The Artist, otherwise known as Prince, brought his Love 4 One Another Charities tour to the Warehouse last night, hopefully as a sneak preview of a bigger-venue road trip this summer.

I say hopefully because as exciting as it was to see the funky one up close and personal, the 2,000 or so tickets available for the rare club show sold out in a matter of seconds leaving many of his fans disappointed.

Still, the exclusivity of the event also made it one of the hottest concert tickets of the season and The Artist, true to form, didn't let anyone expecting his usual flashy showmanship down.

Supported by his five-person New Power Generation, including Canadians Kat Dyson on guitar and Rhonda Smith on bass, The Artist favored extended jams as opposed to straight-ahead versions of his songs and alternated between playing guitar, bass, keyboards and piano throughout the night.

He also did his best to overcome the Warehouse's cavernous by performing on a huge stage displaying gold Chinese lions and white palm trees on either side and enormous symbol in the middle.

The Artist began the two-hour-plus set with Jam Of The Year, also the first song off his latest three-CD set, Emancipation, and it seemed many of those in the crowd agreed with the sentiment of the tune.

From the moment he walked on stage in a mustard colored flowing shirt, matching tights and boots and clutching a gun-shaped microphone, the pop star incited high-decibel screams.

Sensing he was hard to see due to the packed floor situation and extreme back lighting, The Artist also wasted no time in hopping on top of his piano and strutting his tiny but powerful stuff.

Whether he was dropping into the splits or grinding himself against the instrument, his moves -- repeated to great applause -- were half the show.

After Jam came a cover of James Brown's Talking Loud And Sayin' Nothing, followed by the first official singalong of the evening with Purple Rain although the artist did his best to represent Emancipation with the uptempo Get Yo Groove On, the new single Face Down and his cover of Joan Osborne's One Of Us.

Other past hits included The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Sexy M.F. and an abbreviated version of Raspberry Beret.

The Love 4 One Another tour pulls into Montreal tonight and then rehearsals will begin for a summer tour, Dyson said in an interview before the performance.

JAM! Rating: 4 out of 5