Prince is going through something of a creative renaissance at the moment, which means gets to play a bit of a new song at every awards ceremony that'll have him so long as he plays Purple Rain too, preferably as part of an ill-thought out duet.
But being thought of as a frontier-pushing genius all the time is a lot of hard work. As well as recording songs, you have to travel around the world playing songs to people in venues you don't know. This eventually wears a man like Prince down, so Prince has done the only thing he can do – he's bought a Las Vegas nightclub so that he can play his songs there to paying customers every weekend until the end of time, which is roughly how long the outro to Purple Rain lasts anyway.
Prince has accomplished just about everything that a tiny purple-infatuated polymath is able to do in his lifetime. As well as releasing a string of classic genre-busting albums and then a lot of shit wanky albums, Prince has soundtracked Batman films, written words on his face in a kind of dirty protest and at one point dispensed with the need for a human name entirely. And this prolific attitude has brought Prince a lot of recognition. The internet loves Prince and vegetarians love Prince and the people who found purple tickets in their Prince albums probably love Prince too. Not that the last few years have been a bed of roses for Prince, though.
Carlos Boozer lost his shit with Prince earlier in the year when he discovered that Prince had rented his house, only to discover that Prince had painted it all purple and painted the title of his new album everywhere. If that wasn't bad enough, Prince and his wife got divorced in July, too. So, with no house and no wife, Prince packed up all his guitars and headed off to Las Vegas, where he's opening the 3121 nightclub next week in the former location of a titty bar, so that he can charge punters to see him wank away on his guitar every weekend before playing Purple Rain right at the end to make sure they leave happy. E! Online reports:
Prince has announced he's opening a nightclub in Las Vegas at the Rio Hotel & Casino, where he'll perform Friday and Saturday nights beginning Nov. 10. 3121, named after the diminutive artist's latest album, will occupy a 30,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by Club Rio, which since February 2005 has been hosting the topless revue Club Eroticka… A hotel spokeswoman said Prince has signed on for an indefinite run… On Wednesdays, 3121 will host concerts by artists signed to Prince's NPG label. The club will be able to hold about 1,500 people.
When a performer runs away to Las Vegas like Prince has, the usual assumption is that he's given up, but maybe this isn't the case here. Tickets to see Prince play the hits in the 3121 cost $125 each, so let's do the maths. A sell-out night will net Prince $187,500, so that's $375,000 that Prince will be stuffing into his tiny pockets every weekend before drinks or memorabilia are added on. $375,000 for two evening's work, that makes Prince… well, it makes Prince a jammy bastard obviously. So we're jumping on the bandwagon, too, with our own musical residency: hecklerspray Plays The Hits Of Deacon Blue On The Kazoo. 50p entry round the back of Asda every Wednesday night between 10pm and 10:03pm.
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