I think Prince has some talent.... He just hasn't had hit in a couple of decades, which makes him an odd choice for the half time show. Same goes for McCartney, the Stones, etc. At least Janet Jackson had the common courtesy to haul out a teet for us.
"We're gonna rock! We're gonna rock!" No. No you're not. Prince was great, considering that you can tell that he couldn't hear himself/the band that well. No monitors, and he was playing off memory. That's why he was doing the scrape/scratch rhythm thing quite a bit.
If you have 10 minutes to spare. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/627F99x8csc"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/627F99x8csc" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> "ssss-ha, ssss-ha" is all I heard...
Understood. My guess, though, was that he knew his audience would not want the non well-known Prince stuff and were more of a rock crowd.
There are two reasons that you don't see "modern" talent on stage at Super Bowl halftimes. 1. These artists you mention are legends. They are pros. They can get up in front of hundreds of thousands and not be shaken even slightly. They don't require elaborate sets, even though they can have them. They are recognizable and always good. That makes for something that everyone can enjoy, which is difficult to do in today's segmented music industry...which brings me to... 2. How do you appeal to a mass audience? If you put an R&B act or a country act or an alt act up there, you are automatically going to alienate a HUGE chunk of your audience. The Super Bowl has to go with artists that will have the widest mass appeal - the superstars - which brings me to... 3. Superstars don't exist like they used to. The ability to be larger than life hasn't been something we've seen from an artist in quite some time. The industry wrings every ounce of popularity out of an artist and discards them. The result is a very short-lived career that seems to disappear as quickly as it appeared. You can't put a relevant artist on stage because they don't have the catalog to sustain a halftime. By the time they've made one hit, they are dropped and sent back to obscurity. Only the artists with the long-time staying power and back catalogs everyone recognizes like Prince, U2, McCartney, the Stones, Aerosmith, etc. can handle this kind of spotlight.
The show wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either...Prince doing a cover of the Foo Fighters song was a stretch, IMHO, but I should have confessed this in the other thread, but I love Prince's music...
I meantioned that in the SB thread, live sound in an environemnt like that is tricky and not for the faint of heart, and frankly Im disapponted that they couldnt bring in better sound guys to deal with it. Yea, the wind and rain made it tough, but I have worked with guys that used to do stadium shows and they dealt with that kind of stuff for two hours +, not just 15 minutes. Also agree that Prince is one helluva guitar player, that is a huge compliment comgin from me cause in general I dont like his music. One thing I wonder, did the lipsync backlash of recent years cause them to finally let it go live? As a producer, it has to be a tough call to make since the pre-recorded stuff is just so much easier to mix and make sound good than live....in this case I really felt the weather conditions were the formost factor in the crappy mix.
I love typing one number when I mean to type another... I think when U2 performed post 911 and were so ridiculously good with no need for lip synching, I think that along with the Janet Jackson stupidity, set the tone for what we've seen the last few years. The reality is that you just can't depend on a relatively new/young artist to be as consistently good and professional. Plus, no one is going to complain if you hire a superstar.
I know the Foo Fighters love Prince and are probably thrilled he played one of their songs. Prince didn't seem that into it last night. I think the rain bummed him out. But I was really drunk so who knows. That said, I own every Prince album and I'm a huge fan.
They covered Darling Nikki recently and I think they know each other. Like any cover performance, the Foo's will make good money off of last night. Personally, I thought he tore it up and I love the Foos maybe more than Prince.
Can someone post the youtube for this (assuming it's out there)? My work blocks it. Watching Prince play guitar, he makes it look so easy and seamless that he actually looks like he's playing air-guitar. Sort of like SRV. He's one of those guys that looks like the guitar is just an extension of his body, if that makes sense.
take this for what it's worth, but I read somewhere (maybe Bill Simmons...not sure) that Prince is in need of a hip replacement (presumably for dancing "James Brown" style in heels). That might explain the lack of moves that he usually busts out with during live performances. Did anyone else catch him at the Toyota Center a few years ago? Damn...
I thought the covers were well done, especially the Foo Fighters song. I prefer it when artists bring their own interpretation to a cover, and I think Prince did that well. But who cares about all that, the Purple Rain finale blew everything out of the water. It was AMAZING.
Second that! (though I have never felt more white in my life... watching people bust a move in the audience was worth the entire price of admission)
