Don't You Sleep?

If you were to ask most music junkies what was on their musical bucket list, a majority of them would answer South By Southwest. The festival (known as SXSW if you feel like being douchey) is held every spring in Austin, Texas and makes the town the musical center of the universe for that one week before it becomes a film fest for the following week. Not limited to any format, hundreds of unsigned bands converge on the city, desperate for stage time and the chance to be discovered. (This year's edition attracted 2,200 musical acts spread through 100 venues.) Whatever your musical tastes I can guarantee you will find a venue and musician to your liking (and if you don't like that place go next door and there will be another opportunity). Most people drift from show to show, hoping to be one day be able to say they knew about that now-famous band long before everyone else. It is a musical lover's paradise. Even better is that in the last few years many well-established acts have begun showing up for secret shows. Some of them are out there to promote a new record, but just as many are showing up simply because they want to be part of the fun. What is a little crazy is that while you would expect the unsigned band to pull a crazy stunt in the name of attention, sometimes it is the most famous acts which do the zaniest things, such as this year when Prince played a concert which lasted until 3 AM to close out the festival.

Now, playing an incredibly long show if far from the most bizarre, do-you-know-who-I-am thing Prince has done. (Many people would say it was changing his name to a symbol for a while, but since that was a business decision disguised as a personal statement, I'm inclined to lean towards the time he rented NBA star Carlos Boozer's house in Los Angeles and painted the entire place purple.) Still, this is right up there. The show was intended to be an intimate affair for a few hundred die-hard Prince fans who were able to track down items on a scavenger hunt list. (I actually really like that touch. It meant the people at this show had commitment. I hate it when tickets to performances like this are just given out to some executive's son who only knows two Prince songs.) Shows like this are not uncommon - usually put on my local radio stations. However, while those shows never usually amount to more than a dozen songs perform acoustically, Prince showed up with a 22 piece band and kept coming out for encore after encore. If you were a fan of the Purple One I can only imagine you couldn't believe your good luck and it was a mind-blowing affair that you never wanted to end... for a while. And that's the problem.

Because only the biggest Prince fans were in attendance they were probably thrilled as the concert kept going on and on. I am just curious as to what time people started looking at their watches and began debating their exit strategy. Reports from people inside confirmed that Prince did outlast several fans and I would just love to know what the tipping point was. Seriously, at what point do you say to yourself, "This is awesome, but I need to go to bed. Plus, I have a flight to catch in the morning." How do you weigh sleep versus a once-in-a-lifetime experience like this? I am always slightly jealous when I hear of people going to the Comedy Cellar on the random Tuesday night when Dave Chappelle randomly shows up unannounced and does a six-hour set. But, then I remember how much I also like being well-rested and that jealousy fades quickly. I am sure there are people in that venue who love Prince, but were also dying for him to wrap it up. One of the stories online says at the show say that Prince would disappear for long stretches at a time and the band would just keep jamming, which I think made it even harder to know when to leave because who knows when Prince would come back, if he was coming back at all, and how much longer the show would last once he did.

The simple fact is that no one wants to be the person who leaves too early, regardless of the event, out of fear that every story the next day will begin with the phrase, "Oh, man, you missed the coolest thing. It happened just after you left..." When to call it a night is a hard decision to make. Hell, it's hard to turn down anything which is a unique opportunity, even when it involves something you don't even like. (Trust me, I'm the same guy who watched several awful movies last weekend just because HBO was free and I had no idea when the next time I would get a free preview.) So, in some ways Prince is being incredibly selfish here. Some concert goers complain when you can find a tour set-list online because they feel like it takes all the spontaneity out of seeing a live show. I contend it helps to know whether or not to stay if the band won't be playing your favorite song. So, I'm not saying Prince was required to tell people whether or not he was going to play "Little Red Corvette" before the night was through, just that a quick announcement that the show was going to continue would probably have been appreciated. That way people could know how much longer the night was going to be and decide if they could make it to the end. They had already spent the day driving all over Austin to find hidden items I think they deserved a night without any more questions.