Teleprompter.

don't know, i've read that he used a teleprompter, could have also been just a setlist. One of the best stories I read about him post-death was when one of his musicians were having problems remembering songs. Prince asked him "are you a genius" the guy said no and Prince said "well, I am a genius so I don't need to write them down" then he told him to write them down. In Rock and many other forms of american music, using anything like written words/notes is frowned upon. In classical music it's a standard practice. Elvis would apologize when reading off a sheet of paper, just not an american thing I guess.

One of the more embarrasing performances i've seen at an open mic was when a guy got up and sang from lyrics on his phone. A couple drunks laughed at him and called him a douche when he got off stage, dude just sat there looking stupid, felt for him.

PeteSilas said:

don't know, i've read that he used a teleprompter, could have also been just a setlist. One of the best stories I read about him post-death was when one of his musicians were having problems remembering songs. Prince asked him "are you a genius" the guy said no and Prince said "well, I am a genius so I don't need to write them down" then he told him to write them down. In Rock and many other forms of american music, using anything like written words/notes is frowned upon. In classical music it's a standard practice. Elvis would apologize when reading off a sheet of paper, just not an american thing I guess.

One of the more embarrasing performances i've seen at an open mic was when a guy got up and sang from lyrics on his phone. A couple drunks laughed at him and called him a douche when he got off stage, dude just sat there looking stupid, felt for him.

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I thought it was a reflection of a virtual keyboard for the synth/piano he was playing. Like a large menu display with some pre-programming shown.

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[Edited 7/5/16 13:24pm]

I've seen that pic and I think it was something weird going on with the lights. He did have his tablet on the piano and that is what he read lyrics off of.

it's a teleprompter, also the same smaller ones were set up around his symbol stage during the 21nits at Forum shows. the purple piano illuminates songs, lyrics, etc. also for the piano shows he used a large iPad to scroll thru his music stuff

anangellooksdown said:

In pictures of Prince's last live show in Atlanta, I see words all over the piano top. Were those song titles?

Are you talking about words engraved into the piano ... i think I saw that as well .. assuming song titles but not sure. And pretty sure he was open about using a tablet to read lyrics, saying he had over 3000 songs and couldn't remember all of the lyrics. Totally makes sense to me

[Edited 7/5/16 18:49pm]