September 10, 2013 Prince V Magazine Cover & 12 Page Feature

EVERLASTING

NEARLY 40 YEARS INTO HIS CAREER, PRINCE IS STILL CHURNING OUT MIND-BLOWING MUSIC. CURRENTLY PLAYING TWO SHOWS A NIGHT WHILE ON TOUR WITH HIS NEW BAND, 3RDEYEGIRL, THE ICON TAKES A MOMENT (AT 2 AM) TO SERMONIZE ON SEX, RELIGION, AND ROCK AND ROLL

PHOTOGRAPHY INEZ & VINOODH

FASHION MELANIE WARD

TEXT VANESSA GRIGORIADIS

It's no sweat for Prince to play two sets a night, as he does this evening at the 1,700-seat City National Grove of Anaheim California. IIe tells me that if anything he's more energized after the second show, not less. Both shows stretch to a delicious two hours, as the crowd, in blowouts and Vegas-style cocktail dresses (it's worth dressing up for Prince, even in California), screams and sings along with glee. The only tense moment comes when we file into the theater and a security guard says, "No cameras, no cellphones-don't even take them out of your pocket. Tonight, we're not asking, we're just escorting." I ask her what that means. "If we see you with your phone out, we're not going to ask what you're doing-you're just gone."

This demand might seem extreme coming from the Purple One-a very young-looking 55, with a tight Afro instead of his usual loose curls, clad in a black bodysuit with white lines that makes him look like a spider-but in fact it's not out of character.

You could argue that Prince was an carly adopter of phone-text-speak ("I Would Die 4 U" and all that), but he's eschewed the PR opportunities afforded by the latest tech almost completely, refusing to put his videos on YouTube and offering new music mostly for sale on his websites. And in part by making himself so unavailable, he's remained as mysterious as ever. Prince has always refused any label the world wants to slap on him. A devout Jehovah's Witness since 2001, he writes music that is explicit about both Jesus and sexual desire. IIc's a black man with light skin who usually dresses in clothes that seem inspired by female icons, from Twiggy to Marie Antoinette. A heterosexual man who deeply worships sexually confident women, he nonetheless wants to dominate them. Prince keeps his private life private: he's usually either on the road or at Paisley Park, his $10 million compound in the suburbs of his hometown of Minneapolis, with multiple recording studios, wardrobe rooms, a video-editing suite, a sound stage, production offices, rehearsal arcas, and "the vault," which includes his extensive library of unreleased recordings. Tonight's show is a lot less about pop, R&B, and funk than his music has been in the past-in fact, he's playing rock, like his new song "Screwdriver," and doing guitar-heavy, stripped down versions of his old hits, including "Raspberry Beret," "When Doves Cry," and "Computer Blue." for which the stage is suffused in blue light. For this tour he's backed by 3RDEYEGIRL, a new rock band that he assembled himself. It's made up of Danish bassist Ida Nielsen, wearing pigtails, blonde Chicago College