like “Funk And Roll” or the truly excellent call and response funk of “I Like It There” is to see a man do something better than any other man on the planet can. It’s Prince having an excellent time being Prince, and you’re a total maniac if you don’t get caught up in the fun(k) of it.

But then, just when you’re right in the midst of its spell and making no struggle to leave, it stops. House lights up, “goodnight London, we’ll be seeing you – I guess I live here now”. Nobody believes him, evidenced by their sticking around and making a racket until Prince and band reappear for a run through “Bambi”, a cringe-worthy but kinda amazing song from 1979’s Prince in which our hero valiantly tries to convince a lesbian woman that lovemaking with a fella is vastly superior (“Come on, baby, and take me by the hand/I’m gonna show ya what it’s like to be loved by a man”). House lights go up again, with Prince informing us that “we really need to let some more people in here”.

And so, to the surprise of most, the Electric Ballroom’s crowd are ushered out, and those still waiting outside – some of whom have been queuing all day, remember – are let in for a second set of the night. Being the luckiest sod in the discovered world, I stick around, and boy am I delighted I do so. For, while it’s a set that has many parallels with the evening’s first run through, this second performance – which starts after an hour and a half’s break – is… well, it’s the single greatest thing I’ve ever seen.

Aware of just how long the crowd of people he’s now playing to have waited to see him, Prince gives them not only deep, deep album cuts (“Chaos and Disorder”, “Crimson and Clover”) and new tunes (the hippy delight of “Cause and Effect” seeing 3RDEYEGIRL display a hitherto uncovered lighter side that really suits them, actually), but a closing medley of what are undeniably some of the greatest songs of all time. After a verse and a chorus or so of “Purple Rain” – which Prince plays at the piano, allowing guitarist Donna Grantis to wail to her heart’s content – Prince essentially embarks on a karaoke megamix of his own finest tunes. It’s hard to ascertain exactly what he’s doing, either playing an MPC or just DJing, who knows, but the band are on hand to add rhythmic force and melodic prowess, and Prince sings like a bird whilst running through the single most fun list of music I’ve ever seen performed. “Do you know how many hits I got?” he asks, before showing us just a handful of the best of them – “When Doves Cry“, “Sign “☮” the Times“, “Hot Thing”, “Nasty Girl”, “Alphabet St.”, “Housequake”, “I Would Die 4 U“, “Pop Life“ and “A Love Bizarre”. Just reading that list back gives me goosebumps.

Thing is, this is just the beginning. Prince has called his London stay “open-ended”, explaining that “we’re going to be here until people don’t want to hear us anymore.” Doing some quick maths, if he continues to play two shows a night to 1,000 people a time, and there are 7,000,0000 people in London… he’s here for at least another nine and a half years. Welcome home, Prince.