Prince have said before that he avoids playing When Doves CRy live

because he is never pleased with how it sounds live.

Is that true?

Nude Tour version sounds great to me.

Imagine Prince playing guitar intro and performs this song live with his band.

I think the live version he performed during the Purple Rain tour was excellent and it's also pretty hard to measure up to. Some songs just don't work with every band lineup he has had over the years. He probably realizes this is one of them.

I tend to not like live versions of When Doves Cry, Kiss, Adore, Love Bizarre, or Let's Go Crazy.

Every version I have ever heard of this(EXCEPT MUSICOLOGY TOUR) was the BOMB!! Nude tour, Purple rain tour and the PR rehearsals of this were just amazing!! Its such a simple song too and if does the solo himself that would be CRAZY GOOD!!

i think its hard only in that the lack of bass doesnt come across well live, and when bass is added live its just a very different feel to the song. theres some things that work amazingly well on a reocrding but doesnt always translate the same feeling live.

savagedreams said:

i think its hard only in that the lack of bass doesnt come across well live, and when bass is added live its just a very different feel to the song. theres some things that work amazingly well on a reocrding but doesnt always translate the same feeling live.

But EVERY single tour he performed it on, it sounded INCREDIBLE, though I felt there was something "light" about the SOTT/Lovesexy versions. And that's odd because they're my favorite band of his. It's not BAD, per se, but not as funky as the PR rehearsals or tour versions.

alexnvrmnd777 said:

savagedreams said:

i think its hard only in that the lack of bass doesnt come across well live, and when bass is added live its just a very different feel to the song. theres some things that work amazingly well on a reocrding but doesnt always translate the same feeling live.

But EVERY single tour he performed it on, it sounded INCREDIBLE, though I felt there was something "light" about the SOTT/Lovesexy versions. And that's odd because they're my favorite band of his. It's not BAD, per se, but not as funky as the PR rehearsals or tour versions.

i didnt say it sounded bad live, just different. maybe prince doesnt like the difference it takes to make it work live though. from a musicains point of view, you dont always hear things the same way a fan does, especially if it doesnt turn out the way you envisioned it, even if it still sounds great to the audience.

[Edited 5/14/11 21:31pm]

dandeeland said:

Every version I have ever heard of this(EXCEPT MUSICOLOGY TOUR) was the BOMB!!

Hell yeah!

The verses have just the drums and his voice with a little bit of synth tingling. Unless you're going to do them close enough to the original it loses a lot. We all know how awful most of the cover versions of WDC sound like, so you've really got to nail it for it to work at all.

It's sort of weird that he never came up with a different arrangement for a live version. The live arrangements of Kiss are hardly similar to the album version, so why not WDC? It could work better with the chord progression suggested by the melody. Played with a string patch on a synth or something like that.

On the recently surfaced "birthday show" bootleg it's the second part of the song that sounds the best to me.

he did it on the Jam Of The Year tour and it was bloody fantastic! Becuase that band was all samples and loops it just worked.

prince could play doves on acoustic guitar .. i do and it sounds great .. but his live version of doves is way way better than his live version of kiss .. which is pathetic every single tour

TrevorAyer said:

prince could play doves on acoustic guitar .. i do and it sounds great .. but his live version of doves is way way better than his live version of kiss .. which is pathetic every single tour

I agree.

But he did do a receent live version of kiss on a show with a hispanic presenter where it wasn't too bad.

On you tube there is a cover of doves by the rise of science which is surprisingly good for a white guitar band

[Edited 5/15/11 7:17am]

Don't know. I think it's the silence that made the song what it was. Same goes for Kiss. It's fun to hear live, but it doesn't hit as hard unless it has the Linn LM-1 behind it. From what i've heard, the version I like the best is from the Nude Tour.

it's not hard to perform live when u just have 2 press a Bb for a sample on his keyboard!

cthevideo said:

it's not hard to perform live when u just have 2 press a Bb for a sample on his keyboard!

speaking of the sampler ... anybody else wish he would perform the songs in the sampler set in full and do sample teases of the rest of the set?

It would be better live done acoustically on guitar. The track is so good it is hard to perform it live.

i like the sott version mixed with la, la, la, he, he, hee , but yah he might as well play it more live. classic tune

he has a tendency to try to contort it into something suitable to the 37 musicians and background singers that happen to be on stage at any given moment. thus, I do not really care for it in a live setting beyond the original run of performances in 1984.