With the amount rubbish I see stacked on the store shelves these days...I can't help but shake my head and wish to see some live Prince concert DVD/ Bluray releases to balance the pre-packaged teen bop. Why no Musicology, 3121 Vegas residency, Coachella, Montreux, 21 Nights in London or Welcome 2 compilation? Granted not all would need release as the setlists can often feature hit laden similarities, but any of the above mentioned deserve official release. What are your thoughts on why we aren't seeing live releases? Is it a legal dispute for royalties to Warner? Is it he doesn't like performances being released anymore? Does Prince feel it will threaten future attendances? Perhaps he feels the live experience should only be that....experienced live? Obviously we'd all love to see a quality live release, but do you feel any more live concerts will see official release?

I can't have anything to do with WB and it can't be about threatening attendances. No one knows really but I think he just doesn't care. He likes to drop a coupla live songs online every now and then and he probably feels it's enough. Obviously the low sales now experienced by the music industry because of illegal downloads is irritating him a lot, too, and that may contribute to the lack of live releases.

If you study his video live concerts releases history we have:

1985 (Live)

1987 (SOTT)

1989 (Lovesexy)

1995 (TSOV)

1999 (Beautiful Strange)

2000 (Rave)

2003 (Aladdin)

There were also TV broadcasts of the Parade and Nude tours and a 1991 show, but that was the peak of his career, and in terms of home video releases we got 2 or 3 releases per decade, no more no less.

Now yeah sure it's been 9 years since the last one! Bloody long time, I'll give you that, but we still have 8 years to get this decade's 2 releases

I also think that whenever Prince will get his masters back and reissue his back catalogue, he'll start thinking about his legacy, and we'll see the release (physical and/or digital) of a lot of material from the vault, including live videos from various eras. But that's just a theory.

Thank christ we have talented fans who bring other fans what Prince could be giving us. If it were solely left up to Prince, we would have very little in the way of quality dvd releases.

I find this very disappointing with Prince. Sure the live experience is always best - but not everyone can get to the concerts as they are not in their area (with his latest tour to Australia he missed New Zealand for instance) and in these times not everyone has the money to go at the time he suddenly announces a tour. So it would be great for a concert DVD to come out for two reasons (1) for the people that can not go & (2) a great chance to relive the concert experience for those that did go.

I go to a few concerts - Lady Gaga came to Australia just after Prince & I always buy the DVD releases later - it is a great memory to have.

Prince really does deprive the fans in this area.

databank said:

I can't have anything to do with WB and it can't be about threatening attendances. No one knows really but I think he just doesn't care. He likes to drop a coupla live songs online every now and then and he probably feels it's enough. Obviously the low sales now experienced by the music industry because of illegal downloads is irritating him a lot, too, and that may contribute to the lack of live releases.

If you study his video live concerts releases history we have:

1985 (Live)

1987 (SOTT)

1989 (Lovesexy)

1995 (TSOV)

1999 (Beautiful Strange)

2000 (Rave)

2003 (Aladdin)

There were also TV broadcasts of the Parade and Nude tours and a 1991 show, but that was the peak of his career, and in terms of home video releases we got 2 or 3 releases per decade, no more no less.

Now yeah sure it's been 9 years since the last one! Bloody long time, I'll give you that, but we still have 8 years to get this decade's 2 releases

I also think that whenever Prince will get his masters back and reissue his back catalogue, he'll start thinking about his legacy, and we'll see the release (physical and/or digital) of a lot of material from the vault, including live videos from various eras. But that's just a theory.

Prince does not care, and it is obvious that he is ignoring his past. 3 weeks after Lotus Flow3r was released, he pretty much ignored it, and put promotion behind. Of all the releases you mention,

a casual fan is only going to possibly bump into Rave Live and the Las Vegas DVD. That is his legacy on DVD. Everything else is on bootleg or VHS.

The companies that make money on such things likely do not even see a venture with Prince worth the bother.

The Rave and Las Vegas DVDs were not that good. Rave due to the performance being with a weak band and songs with heavily edited and shortened versions of songs with less singing by Prince, and Las Vegas was also only a portion of what was his last truly wonderful tour, although Musicology was close, and even better in a few categories.

Concert DVD sales for aging artists are not exploding anymore, so as the demand continues to slowly go down, the likelyhood of Prince suddenly deciding to open his vaults also probably goes down. The success of the Musicology tour gave him a quick window to release a few DVDs has faded away, and only the die hards on this site would even give a damn.

If he made a 60 DVD set of raw concert footage with maybe 4 of them being professionally mastered, and the other 56 just being done as is, I'd pay $1000 upfront for it, and I'm sure a few others on here would, but that is just another Pipe Dream.

Prince seems to be in the most dead period of his career

2012: Only 8 total concerts all year, and continued dedication to the Andy Allo thing, which smells of Tamar/Bria Valente/insert female singer going nowhere name here_______ No new album, just a few songs here and there, most if not all, rehashes/remakes/rehearsals

2011: Only around 61 or so concerts, around 25 of those in Los Angeles, or nearby cities, with no really new music released

2010: Only around 20 or so concerts, a new album that you had to buy from a Newspaper overseas, casual fans that look in the Best Buy music section to buy music had no idea he had anything new out there.

So, here's a guy who has only one new album in the last 3 years and 5 months(41 total months since Lotus Flow3r) , and has performed around 100 or less shows in 3 years, and is busy working with Andy Allo on this huge project....

He has TONS of time to work on things like Remasters, Live DVD, etc...

and in reality, he has not really done that much lately.

I'm hoping he has something big coming, but it just seems like he's going through the motions.

[Edited 8/25/12 20:02pm]

[Edited 8/25/12 20:03pm]