then he doubled down with the all along the watchtower/best of u superbpwl performance

It opened a lot of eyes in the rock world. A large number of rock guitarists had no idea what Prince could do, and were blown away when they saw this performance.

Yes, for 2 reasons.

1) When you search Youtube for Prince this is the video you find.

2) Nobody knew Prince could play guitar. Purple Rain was one album and it was '84. Until this performance he was the guy with the high voice who sang TMBGITW

I wonder what impact it would have made if he released the Undertaker in Guitar World years ago

alandail said:

I wonder what impact it would have made if he released the Undertaker in Guitar World years ago

dope...............

lwr001 said:

alandail said:

I wonder what impact it would have made if he released the Undertaker in Guitar World years ago

dope...............

.

Tell me again who kept that from happening?

EnDoRpHn said:

lwr001 said:

EnDoRpHn said:

.

Tell me again who kept that from happening?

The mfers at Warner

Or perhaps it was him trying to work outside of the contract he sogned with them. Bootlegging your own material and trying to release on the DL is kind of f-ed up.

Zannaloaf said:

Noodled24 said:

Yes, for 2 reasons.

1) When you search Youtube for Prince this is the video you find.

2) Nobody knew Prince could play guitar. Purple Rain was one album and it was '84. Until this performance he was the guy with the high voice who sang TMBGITW

I somewhat disagree with the second reason. I remember the Dortmund Lovesexy broadcast made a big impression on a lot of the musicians I knew in the UK. It was then they realised there was much more to him than the bollocks constantly fed to the public by the tabloid press.

EnDoRpHn said:

lwr001 said:

dope...............

.

Tell me again who kept that from happening?

yeah..true

RodeoSchro said:

What are you talking about.
It's Purple Rain that established him, along with Let's Go Crazy.

The Hall of Fame was just a reminder for old farts.
A very good one, no doubt, even if at the end, he fell back into self-satisfied prick mode
and totally forgot that he was playing an homage to a passed Beatle,
and not some Prince show-off : this was not his induction.

[Edited 12/29/15 13:51pm]

bonatoc said:

What are you talking about.
It's Purple Rain that established him, along with Let's Go Crazy.

The Hall of Fame was just a reminder for old farts.
A very good one, no doubt, even if at the end, he fell back into self-satisfied prick mode
and totally forgot that he was playing an homage to a passed Beatle,
and not some Prince show-off : this was not his induction.

[Edited 12/29/15 13:51pm]

actually it was his induction , its fucking rock and roll and the legitimacy came from george's sons face, not your opinion that matters

EnDoRpHn said:

lwr001 said:

dope...............

.

Tell me again who kept that from happening?

LOL -- ti's just like this never ending trial.

bonatoc said:

What are you talking about.
It's Purple Rain that established him, along with Let's Go Crazy.

The Hall of Fame was just a reminder for old farts.
A very good one, no doubt, even if at the end, he fell back into self-satisfied prick mode
and totally forgot that he was playing an homage to a passed Beatle,
and not some Prince show-off : this was not his induction.

[Edited 12/29/15 13:51pm]

I can't help but think George Harrison himself would want it to be the way it went down -- with panache instead of reverential formalism.

Maybe you're too hard on the guy -- c'est possible?

Aerogram said:

bonatoc said:

What are you talking about.
It's Purple Rain that established him, along with Let's Go Crazy.

The Hall of Fame was just a reminder for old farts.
A very good one, no doubt, even if at the end, he fell back into self-satisfied prick mode
and totally forgot that he was playing an homage to a passed Beatle,
and not some Prince show-off : this was not his induction.

[Edited 12/29/15 13:51pm]

I can't help but think George Harrison himself would want it to be the way it went down -- with panache instead of reverential formalism.

Maybe you're too hard on the guy -- c'est possible?

as someone put it, that performance got Ahmet Ertegun who was wheelchair bound for years up on his feet,, folks act like doped out Tom Petty's so called grimace means something; it doesnt...petty aint funky ( or as P said in the Ebony interview about Clarence Clemons, lovely dude, big aura but he aint funky.............lol

He was a hero long before this performance, but God how he killed it with the solo guitar, he stole the performance.

bonatoc said:

Coincidentally, who would own the rights of the Undertaker performance?

In theory, could Prince release that on Tidal or does Warner have some ownership of it?

Noodled24 said:

thebanishedone said:

bonatoc said:

What are you talking about.
It's Purple Rain that established him, along with Let's Go Crazy.

The Hall of Fame was just a reminder for old farts.
A very good one, no doubt, even if at the end, he fell back into self-satisfied prick mode
and totally forgot that he was playing an homage to a passed Beatle,
and not some Prince show-off : this was not his induction.

[Edited 12/29/15 13:51pm]

Hmm are you sure about that? What if Prince was pissed off how fucking lame that tribute was until he light it up with his guitar playing? Notice the boost of energy when Prince starts rippin it

That's true, he lighted up things during his guitar performance. Such an energy.

I see what you mean, but I don't agree.

At first I thought that exactly. But I saw the performance more than once, and honestly, the backing band kicks ass.

Prince would never have reached such heights if it wasn't for the exceptional rythm and harmonic background going behind. Prince is not the only one who has a soul just because he's soloing.
Every guitar strum, even if lost in the mix, is a living thing for the performer. Under these ultra-professional conditions, each musician performs with its own personal mix, and he doesn't hear himself lost in some third or four layer.
Kudos to the engineer, must be pretty difficult to have such an already dense mix, and having Prince coming in.

Plus, it's not the sound palette Prince usually uses, and therefore our ears are surprised.
It's almost impossible for our brains to associate Prince and a backing rythm section that is not either the Linn, or a powerhouse drummer such as Michael B. or John Blackwell.

Prince would not have reached the sky without what preceded. He can be suprisingly humble: I bet my white ass that he listened and absorbed every second of the music that was going on, and its astounding performance is the result of a true spiritual gathering. To Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, do you think this was some kind of "oh, I just gonna do a proper layer for Prince to shine on"?

No, was it only for the Travelling Wilburys, the connection went a little deeper than that.
Prince did a solo that was very humble. And that is a bigger surprise to our ears. I mean just look at the face he does! That's the kind of stuff we naysayers repeat that he needs.
Musicians who come from encounters, that he doesn't know yet, to provoke surprises, and avoid the sempiternal associations our ears slowly had become bored with.

Flanged hi-hat, compressed kick drum, Oberheim synth, we know (t)his palette by heart.
As much as I love Phase II "Groovy Potential", it's still Skipper reworking his own painting.
OK, sure, it's fucking great. But...

On this performance, he adds a stroke to a bigger picture, and transcends it.

That's what I wish for him. I don't think his fellow musicians say "amen" to everything he says. But they're there to ultimately expose his vision. Due to the exceptional amount of his output (a.k.a. The Vault), we as fans are very conscious of every aspect of his vision, and fatally today know pretty much all of Skipper's facets. He exposed them all. Talk about psychoanalysis.

See (those faces he made — the bastard cracks me up) and hear what happens when Prince is (finally!) in unknown territories.


@thebanishedone: in conclusion, I think you have no right in saying that what's performed underneath is "fucking lame". What's performed underneath is the very reason this performance is what it is.
And to prove my point — near the end, he does a round where he doesn't solo, where he just makes the backing riff the guitarists are making. Very unusual. And look at the smiles he makes. I'm tired to see him suffering for the nth time on "Purple Rain".
THAT is turning into fucking lame, and it's a self-perpetrated crime. In the recent years, he does those neverending grandiloquent encores, and poor "Purple Rain" becomes a self-parody, the exact sonic contrary of "I've been to the mountain top and it ain't what you say", or "I've seen the top, and it's just a dream". More like "I'm at the top, this is the best song ever written". Yawn.

I wish he stopped performing it, it would free him.

The "Purple Rain" affect stopped looking as sincere as the smiles he wears here. Which are provoked by the situation: trust me, I'm a musician.

Oh, that dumbass: "We Are The World" would have been quite different.
Better than just fucking lame.

...even if, of course, I'm more than grateful for "Hello".

[Edited 12/30/15 13:08pm]

bonatoc said:

I see what you mean, but I don't agree.

At first I thought that exactly. But I saw the performance more than once, and honestly, the backing band kicks ass.

Prince would never have reached such heights if it wasn't for the exceptional rythm and harmonic background going behind. Prince is not the only one who has a soul just because he's soloing.
Every guitar strum, even if lost in the mix, is a living thing for the performer. Under these ultra-professional conditions, each musician performs with its own personal mix, and he doesn't hear himself lost in some third or four layer.
Kudos to the engineer, must be pretty difficult to have such an already dense mix, and having Prince coming in.

Plus, it's not the sound palette Prince usually uses, and therefore our ears are surprised.
It's almost impossible for our brains to associate Prince and a backing rythm section that is not either the Linn, or a powerhouse drummer such as Michael B. or John Blackwell.

Prince would not have reached the sky without what preceded. He can be suprisingly humble: I bet my white ass that he listened and absorbed every second of the music that was going on, and its astounding performance is the result of a true spiritual gathering. To Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, do you think this was some kind of "oh, I just gonna do a proper layer for Prince to shine on"?

No, was it only for the Travelling Wilburys, the connection went a little deeper than that.
Prince did a solo that was very humble. And that is a bigger surprise to our ears. I mean just look at the face he does! That's the kind of stuff we naysayers repeat that he needs.
Musicians who come from encounters, that he doesn't know yet, to provoke surprises, and avoid the sempiternal associations our ears slowly had become bored with.

Flanged hi-hat, compressed kick drum, Oberheim synth, we know (t)his palette by heart.
As much as I love Phase II "Groovy Potential", it's still Skipper reworking his own painting.
OK, sure, it's fucking great. But...

On this performance, he adds a stroke to a bigger picture, and transcends it.

That's what I wish for him. I don't think his fellow musicians say "amen" to everything he says. But they're there to ultimately expose his vision. Due to the exceptional amount of his output (a.k.a. The Vault), we as fans are very conscious of every aspect of his vision, and fatally today know pretty much all of Skipper's facets. He exposed them all. Talk about psychoanalysis.

See (those faces he made — the bastard cracks me up) and hear what happens when Prince is (finally!) in unknown territories.


@thebanishedone: in conclusion, I think you have no right in saying that what's performed underneath is "fucking lame". What's performed underneath is the very reason this performance is what it is.
And to prove my point — near the end, he does a round where he doesn't solo, where he just makes the backing riff the guitarists are making. Very unusual. And look at the smiles he makes. I'm tired to see him suffering for the nth time on "Purple Rain".
THAT is turning into fucking lame, and it's a self-perpetrated crime. In the recent years, he does those neverending grandiloquent encores, and poor "Purple Rain" becomes a self-parody, the exact sonic contrary of "I've been to the mountain top and it ain't what you say", or "I've seen the top, and it's just a dream". More like "I'm at the top, this is the best song ever written". Yawn.

I wish he stopped performing it, it would free him.

The "Purple Rain" affect stopped looking as sincere as the smiles he wears here. Which are provoked by the situation: trust me, I'm a musician.

Oh, that dumbass: "We Are The World" would have been quite different.
Better than just fucking lame.

...even if, of course, I'm more than grateful for "Hello".

[Edited 12/30/15 13:08pm]

Good post, and you may be right.

I wouldn't say it "made him a guitar hero" but, for a while, it was something rock people couldn't stop talking about.

Let's be honest about that performance. It's pretty bloodless and formal prior to the solo. Nobody's playing wrong notes but nobody's doing anything special either. It's the kind of thing you would totally expect from a Beatles-tribute on national TV, professional musicians playing it just like the record.

And then Prince walks out and WAILS on the thing, doing his whole leaning backwards into the sudience and tossing the guitar over his shoulder schtick. He really turns the whole thing up a couple of notches, and you can see Dhani Harrison spurring him on. Suddenly everything seems a little more "live".