You know how people say they’ve been waiting for 14 years for this album? Well, I have been W A I T I N G 14 years for this album. Like most of you it was kind of easy in the beginning. Tales from the studio, and hunting down live bootlegs and outtakes kept us busy. Then we started worrying cause Quest and D weren’t talking and we didn’t get any news besides that car crash. The Snoop, Saadiq and Andre 3000 collabos proved he was alive, not much more. I started to brace myself for the possibility that D would die before I got to see him live (just like James Brown did after canceling the show I had tickets to and a month before the make-up date). Then we got a little hope again, mostly because his chief of communications A. Thompson picked up work again - the Really Love “leak” was probably the most excited I got in a while about the real possibility of an album coming out. But it was also the last time I allowed myself to become that. The 2012 European tour was a weird half-hearted effort (there were new songs though!), the following isolated appearances mostly included covers. I sure kicked myself for not being at brothers in arms.
At the end of the RBMA talk I witnessed Quest doing his thing again, but by then I was 100% fatalist: if it drops, it will, if not, we’ll always have Voodoo.
And then it did drop. Out of the blue. And it was GOOD. It was much less different than I expected it to be and I was wondering if the fact that I instantly loved it (and didn’t need some getting used to) might actually be a bad thing long-term. So far that couldn’t be farther from the truth and BM has been my audio instagram filter for whatever my eyes see around me for the past two months.

I guess I want to tell you that I was very excited about this show (prudence still made me check the background singers' twitter to see whether they had actually landed in Switzerland, lol)

Show was billed for 8pm. I had worked at the venue so I could get there by 5pm. Pino and Sharkey were fiddling around a little on their instruments. Cleo was practicing the Fred Wesley Four Play/Step in the Arena horn stabs. Soundcheck was really short at around 6:30.

Alan Leeds is the boss. He doesn’t want any tourists in the room. I get a pass and tell him that the place had seen two legendary nights - both being prince after show/private parties ('93 and ’98) - and that tonight felt equally big.

Show starts at 8:45. The venue is quite intimate with about a 1,200 capacity and it was packed. Every professional musician in Switzerland is in the room and they join the rest of the very nicely mixed crowd in singing Happy Birthday.

Please forgive me for not taking notes and for forgetting to take a picture of the setlist, I was too busy having fun. I don’t recall a difference to the Apollo show though, besides the fact that there was no Tutu (sorry, still no “Another Life”). Band was the same too (no horns though. Oh, and also, definitely Jermaine Holmes).

D and the whole band looked like they were really enjoying themselves. There was none of the nervousness that the SNL performance had on D’s part.

A few observations:
- The Vanguard is TIGHT!
- It’s just incredible to see/hear CDD, Pino, Sharkey, Jesse, and Cleo bend time.
- Pino is a damn monster looking freaking effortless all the time. And man, does he have a lot of fans in Switzerland.
- Morris Day is cool. Jesse Johnson is ice cold.
- This show has definitely been put together with great care. It’s polished, rehearsed, song transitions are beautiful. It works so well - the crowd could not have been happier
- I’m so glad One Mo’ Gin is getting an extended treatment and the reharmonizations at the end of the song are heavenly.
- I SAW A UNICORN! Sharkey and Jesse missed a cue at the 6:40 mark here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mxnbYSDW9o
- The sound was really awful. The audience on the floor basically only heard guitars. It’s not the venue’s fault.

Last night was everything I needed.

Oh, one more thing: There was a video production crew on stage. :)