I have finally been getting exposure to a lot of Prince's wonderful live music, but one thing I have noticed is that I have yet to hear a version of Kiss that equaled or improved upon the studio version. He seems so perfunctory on that song, and in my admittedly limited sampling he rarely sings much of it, relying on the audience. I know he did this with a lot of other songs, but with better results. I would understand this as perhaps if it could be attributed to just his tiring of a hit, trying to please the masses ( ), or perhaps that it was a song he never was fully comfortable with (per Thorne). However, this wouldn't explain all the shows that he performed it when he didn't do hardly any of the hits. I just heard a concert recording from the series in 2002 he did from PP, and right after doing several songs from TRC accompanied by much preaching, he then breaks into another lackluster performance of "Kiss".

My questions are: (1) Have you ever heard an outstanding version of Kiss in concert, and if so where and what made it so. (2) Why do you think he performed the song so much given the observations above?

[Edited 9/12/16 19:34pm]

I think because the actual song is so minimalist, that he may have felt it wouldn't sound strong enough or energetic enough for him and the audience to dance to???

I dont really know tbh, but I have always wondered the exact same thing. Also, he almost never performed When Doves Cry (isn't that his biggest hit?). I swear I don't remember ever seeing a performance for that song recently

Try and find a recording from the 20ten /2011 tours, he had a great version going for that, including an extended piece at the end where he danced. A fair amount was pre-recorded I think but it really worked live.

If memory serves, I almost remember him talking about "Kiss", and how he was always changing it in concert. He made a comment that it never sounded right live, but he'd keep changing it and maybe one day it would sound right. I do agree that it's so minimalist, and the techniques that David Z used might be hard to duplicate live, that doing it live would prove to be a constant challenge.

He did start to use the audience more in the 90s for that song, when he did perform it. It's a good song to get audience participation.

Replying to the "When Doves Cry" comment: Princevault mentions it was only performed during the sampler set from 2011 (Welcome 2 America) - 2015. Otherwise, it was on Purple Rain, Parade, SOTT, Lovesexy, Nude, Act II, Celebration, Hit N' Run,World Tour 2003, Musicology.

jaawwnn said:

Try and find a recording from the 20ten /2011 tours, he had a great version going for that, including an extended piece at the end where he danced. A fair amount was pre-recorded I think but it really worked live.

Thanks, i'll investigate.

A good point about the song being so minimalist. Ithink that's would set it apart on the radio at the time. To rework it in lush orchestration or other embellishments would change it's very essence.

Who cares. Haven't you seen that VIDEO? Awxiest thing i've seen him do.

He performed Kiss on both shows in Rock'n'Rio (18 and 24th Jan 1991) . I was there both nights and will never forget...I was hoping he would sing When Doves Cry as well, but it didn´t happen.

Someone posted the show on youtube (kiss starts at 13 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM9FMD3HPN8&t=166s

This is my personal favourite live version of Kiss - because he stopped playing to pull my 9yr old son up to dance on stage to it at the Sydney State Theatre 6.30pm P & M show and changed the lyrics to "I think he wants to dance"!

https://soundcloud.com/misslisa1979/08-kiss

We will never forget this moment and listen to it every day.

[Edited 11/10/16 0:17am]

[Edited 11/10/16 0:17am]

I agree that is one that maybe never sounds as good as the studio version.

When Doves Cry is another one and best version of that I can think of is Tokyo 1990 from the broadcast video.

FunkiestOne said:

misslisa1979 said:

This is my personal favourite live version of Kiss - because he stopped playing to pull my 9yr old son up to dance on stage to it at the Sydney State Theatre 6.30pm P & M show and changed the lyrics to "I think he wants to dance"!

https://soundcloud.com/misslisa1979/08-kiss

We will never forget this moment and listen to it every day.

[Edited 11/10/16 0:17am]

[Edited 11/10/16 0:17am]

I was there up close, got goose bumps when this happened, the crowd went nuts....would love to see it on video if anyone managed to grab it.

jaawwnn said:

Try and find a recording from the 20ten /2011 tours, he had a great version going for that, including an extended piece at the end where he danced. A fair amount was pre-recorded I think but it really worked live.

I share this view. I think he finally found the right live arrangement for it on this tour. I attended a show in 2011 and thought "Kiss" was the highlight. I can't claim to have been able to predict how much I liked it and would not have originally minded the song not even being played that night (the "big" song he left out that night in Helsinki was LGC, btw).

novabrkr said:

gandorb said:

Dimitri10 said:

misslisa1979 said:

This is my personal favourite live version of Kiss - because he stopped playing to pull my 9yr old son up to dance on stage to it at the Sydney State Theatre 6.30pm P & M show and changed the lyrics to "I think he wants to dance"!

https://soundcloud.com/misslisa1979/08-kiss

We will never forget this moment and listen to it every day.

[Edited 11/10/16 0:17am]

[Edited 11/10/16 0:17am]

I was there up close, got goose bumps when this happened, the crowd went nuts....would love to see it on video if anyone managed to grab it.

Anzac lives for the day he can get it on video! Been searching since the night it happened.

paulludvig said:

Thanks to the multiple people recommending the 2010/2011 version of Kiss in this thread, I'd never heard it before and it is indeed very cool, I love that he incorporates a bit of the extended version into it at the end.

I agree; the 2011 version with Cassandra O' Neal's electro-clav sound was amazing. I remember seeing him in Malahide and thinking that Kiss sounded incredible.