One day last week, Mom came home all excited about purchasing tickets for “Prince”. My first thought was that my friend, Prince William, was coming to town and that he was charging people money to have tea and crumpets with him – for charity, of course! A prince doesn’t need to earn money – that’s the coolest part about being a prince! But Mom said no, it wasn’t a real prince, but rather Prince the musical performer. Oh. I was so unimpressed.
Mom danced around the house waving the “Prince” tickets around in the air. I sat and watched, totally embarrassed for her. As I am only three years old, Mom is A LOT – I mean A LOT - older than me and likes that old time music that is foreign to me. Mom was disappointed I didn’t get excited, as she had purchased a ticket for me as well. Oh.
I felt bad for her, so I accepted the ticket and tried to look excited. I don’t think I did a very good job.
When Mom told me it would be a girl’s night out and I could wear a jazzy hat and any wild accessories that I wanted, my interest was piqued. Who was this “Prince” and why was accessorizing encouraged? Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all!
We met up with Mom’s friend, Alice, at Mom’s place of work and we girls headed to Raleigh for the Prince concert. I was told to accessorize in purple which made sense as purple is the color of royalty.
We had fun chatting and giggling on the hour plus ride to Raleigh. We were going to the RBC Center where the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team plays. I had seen it on television and it looked huge. Mom had shown me a picture of Prince which made me wonder if it was going to be possible to fill that arena with the number of people who wanted to see this little dude. Mom said it was definitely possible. I was skeptical but figured we would soon see.
We arrived very early so we would miss Raleigh rush hour traffic and get a good parking space. I thought that was very considerate since walking on cement irritates my delicate paw pads. We did indeed get a fabulous parking space – things were going great so far! To make sure things continued to go well, Alice had this great idea to take a picture of our parking space so we could find it easily after the concert. My new lucky number is 6130!
We checked to make sure we each had our ticket and we excitedly headed toward the arena.
I stopped and posed for Mom in front of the arena and then we headed inside… or not.
There was a big long line of people spilling out of the arena doors. Silly people, why don’t they just go ahead in and sit down? Mom explained that the doors didn’t open for another 30 minutes. But we had tickets, why did we have to wait? Mom sighed and told me that the stage crews were still setting up for the performers and they didn’t want a bunch of people walking around getting in the way. Oh – okay.
We stood for over almost an hour waiting for the doors to open. Then when they did finally open , each person had to empty their pockets and walk through a metal detector. The bell on my collar kept setting off the metal detector, but since I had no pockets… or shoes… or clothes in which to hide any other metal, they let me go through. Nothing is more embarrassing than setting off the beepy thing in a metal detector!
We stopped at the snack bar on the way to our seats and loaded up on snacks. Juggling food and drinks while searching for our seats was quite a feat, but we are talented females. It didn’t take us long before we settled in to the seats that were to be our homes for the next few hours. The view was fabulous. I particularly liked the purple piano that was sitting to the right of us. Cool! We could see every bit of the stage which would make keeping track of the little guy that much easier!
A lady named Chaka Khan came out first and belted out a few tunes. Mom knew every one of the songs she sang. When she started singing “I’m Every Woman” I couldn’t help myself and I leapt out of my seat, starting dancing around and somehow ended up on stage. Ms. Khan had lots of hair which made even furry me feel inadequate. One of the band members sensed my concern and tossed me a wig. Now I was set! What is one to do when one ends up in the spotlight wearing a big wig? Why, sing, of course!
I howled along with the catchy tune. After Ms. Kahn got over the shock of singing with a cat, she seemed to enjoy it. She asked me to stay and sing along with the next song as well. When we were finished I followed her into the area under the stage from where everyone in the show was coming and going. I didn’t see the little guy, but there were snacks and water and a couple of dressing areas. It was a little warm in there so I lapped some water, and decided to head back to my seat. The only way out was the same way I came in, so I trotted out the door and stepped back onto the stage – and there he was – the little guy – Prince. He must have seen me perform with Ms. Khan because he handed me a microphone and listened to me scatting with the cool beat they had going.
Prince would do some funny dance steps, then turn to me and I would do them. We did this for a while – it was fun! I looked up and noticed my face on the big screen overhead. My head looked huge!!!!
When the song ended, Prince came over and gave me a pat on the head. I purred and smiled at him, then scampered back to my seat to rousing applause from the thousands of people in the arena. I was high fiving people left and right as I ran up the steps to my seat. I didn’t understand why others didn’t jump on stage with the performers – that’s the best way to experience a concert!
Prince rocked the place! The crowd stayed on their feet, clapping the entire show. It was more like a party than a concert – the man is amazing! I danced myself into exhaustion and Mom had to carry me back to the car. I slept on Ms. Alice’s lap the whole way back.
I headed straight to bed when we arrived home and I dreamed of being on stage again, only this time it was MY concert and everyone was there to see ME. Don’t snicker, it could happen!!
Hope you have a great week. If you’ve never heard of Prince, check out his music. He is quite the talented little guy!!
Love & kitty kisses,
Josie
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