Prince cancels 'secret show' at Toronto's Massey Hall because he wasn't 'feeling it'.

(l to r) Donna Grantis, Ida Nielsen and Hannah Ford Welton

Clearly Prince thinks the bulk of his fans are stupid.  Or variously a good chunk of the Canadian music industry is worried about their comped tickets to the next surprise or announced show that they won't tell you the truth.

The fact is undoubtedly there was supposed to be not one but two 'hit and run' secret shows with Prince and 3rd Eye Girl at Massey Hall Nov. 4th and 5th.  Staff from the security company were told to arrive at 8:00 am and were informed it was for a Prince 'secret show'.  At the end of the day the common courtesy extended to people who'd waited over 17 hours in line was as simple as a crew member acknowledging to local cable outlet CP24 that two concerts originally planned for Tuesday and Wednesday nights had been "cancelled."

Likewise Josie Dye, a radio personality for Edge 102.1 said on air they'd spoken to a Prince crew member and confirmed that the entire station was only being comped 4 tickets to the clearly happening show.  The Purple Yoda is trying to pull a Jedi mind trick on his fans. While this sort of faux-mysterious behaviour is standard operating procedure for Prince the BS explanation he's had his band, promoter and ticket'master' trot out is offensive to basic intelligence.   The short and curlies of it are that he cancelled the show because, as Dye later tweeted: "Yes there was going to be a show! Prince decided moments ago he just 'wasn't feeling it' Sad." The tweet as with almost every tweet associated with this hype frenzy has been deleted.

The following morning in response to undoubtedly a huge volume of inquiries from news organizations and fans alike 3rd Eye Girl drummer Hannah Ford Welton has taken to Twitter with a post to the #PrinceArmy.  In it she states:

"2 The #PrinceArmy: Thank you so much for your love, support & concern!  We are safe & ok.  What happened today was a total mixup and there was never a show confirmed. We apologize for the inconvenience & look forward to the day we rock Toronto. We love and appreciate you."

Her husband and Prince's co-producer of Art Official Age Chris James, who DJ's under the cringe-worthy name Joshua A.M.,  followed suit with a story that seemed to line up:

 "We <3 you and apologize for the rumors.  No show was confirmed on our end but we look forward to playing in Toronto soon.  Thank you for your patience and understanding - when we arrive in Toronto we'll make sure it's worth the wait - Joshua"

Were you concerned about the safety and welfare of the members of 3rd Eye Girl?  I know I wasn't.  Similarly Live Nation Ontario (who were involved why?) is actually blaming the whole confusion on Ticketmaster:

"Live Nation wants to apologize for any inconvenience experienced by Prince and his fans in Toronto when Ticketmaster posted incorrect concert information on their website earlier today. The only reservation was for a production rehearsal. There was no concert scheduled for today."

So stop right there.  Live Nation overcame regulatory hurdles on January 25, 2010 that allowed them to merge with Ticketmaster forming Live Nation Entertainment.  The merger was described by The Economist as a 'union of pariahs'.  The monolithic entity which owns the majority of venues in North America and the unavoidable Ticketmaster operates on a scale that is hard to fathom- literally fixing and moving the price of their own entertainment commodities.  "The leadership consists of John C. Malone, chairman of Liberty Media as chairman and Michael Rapino (previously chief executive officer of Live Nation) as president and CEO of the company."

Now consider also the fact that Prince and Michael Rapino are friends despite the rocky relationship Prince has had with Live Nation as an entity.  They are such good friends that Prince added Rapino's hometown (population 120,000) of Thunder Bay, Ontario to his Welcome 2 Canada tour - a feat of logistics and routing that is hard also to fathom.  In short for Live Nation to blame Ticketmaster for this whole 'secret show' confusion is baldly false.  They are one in the same.  To imagine also that Canuck Rapino would not move mountains (or clouds) for Prince one of the few artists in the world capable of doing what he does, is woefully naive.

But to give the whole thing a bit more of an air of reality some guy named Trevor Guy (from a sound and lighting company 3EG) also tweeted and was retweeted by Prince fan feed @PrinceMuseum as saying something similar:

"#Toronto - sorry for the confusion today surrounding the reported #Prince Massey Hall performance. 3EG’s sound and lighting crew is set-up for production rehearsals at the venue; contrary to reports, there was never a confirmed show. To all those who waited. in line, thank you for your time and patience. It is very appreciated and never taken for granted. #LOVE #PRINCEARMY

In hindsight to the passing eye this all sounds pretty plausible suggesting blame should lay on over-excited fans and the legitimate media outlets that jumped on the story.   Admittedly most outlets ran versions of  'Is Prince playing a surprise show?' articles until they had confirmation it wasn't happening at which point they jumped on the opposite story.  However this writer definitely saw the ticket listing on Ticketmaster sometime between 10:30 and 11:00.  So in order a mysterious tweet goes out around 4:30 AM and is immediately deleted, but catches the attention of a super fan woken to the alert he'd set.  A queue begins to form around Massey Hall.  A security company somehow arrives on site miraculously at 8:00 AM.  Metal barricades are also delivered to the site despite the concert that's not happening.  Ticketmaster lists then removes the listing of the show taking place.  So far this all sounds like a carefully planned publicity stunt.  Media outlets are alerted or become alerted to the mounting story and are buoyed on by details such as photos of the stage set up within the venue, the Ticketmaster listing, crowd, security, barricades etc.  Global Television went so far as to somehow get the impression that the show was not only going on but that wristbands would be handed out at 6:00 for an 8:00 show start.

And then in the end it's the international concert promoter Live Nation and Live Nation Ontario who are apologizing around the confusion of a rehearsal/ show.  These 'hit and run' shows Prince does are high risk and high reward for both the audience and as this instance shows artist alike.  Still the prevailing widom is (and this writer boldly concurs) that if you ever have an opportunity to hear Prince play live in your life you should take it.  Wherever you are.  This is only a hunch, but Prince who favours control in all situations, likely was not pleased with the amount or type of attention the show was getting, felt he couldn't quite pull it off or conversely he'd already accomplished his goal (admittedly pissing off thousands of diehard fans in the process) of promoting his new release with 3rd Eye Girl Plectrum Electrum.  Unfortunately in the process he's tried to play his entire fanbase and the media as the fools here. But since they're all owned by the same companies and worried about their own access you're not likely to hear quite this version of events.