There are two theories I can conceive to explain why Prince would choose to release such a bland performance of himself and his band to the general public. One is that his devotion to the Jehovah's Witness faith disallows him to maintain any semblance of indivuality or genuine artistic expression - things that he was once famous for. Another explanation is that Prince simply needs money. Could it be that since his breakup with Warner Brothers Prince has had trouble re-establishing himself in the eyes and ears of the music buying public. With the extravagant lifestyle that Prince is so akin to, he most certainly would need to maintain an extravagant income just to maintain it. It seems that Prince now has exchanged his clever, compelling stage-persona with nothing more than a dull fasade of polical correctness and unoriginality, possibly in hopes of selling his music to an older more PC audience. This I learned quickly after popping the DVD into my DVD player. Instead of watching this concert in a state of awe from front to back like I did with his other films (eg. Sign 'O The Times & Rave Unto The Year 2000), I found myself holding my thumb to the fast-forward button scanning ahead in search of something good. Each performance is so prudently executed that it actually sickens me to think about. Watching Prince on this DVD reminds me of watching a children's performer attempting to entertain an adult audience and all the while not entertaining anybody. His humour is cautious to the point where it is not funny or entertaining, just annoying. All of Prince's gestures, dance moves, singing, and most of all, passion have been dwindled down so that even the most traditionalist senior citizen would walk away from this concert exclaiming "Now there's a nice young man, we should invite him to come to our church. Does he give sermons?".

There is nothing inspirational, sensational, contraversial, or even "Prince" about this concert. Instead, what you will find is extremely poor camera footage accompanied by extremely poor audio and above all, extremely boring performances! This is yet another concert DVD that will end up on my rack, never to be viewed again. When you think about it, now should have been the time where Prince chose to change his name. I think somehow this one fits: "The Man Formerly Known As An Artist".

Ouch...

If I feel negative about seeing and hearing a performance (be it live or on tape)
or album, I tend to give it a second try - just to make sure I was right all along!

d-d-d-daaayyyuuummm!!! scathing review, but nice to see nonetheless...

Dayumn, you need a hug or something?

What exactly upset you so much about the performance? I can't think of anything that PC about it, and the self-deprecating way he altered the lyrics to the Ride, for eg, was to my mind just as sly and witty as when he shouted "not bad for a girl" or "u expect an awful lot for $200" in the SOTT era - he was kind of saying - look I know I said this in the first place, I know it is kind of daft me censoring my own lyrics, but I'm gonna play with your expectations and do it anyway, and it's kind of funny that I look ridiculous doing it but, hey - it's my stage tonight" At least it wasn't prefacing a performance of the Cross with a lecture about the stauros and changing the lyrics.

And besides, I'd rather see Prince mimicking Sammy Davies jr in his home town and playing some mean guitar (whaddya mean no passion? pshhh), than mimicking himself. Ever seen a 45 yr old man dry humping the stage in a lycra leotard? Not a pretty sight.

Repetition is largely right...IMHO. The show is not only a parody of Prince's shows of the past, but also a parody of the ONA Tour that we all saw live. The prudence in this performance is well noted and the sound on the DVD is, simply, awful and denies those who were unable to get to the shows in person a chance to hear the music Prince is playing just now. The music is good, the performance is good, but Lovesexy he ain't baby.

Your review is totally unrealistic,u are expecting Prince
to act like he did when he was 28 or something,I think his
performance is more inspired than the Rave dvd,things and
people change

WOW, CAN'T BELIEVE WE HAVE TONS OF VIDEO/SOUND AND WEBGRAPHIC EXPERTS ON PRINCE.ORG!


I loved the DVD! By the way

check this out:
http://www.prince.org/msg...&tid=60196

and all i have to add to that is get real! Prince is not the same person he was during SOTT nor the same person he was during Rave. at some point, you have to expect any artist to become something else. many ppl have never liked Bowie for changing like he does. even Clapton, lots of ppl scathed him for all those Grammys and his mellower vibe.
Prince is done with all that stuff. he ain't gonna be running around a stage like he used to. all i know is that i saw Prince last year, I saw an artist that did finally change into someone who was happy with his decision and that's all we can ask for, right? Prince is still Prince as well, he's always going to be a trailblazer and that's why many major artists are leaving the major labels and going out on their own. i ain't saying that Prince was the first but he obviously was the most popular one to do it.
move on...don't be left behind.