What's the worst Prince performance you've ever seen? To me, it has to be when he lip synced "TMBGITW" at the World Music Awards in 94 or 95. I think he actually watched Gordy perform afterwards. It was bizarre.

Close second: The Christ with Larry Graham.

the shots of prince's face watching gordy perform were more entertaining than prince's actual performance itself.

I agree with lspear76. I never njoy lip-synced per4mances,and that World Music Awardz per4mance wasn't good at all.

Dolphin on Letterman

Efan said:

it was at least entertaining in its trainwreckiness.

Anxiety said:

True. I never saw the World Music Awards you guys are talking about. Was it not as entertaining in its trainwreckiness?

sexxydancer said:

I kept thinking this was the same time that he tried to give Quincy Jones the lollipop, and pulled it away (Q was actually trying to lick it). But that was the Dick Clark awards show and it was also lip synced... I remember the announcer came on while Michael B. was on the drums, saying something like "Prince is dead and The Artist is born!" or something really cheesy. Carmen Electra was dancing, and Prince lip synced to some Gold songs (BJB, I Hate U, and 319).

At the end of the performance, there was a shot of the crowd... everyone looking pretty underwhelmed, especially Little Richard, who only started clapping as the camera went by him. LOL. The good ole' (NPG) days.

lspear76 said:

I absolutely love the AMA performance, lipsynching and all. To me, this was absolutely classic mid-'90s Prince. The performance was brilliant in so many ways. I seriously mean that.

Prince actually KNELT DOWN and looked like he was simulating fellatio on Tommy Barbarella! Right on national TV! That's just awesome. I think what you interpret as the audience being underwhelmed was actually their trepidation at the moment that just happened. At one point during Prince's performance, the camera pulled away and the picture went to a still shot of the audience--like the director was terrified of what Prince might do next. I think this was an incredibly brazen and ballsy performace.

Efan said:

it was a bit uninspired. it was lip-synched and prince looked awful. he was all pale and skinny...even though i loved his gaunt goth-y period, he was NOT having a good hair day. literally.

lspear76 said:

Wonder y he did so much lip synching during that time?!? That award show per4mance could've been great,but the lip synching did nothing 4 me.I also didn't like the "Prince is dead" thing. I can't believe I'm agreeing with u!!

sexxydancer said:

maybe when he had to do promotional appearances out of obligation to WB, he decided to give as little of himself as he could? or maybe it was because it was too difficult to cart the whole band to some of those performances, and he certainly wouldn't work with a house backing band. who knows?

I'll have to convert the performance from my VHS tape to a divx, maybe upload it to YouTub... oh wait. I can't do that. I'll get sued by Prince. Forget it.

Prince takes all the fun out of being a fan.

lspear76 said:

Anxiety said:

Good pointz!

sexxydancer said:

Did anyone perform live at that World Music Awards? I think they were all lip-synced.

Efan said:

see now, i love that performance . was just watching it again . love that song . dig letterman in the beginning: "this song is from the gold experience, which i'm being told will never be released. so it makes sense that he's here promoting it" . typical gold show performance . don't see what's so bad about it . mayte as his guardian angel . even his whole spiel (did i spell that right? ) at the end, getting carried away and shit. gotta love theatrics . me like

the AMA is pretty shit-even that cheesy voiceover/commentator

however the WE ARE THE WORLD bit was pricless

however the performance that caused him the most harm was the brits 85-he took alot of years to live thta down

punkofthemonth said:

Co-sign!

punkofthemonth said:

I didn't much care for it either but your post gets 4

Efan said:

You're insane. This is one of his BEST performances on a television show. I wish that version of Dolphin was available on disc. So much more rockin.

bleutuna said:

"rockin?"

Efan said:

I agree.

and the dancing

gotta be the american idol cuz it was a bit starchy imo

Not sure if it counts as a 'performance' but the James Brown/ Michael Jackson thing was just straight out embarassing. He just gets on the stage, wasted as hell and schreeches a bit before crashing off stage taking a lamp post with him. James Brown following him trying to give him his shirt back is priceless though.

TMBGITW on soultrain is also badly lip synched.

lottielooloo1968 said:

that was totally phoned in.

bleutuna said:

This performance is everything that's great about Prince, but on crack. It's freaky, dark, goofy, sexy, melodramatic, cringe inducing, beautiful, and kinda gay... I loved it!

matthewgrant said:

Yeah that performance was hot. Definitely not in the "worsts" category for me.

Did anyone perform live at that World Music Awards? I think they were all lip-synced.[/quote]

I remember watching Prince's proformance on the WMA and consoled myself with the fact that prehaps everyone has to mime.The next act preformed live.
The lip-syncing was so bad by Prince,that he dropped most of his opening lines to each verse.The boy can't mime.
I also remember during the commertry on Purple Rain that the songs were all pre-recorded but Prince wasn't hitting his marks vocally, so the ended up with the band miming and Prince singing live. The boy can't mime.

jonylawson said:

Yes. Rockin'

As in - it rocked? As in - the guitar work was ridiculous in the live performance?

jfrost said:

I never noticed that he couldn't mime. Usually, I notice that he mouths the words when he's lipsynching but often decides not to bother having a mic to pretend to use. He did that several times throughout SOTT and on Oprah.
[Edited 2/19/09 10:01am]