Or so says some guy on some website I stumbled upon during my late night/early morning excursion online...

The topic was underrated and overrated guitarist...apparently someone must have listed Prince as underrated and this other guy responded:

"prince makes me laugh.i have seen him live twice.once in london and once in las vegas.both times he had the guitarist in the backline (who got no spotlight whatsoever)play the guitar parts and solo's while prince air guitared it.he's a shame,faking people out and you all bought it.so many excuses,he doesn't need to show off his solo talent cause his songwriting is so talented(bullcrap.does he go to berkley,g.i.t.,or any other music teaching school..no.does he put out video and cd/cassete teaching aids..no.has he ever done an unplugged session...no.is he on video backstage or in the studio just jamming on a guitar by himself ..no.decietfull.he air guitars great.i've even seen him play a barre chord,but master he is not.he has fooled everyone about as much as john kerry."


I had no idea!!

I do not think that this is true at all. HOWEVER, on stage Prince has mimed his guitar to a pre-recorded DAT on the odd occasion. For example, on the livesexy video, During the redition of 'lets go crazy'. At one point, Prince is at centre stage and he is squated down to the floor with his right hand supporting the weight of his body behind him on the floor. A rapid fire guitar line kicks in, Prince is not playing his guitar though! Realising that he has missed his cue (u can tell by his reaction), he quickly resumes to mimimg the line, albeit too late.

Now, i'm aware that people are gonna be quick to defend prince and preach that he wasnt miming the guitar line. I was as saddened as the next person when i noticed it. The guitar work in that song had amazed me for years and finally when i discovered that he had mimed certain parts, i was let down.

Possible other explanations:

1) he was playing in unison with Miko and missed his cue. Thus there was at least ONE guitar playing when prince missed his cue. Wrong, it was prince's tone and style. Completely different from Miko's style.

2) He was 'hammering on/pulling off' the notes with his left hand. For the non-guitar player, these terms are methods of playing notes one handed. This would seem plausible if princes left hand was seen to be moving during the clip but it is not.


He mimed

Wow, if this was true he would have made a major contradiction to himself regarding the lip synching.

jayaredee said:

He lipsynched on the SOTT DVD/VHS

And I've got more news for ya - HE WASN'T REALLY IN FARGO, EITHER!!!!

he's probably faked more than one orgasm in his lifetime too. big hurrah.

Who was playing the guitar at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, there was plenty of guitarists up there but I think it was definately Prince doing his thing. It wasn't pre recorded or anything. It was smoking. At the after hours show at the HOB, it was him too. Give him his props, he can play a little bit. He's not Hendrix but who is

howcomeudontcallme said:

Well now wait a minute. If the action is low enough it wouldn't take much effort at all to play hammer ons and pull offs which might explain the apparent lack of obvious movement. Possible?

Know ur saying that Prince can't play guitar live. How stupid. And ur going 2 try 2 justify it. Dude ur reaching way 2 hard. U must B a Madonna fan. Anxiety, Can u please put this dude in his place?

Ever heard of rythm guitar and lead guitar? You're allowed to have more than one guitar at the same time.


We should check Berkley and Juilliard to see if Clapton, Robert Johnson, Eddie Van Halen or Hendrix went there, much less if any of them released one of those classy how-to videos that so many of the other guitar greats have released


Guess it must have been one of the countless other musician's named Prince sitting up on stage strumming during the acoustic session on the Musicology tour.


So, nobody? You've proved my point!

Byron said:

Prince is just a good guitar player but no master, that's the truth.
And he isn't a musical genius either, he's a succesful pop musician but no genius.

So basically this guy is telling the truth.

PaisleyPark said:

hahahaha. Man if Prince is not a genius then there is no genius anymore. Someone who can do what he does in the studio, on stage and who released a sound that had changed the approach of music by creting this amazing electrofunk deserves to be called a genius.

I'm sorry you never had the opportunity to have Prince playing the guitar, the bass or the keyboards a yard away from you in a club. You would feel quite ridiculous right now.

In fact in the huge amounts of musicians I have seen in the same conditions in my life, only Miles Davis and Oscar Peterson have made the same effect tome and people who were there.

If you question that prince is a genius, I'm not questionning your...Finish the sentence yourself.

Looks like some one is just jealous ... please ignore...

VINCENT said:

Electrofunk? Man please Prince just made a few nice pop/funk songs
in the 8ties but he is not a genius. Maybe he is a workaholic but that
does not make him a genius. Get over your fixation, please.

Not many musicians are geniuses and Prince isn't one of them!

PaisleyPark said:

So, Prince isn't one of the musicians who aren't geniuses? So he's a genius? Got it.

Who knew?

May I be the first to nominate this as the most idiotic thread of the month ,sheesh

IGNORANCE!!!! Oh my heavens. THis forum is just dripping down the sides with IGNORANCE. Whoever this moron was that said prince fakes his guitar playing obviously knows less about playing guitar than a puppy with a broken paw. Of course Mike SCott strums the chords during the acoustic set. He's the rythmn guitar player. IF you watch what he does, you seem his strumming the basic rythmn. IT's no secret. If you watch what prince does you see him playing all the licks and funky syncopations. You can see it on the bigscreen clear as day that he's not faking. And if seen the tour 11 times this year. It's totally different every time. If Prince was going to rehearse fingersynching a freeflowing guitar riff, i garauntee you the show wouldn't change every night. And what about all those years where prince didn't even have a rythmn guitar player. Can someone say The One Night Alone Tour...I saw that one 10 times too, and it was different every night, and different on every bootleg. ANd what about The Undertaker.....C'mon....I can't believe I'm even dignifying this thread with a response, but i felt compelled to dilute this lunacy with some rational thought.

drclay said:

Thing is: I don't think 99.9% of the people on this site take it seriously.

Bull shit course he plays his guitar jesus what next he doesnt write his own songs his name is not Prince. I think if he faked his guitar playing we would have heard it by now as he has been out there playing his guitar since the late 70s such shit jealous crap.

Spookymuffin said:

The SOTT movie was not live... well, it was recorded live, but the music tracks were recorded poorly, so they had to record most of the music anew in a studio afterwards. As a matter of fact, the majority of live albums/videos have got some overdubbed studio-work on it.

Byron said:

That guy is a fucking riot!



On the other hand...

howcomeudontcallme said:

We've been duped, people....duped!!!

CalhounSq said:

BULLSHIT GET A GRIP PRINCE PLAYS HIS FUCKING GUITAR LIVE GET A LIFE

I wouldn't give a rat's ass, he's sexy as hell!

Got my undivided attention air guitar, lip sync, butt naked, whatever!

Spookymuffin said:

He was not lypsynching that was an overdubbed performance. With the exception of one song U Got The Look which was obviously the music video shoot of that whole show. But he did not lip synch other than that.

Peace

Prince isn't Prince anymore