Prince has done it again! At his Welcome to America tour opening at Madison Square, he drove the crowd delirious with his funky one hour 45 minutes performance.

The 52-year-old managed to strum through a medley of his hits taken from his old albums like Purple Rain, 1980 and 1999. The performance was energetic with his trademark dance moves and solos. He played with a freshness and energy that brought the sold out crowd to its feet again and again. He made them croon and sing along the Raspberry Beret. His Uptown from the 1980 album, Let’s go crazy, Delirious and Baby I’m a Star made the crowd roar with each opening chords.

In the middle of this he muttered there are too many hits. He could not be very far from the truth. Surprisingly, he chose to treat the crowd with his hits rather than going into obscure musical journeys and solo guitar sojourns as is his want. His seven-member band kept up the momentum. He ended with Nothing Compares to U and with nearly 10-minute long guitar solo.

Former collaborator Sheila E. joined him on the stage to a thunderous applause for a duet U Got the Look’and a lengthy solo on The Glamorous Life. A love Bizzare on encore saw Shiela and Prince sing along and Price invited all the celebrities in attendance to join him on stage.

Audience got to see Spike Lee, Jamie Foxx, Whoopie Goldberg and John Leguizamo whip up the party quotient with their shimmying and gyrations.

Prince opened the show with Larry Graham and his band Graham Central Station. He has another two shows at the same venue in late December and January. This is the first time after 2004 that Prince is playing on the east coast.

Ma Energy Ma