To mark His Purpleness’ 21-night residency at London’s O2 arena, August is Prince Month on Q4music. Each morning we’ll be bringing you the previous night’s setlist, so you can see how the show evolves, and find out whether Prince really does play all 130 of the songs he apparently rehearsed for the tour.

Here’s our report from the jaw-dropping first night.

PRINCE
The O2, London
Wednesday 1 August
[five stars]

That Prince’s patchy-at-best Planet Earth album currently sits in over 2.6 million UK homes represents, if nothing else, the most dazzling marketing masterstroke in recent music history. Tonight he’s at it again, prefacing the first date of his 21-night London residency with a hectoring documentary, broadcast on giant TV screens, in which the likes of Beyonce and Joni Mitchell proclaim his epoch-defining genius.

Witnessed within the ultra-slick environs of the O2 Arena – actually only a small part of The O2, a vast, antiseptic sprawl of bars and chain restaurants – it all feels a bit Hard Sell. Is this a tour, or just the latest phase in an aggressive re-branding campaign?

Then the man himself emerges in a blast of dry ice, launches into Purple Rain, and all cynicism dissolves. A vision of adrogynous glamour in cream suit and matching high heels, he’s an utterly magnetic performer, not least because he seems genuinely overjoyed to be onstage. “We’re gonna party like it’s the weekend!” he yelps, weaving between the outstretched limbs of precision-drilled dancers The Twinz. For someone whose offstage actions have often made him appear untouchable and mysterious, seeing Prince up close, visibly revelling in his own talent, is a revelation. Somewhere out there, you hope Michael Jackson is taking notes. This is how you launch a comeback.

It’s not quite the greatest hits set we’ve been promised. After the initial glitter-bomb salvo of Cream, U Got The Look etc, there’s a lengthy muzak interlude during which Prince buggers off altogether , leaving saxophonist Mike Phillips to waddle round the squiggle-shaped stage unleashing a succession of increasingly hysterical high notes. “You’re gonna make some girl pregnant!” exclaims Prince upon his return. Actually, he’s just made most of them dash for the bar.

But if Prince doesn’t deploy his full armoury of floor-fillers, neither does he play much from the new album. We get just three tracks from Planet Earth, of which Guitar, with its route-one riff (curiously reminiscent of U2’s I Will Follow), emerges as an unlikely crowd-pleaser towards the end of the set. Equally unexpected, but no less deft, is a reworked version of If I Was Your Girlfriend, transformed here from delicate, oddball pop into a full-blown funk workout.

It’s during the encore, however, that the atmosphere truly ignites. After Let’s Go Crazy the house lights go up, prompting several thousand punters to head for the exits. Then, practically unnoticed at first, Prince emerges side stage, fighting his way through the crowd, melodramatically shrugging off security guards in order to clamber back on stage alone.

Cue a mass stampede back into the arena, and a solo rendition of Little Red Corvette that can barely be heard above the adulatory screams. It’s a moment of truly staggering showmanship, transforming this colossal arena into an intimate - if now rather sparsely populated - club, with the feel of an after-hours jam session (in fact, he later plays an actual after-hours gig, at the nearby IndigO2). It’s also a moment that leaves you marvelling at how flat and joyless most gigs are, when compared with the volcanic energy and euphoria - not to mention the sheer virtuosity - on display tonight.

“Can you believe I’ve got 21 nights to do this?” squeals Prince as the band rejoin him for an ecstatic dash through Chic’s Le Freak. “Too much fun!” He’s not wrong.
Luke Lewis

SETLIST

Purple Rain
Girls and Boys/ DMSR
Satisfied
Cream
U Got The Look
Shhh
Musicology
I Feel for You
Controversy
What A Wonderful World
Somewhere Here On Earth
Black Sweat
Kiss
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Pink Cashmere
7
Come Together
Take Me With U
Guitar
Planet Earth
Crazy/ One Nation Under A Groove
Nothing Compares 2 U
Let's Go Crazy
***
Little Red Corvette
Raspberry Beret
Sometimes It Snows in April
A Love Bizarre/ Le Freak