HAVING generated maximum public/critical interest and excitement via his series of impromptu 'guerrilla' gigs in London and Manchester in February, billed the Hit & Run Tour Part One,  when he played at venues ranging in size from small to downright tiny and blew everyone away with his level of performance in the process, the diminutive Minneapolis music genius we know simply as Prince was back in Britain again last week for a further series of concerts.


These second batch of shows, now coined the Hit & Run Tour Part Two, were once again hastily announced only a couple of weeks in advance, but this time they saw Prince rocking up at much larger venues including two sold-out dates at Manchester's Arena.
 

Whilst seeing the man in small rooms is undeniably cool and a real buzz, Prince's talent is so huge that it truly warrants a big stage setting but his showmanship is such that he can play the much bigger halls yet still retain the intimacy of a much smaller gig, a real skill that few artist can pull off with the same aplomb.
 

From the moment he took to the stage in Manchester and launched into a new, harder-edged, slowed down, pulsating guitar driven version of his classic 'Let's Go Crazy', the first number of a twenty-four song, two and a quarter hour set, every aspect of the concert was super-charged with high voltage electricity.

Before Prince had barely stopped to catch his breath, that 's if the impossibly energetic, age-defying fifty-five year old dynamo actually needs to(breathe) in the same way as mere mortals, he'd already ripped through blistering renditions of Take Me With You, Raspberry Beret, U Got The Look, Musicology and Kiss.
 

These days he sports a full-on affro, a nod to the Sly Stone of the 70's, he still moves like prime-time James Brown and has a guitar sound and style that is increasingly Hendrixesque but Prince remains uniquely and every inch(all 62.2046 of them to be precise)his own man who adheres to no rule book when it come to performance, making him the most exciting live artist of modern times. 
 

Prince was again backed by his now familiar all-female band, 3RDEYEDGIRL, chosen certainly first and foremost on merit because boy can these girls hold their own and kick up a storm with their playing, however the hot and sexy factor they also bring to the proceedings is undeniably there for all to see and the pint-sized maestro does have 'form' with respect to surrounding himself on stage with beautiful women -think Wendy & Lisa, drummer Sheila E, dancer/singer Cat and the exotic duo Twinz(Nandy & Maya Mclean).
 

As well as serving up the old 80s and 90s hits aplenty, Prince also slipped in a less familiar b-side, She's Always In My Hair,  the fairly obscure track Empty Room, played a more recent(2007) hit and concert favourite, Guitar, whilst demonstrating he still has his finger very much on the music pulse today with a batch of heavy riff-laden new songs Funknroll, FixUrLifeUp and Plectrum Electrum from the forthcoming new album of the same name.
 

Prince though is far from being just all about the funky, the jazzy and the hi-energy pop/ rock, for the man can turn his hand to any genre with ease and does delicate, slow, gorgeous pop better than most others, as he ably demonstrated when he laid down his guitar and moved to the keyboards for a medley of Under The Cherry Moon, Diamonds & Pearls and The Beautiful Ones.
 

With the crowd hanging on his every word and shakin', bumpin' and groovin' en masse, Prince took the pace back up several notches as he headed for the 'official' finish post with performances of such gems as When Doves Cry, Hot Thing and I Can Never Take The Place Of Your Man.
 

He was not done yet though and returned for a four song encore of Controversy, 1999 -the song that became a milennium party night anthem, the poptastic Little Red Corvette and then, stopping to tell the crowd that, "I got a whole lotta people here who can testify nobody can do it like Prince do" which was duly met with the collective roars of the 16.000 present,  he brought the show to its conclusion with the majestic Purple Rain.
 

What he uttered to his audience was undoubtedly true of course for Prince, on this form, will reign supreme for a long time yet.