Me N Prince We Talked

So chapter eight billion of me and the Prince tour, and I went off to see him at the main show last night. (You will recall dear readers the various problems I've had with the After Show parties, whereby he didn't show up the first time I went, and I almost died, and then he did show up the next time I went, and played for two hours, and I almost died. [The After Show parties are in a much much smaller venue within the main O2 arena, and - somewhat predictably as their name might suggest- after the main shows of the evening.])

Anyway, I spent most of yesterday engaged in an inexact science of trying to figure out some sort of pattern for when Prince did or didn't play the After Shows, and wondering whether or not to go and try and buy an After Show ticket. mrshousehusbandnot was on my case on this agenda btw, having had to cope with the fall out when he didn't play the first After Show and I spent approx three days - make that seven - thinking the world had officially ended, warning me that I should not get too excited or expectant or...too late...I did buy an After Show ticket when I got to the stadium, and spent the next half hour fretting about it while I waited for my sister to go to the main show.

Main show was pretty hot, amazing actually. I won't go into details (perhaps The Waunch would like to since he was there too?) other than to say my sister and I had great great seats, and Prince pretty much played his ass off to us. In many ways, I was regretting having bought the After Show ticket because we actually had a better and closer view of him in the main arena than I had had at the After Show where he did show up. (Keeping up?) But what the fuck. I'd bought the ticket so I decided to hang around and wait for the After Show.

There was a massive queue for people with tickets to the After Show, and I was pretty fed up with having to queue for everything else at the O2. (The should call it the Q2. You could quite easily miss a whole show queuing for a drink and then a burger or whatever in that place.) But I wandered to the end of the queue, and got talking to two young guys from Dublin about...well just Prince and whether or not he would show at the After Show.

And we were chatting away when someone pounced against the metal fence right next to us. It was Prince. And the approx 10 people who could see him - including me - were completely stunned. He was - admittedly with a metal fence between us - standing right next to us. And he said "I'm not gonna do the show tonight. I'm sorry." And I said, well kinda chirped, "You've got to play." And he said "I'm sorry man. I just can't tonight. I'll play tomorrow." And then he mumbled something about "one song" or something, and turned and strode into the back of a Mercedes which drove off. (When you are five foot one, you can stride into a car btw.)

It all happened so quickly me and the Irish boys just stared at each other. And then one of them - who was a bit too Father Dougal anyway - said."Well if I'd known it was Prince I would have just crawled under the fence, see there look there's a gap I could have got under, just there see. And I would have given Prince a big kiss on the face so, and then it would have been really embarrassing because I would not have known what to say to him so, and and, there look that gap in the fence, I could have got through there for sure". Etc Etc Etc. I have a feeling that Irish kid is still talking about it this morning. Which I am too, but hey what the fuck. Me N Prince We Talked.

(And so ended The Purple August/Septembers of hhn. And it came to pass that mrs hhn sighed one massive sigh of relief.)