This footage is old for me, but I'm very surprised the full rehearsal is on YouTube.

A lot of us have been admiring and enjoying these documents of his badassness, these awesome time capsules of one the greatest artists of our generation for some time incognito.It always felt wrong not to have to be enjoying these gems in private.
As much as I respect Prince ans his wishes to keep all his released work under-wraps, it is such a shame the general public and a whole lot of fans have never seen these.
These have to be shared with the entire world,
A hardworking badass mf at work.
[Edited 2/16/10 19:16pm]

I've never seen anything like this before. thanks...maybe one day he'll release all this stuff. his dancing was..um..interesting. It's also interesting to me, how he didn't play as much guitar with the revolution in rehearsals, as he plays in concert these days...

Genesia said:

If one of us didn't just loose our f'n mind and decide to just go for it and post everything on our harddrive, why would prince o.k. the release of so much old material and much of it such poor quality. Again nothing really new in there but this is from a man who sues because a baby dances to 1999. What could he gain? If so, why the change of heart? Most of it has been up a month, more than enough time to shut it down. Any Ideas?

I always liked that Prince is seen dancing around the same exact same way I danced in my room when i was a kid listening to theses songs. I felt like "ohh cool, i was dancing to this like I was supposed to"

BlackandRising said:

Hmmm - im not so sure - you really think he would approve Erotic City (with the F bomb)...I doubt it, unless his brain is no longer being washed!

The greenish, night-vision tint of the video reminds me of a sex tape. This is probably the closest we're going to get to one from Prince.

I have this on VHS somewhere, which I picked up at a record show back in the day.

jstar69 said:

Yeah I don't think P is behind this. He's probably putting on his highest heeled shoes and gettin ready to stick em up somebody's arse.

All of them, save "When Doves Cry", have the NPG message now. Hm.

setyrmindphree said:

He could have shut this down in hours. He's left it up all day now.

I've seen youtube respond to copyright infractions in minutes.

For certain, he could have someone bitching about this thread by now.

Too many sites picked up on this today. P just isn't that hot anymore to see all these sites finding the vids without being tipped off.

It's just the feeling I get.

I take it back. They're yanking them as we speak.

Mars23 said:

Thanks

Mars23 said:

He could have shut this down in hours. He's left it up all day now.

Exactly, so why would he leave so much available for a day if he new?

setyrmindphree said:

Free publicity.

Cleanse the minds of those tainted by "Purple and Gold".

BlackandRising said:

Your broad strokes of assumption are ill-constructed. There's no way Prince put this out there, or let someone upload with his permission. The video itself has been circulating for years. I've had it for 9, myself. That youtube channel will get either shut down, or the videos removed.

The only permission is the permission the poster gave themselves.

Mars23 said:

(purple & gold - no, only a bottle of pepto bismol given away with the purchase of a new album would cleanse that indigestion)

I was just getting ready to post that it may be he wanted some pub for some reason. All of it has been around for a while and there are some very entertaining clips. Still very weird in comparison to his track record.

Mars23 said:

Or maybe he has a life beyond spending every ounce of his energy scavenging the internet for his work
something some of us should take note on

Yea, he may have taken those vids down, but the cat is out of the bag on a much larger scale now.

They are already reposted by other users and with the numbers that grabbed them today, they could be reposted over and over.

Taking them down from one source just adds intrigue to the story and makes the vids more sought after. Remember, the story started with "see these while you can".

I guess you can't blame anyone for hoping the stick was at least partially out of his ass.

JesusFreak said:

Doesn't seem like it seeing he sought them out himself today.

Hey what's up with him taking down all the vids but leaving Doves Cry?

Wow, so someone pulled a fast one, and gave the impression these vids were okay to view on youtube? Surely fooled me, especially since it seems that source came from an online news station. Normally someone from P's team would have shut it down within minutes/hours of its release on youtube.

I wish Prince would just sell those rare rehearsals on LTF3r, at least he would get paid for it. I guess we've been bamboozled into thinking that those rare vids, came from a legal source.
[Edited 2/16/10 21:04pm]

JesusFreak said:

Actually his leaving lots of stuff up there, he is behind this.

ernestsewell said:

I don't think I stated that that Prince put it up. The mere fact that some have been up for months means that someone could have allowed them to stay up for so long for reasons unknown. Add to that the fact that in the past his team of ever-vigilant people have had vids taken down immediately, and this round of vids has been allowed to go viral to some extent.

I think your assertion is more of an assumption in that you claim that "there's no way" Prince put this out there. There's no way you or I could know what he did or did not do, whereas my assertion is simply based on previous behavior with regard to videos circulating on youtube, only to be take down for copyright infringement.

Hey Prince, put those vids back up or we change your Wiki page photo to banana-fingers again.

And then get back to making music instead of moderating the interwebosphere.

Mars23 said:

NOOOOO!!!!!

BlackandRising said:

He didn't put this video out, in any way shape or form.

One thing that always impresses me about Prince is his power over mainstream websites. If you see his material on YouTube, Myspace, or Facebook, yoink, it's gone.

2elijah said:

There's some bamboozlement going on around here alright!

WaterInYourBath said:

The best thing is he can't stop us from trading, and having a copy of any of this stuff. He could entice us to pay for a better copy, but God forbid.

Has it occurred to any of you that maybe Prince secretly WANTS the rehearsal videos out there and wants it to seem like a leak for the purpose of competing with Michael Jackson's huge rehearsal movie, "This Is It"??? You know, competitive spirit and all... even though MJ is dead.