The sacrifice of Victor version is probably my fav,but I don't like his looks that much in that video..(some sleeveless yellow shirt?)and that hair,or maybe it was just the lights?....Must have been the lights...

FunkMistress said:

I suppose I should have known it was '93 seeing as I saw him perform it at an aftershow in London in '93. Doh!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Obviously.

What limits the quality of the Undertaker performance is the other two in the New Power Trio. The bass and drums are just filler and don't add much to the performance at all. Now if John and Rhonda were up there we would have had a stellar performance on our hands.

I remember the first reports of this song being performed live -- people were going gaga all over it. There was a verson I heard once, I think it was live in London but I could be very wrong (maybe somewhere else in Europe), and Prince is playing a long intro to "The Ride" and the audience starts repeating a crescendo "woooOOOOOAAAAAHH!" perfectly within the musical phrase, ending it before the last snare hit of the measure, and before the next phrase begins -- once again building up the crescendo again. It's a trip, especially since the song was new and they hadn't heard it yet. Even Prince is tripping on it, and he yells out, "SECURITY?!" (as if to say, "these are some crazy people we have here!"). And the audience keeps doing it -- with Prince encouraging them to repeat it. He plays along with his guitar, and he even tries to catch them off-guard by stopping the music and restarting it, which makes him chuckle at them. Then Prince starts singing the verses (obviously trying to get a reaction with the questions & answers), and I think he has the audience do the "wwwwoooooOOOOOAAAAH!" part again later in the song. What an awesome crowd! And Prince did a fantastic job with the guitar on this -- he was totally feeding off the vibe of the people. If anyone remembers this, please tell us where this is from. Thanks!

Snap said:

I remember a version like what you just described from the Glam Slam East birthday show in 1994, but I think there are earlier versions with the audience doing that too.

My favorite is from The Rex, Aug. 31st 1993 (10 years to the day before my wedding day).

JediMaster said:

CO-SIGN, that version ROCKS!

and Vanessa Marcil's puking is a nice lead in2 the soft wah wah portion of the song...

The Live in Vegas DVD version is pretty good. I've never heard the Sacrifice of Victor version (not for lack of trying, I WANT this!). Don't care the the Undertaker version too much. He needed to work on it a bit more at this point (IMO ). Whatever happened to the blues album he was going to record? Probably sitting right next to the techno album he was going to record.

The Sacrafice of Victor version is great because of the quality and Prince's intro "Let the games begin", but I always thought his guitar doesn't sound as meaty as it usually does in this, but I also love the Bataclan 94 version (he opened this show with Gold) as the crowd just goes nuts and it is very long and drawn out so much teasing!!