My First Concert: Prince at the Auditorium in Chicago

I was 13 years old and a sophomore in high school.

My mother dropped my 15-year-old sister and I off at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago for my first real concert: Prince's 1999 tour, featuring The Time and Vanity 6.

Thank goodness for sites with a full concert tour history of Prince to help me recall the details.

I can still see, in my mind's eye, the blue and white striped Ralph Lauren oxford Polo shirt that I wore -- having adopted the "preppy" dress so popular at my Kenwood Academy High School during those days.

I can still feel my left arm as it brushed against the side of my left abdomen, a plumper feeling causing feelings of pregnancy paranoia to rise in me that even a blaring concert put on by Prince couldn't totally abate nor subside.

Turns out I was not with-child as a child that night, but, listening to lyrics from Prince who declared, "Sexuality is all I ever need...sexuality, I'm gonna let my body be free..." I would make the transformation from slut to saint eventually.

Prince...How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?
That's the song I remember The Artist singing that night, along with International Lover and others, with the self-described "little man" writhing around on the bed like in that erotic photo on the inside of his album covers.

I heard that song was about the young one -- Susan -- but internet lore says that she inspired the When Doves Cry song.

What I really recall is my sister shouting out our real phone number at the top of her lungs toward the stage, letting Prince know that there were other girls willing to call him or be called by him in Susan's stead.

All these years, Vanity wrote me a letter
It's funny that I write this first concert memory as a 41-year-old woman now, with a book that I bought from Denise "Vanity" Matthews called Blame it on Vanity: Hollywood, hell & Heaven signed to me as such:

To Paul Mooney [funny how people are always trying to connect me with that man, she forgot the "a" at the end of Paula]:

All of Heaven loves you. It's only an endurance test down here.

Peace, love, joy, ever Jesus.

Denise

And there's a happy face that she drew.

Boy, has so much changed since I saw Prince again at the Rosemont Theater years after my first concert -- in nosebleed seats so high up I could hear the planes' engines roaring in as they approached O'Hare International Airport not far away.

Then, there was that surprise concert invitation I received the same night down to the Chicago Theatre in 1993, when Prince was all about Mayte, and I was all about digging cute and not-so-clean clothes out of my hamper to get down there to see them do their thing.

"Those hips aren't always going to be so thin," said one woman in the audience, obviously jealous of Mayte's form. Well, when I saw her in recent years on Army Wives, Mayte looked just fine and thin to me.

What pic will Prince not come after?
Another thing Prince is known for these days is attacking anyone online who tries to pilfer his music or images.

Even fair use album covers might be cause for the man whom I've adored since the Controversy days and beyond to come a callin' -- perhaps not in a great way.

So I'd better just use a pic of me that I own.

We all know the famous YouTube video of Prince throwing Kim Kardashian off the stage recently, but I know him from the days in college when an old boyfriend introduced me to the real old Prince songs, like Bambi and others I'd better not even mention in print.

But that first concert will also remain in the annals of my memories.

When my mom picked us up, I felt grown up -- it was a transitional time in our teenage lives. Our first concert, our first concert alone.

These days, my life is more apt to contain gospel concerts and Not Your Daughters Jeans and Miracle Suit swimsuits, and as much as I love that "Rude Boy" whose image I'd study for way too long on album covers -- boy am I glad for the progress and spiritual growth of us all.