It started back in early December with the overdose death of Scott Weiland, formerly of Stone Temple Pilots. Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister followed a few weeks later and then came the earthshaking loss of David Bowie on January 8th. Next was Eagle Glenn Frey, Beatles producer George Martin, and country legend Merle Haggard (who interestingly was born and died on April 6th). I’m not a fan in the least of those last three, but there’s no denying their important musical legacies. And now we’re down one more with the shocking death of Prince.
I’d classify my level of Prince fandom as somewhere past the point of “casual” and a fair distance from “devout”. Admittedly, the vast majority of his musical output the past decade failed to inspire many repeat listens from me. I chalk that up to his reputation for being extremely prolific (Wikipedia lists just shy of 40 studio albums that he released since 1978), but with a wildly uneven quality to his work. The last release of his that I truly connected with was 2004’s Musicology. That tour was the one and now only time I saw Prince live, but oh my did it leave a deep and lasting impression on me.
I’ve seen well over a hundred concerts in my life and U2 and Bruce Springsteen are by far my two favourite music artists. Although Bono and The Boss are two of the best contemporary live performers we’ve ever seen (in my humble opinion and many others), I can say without hesitation that the single greatest person I’ve ever witnessed on a concert stage was Prince. Hands down. I’d known about his abundant talent for years, of course. The legend-building stories of his musical virtuosity were established early on, as he played nearly every instrument on his first five albums. I’d also seen enough live footage of him over the years playing a host of different instruments to know that he was a one-of-a-kind talent. Still, nothing prepared me for seeing all of it on display in person.
Feeling just a tad superior to my sister as I enjoyed a great floor seat in July 2004 at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre while she was relegated to seats up in the stands, Prince completely floored me with his musical talent and showmanship. At various points during the concert, in addition to his frequent guitar playing, he played piano, drums, and bass. And we’re not talking a “Jack of all trades, master of none” kind of multi-instrumentalism, either. The guy played those three latter instruments damn well. His virtuosic guitar skills weren’t a huge surprise, yet it added another level to my appreciation for those skills seeing them from such a close vantage point. Add in some badass dance moves, a surprisingly playful sense of humour (something Prince diehards would be quite familiar with), and a near-flawless vocal performance and you can see why I was bowled over. And for good measure, the sound was some of the best I’d ever heard at a major venue. That really surprised me, considering I’d seen Van Halen at the same venue just two weeks earlier and that show had some of the worst sound I’d ever heard at a big venue. Good live sound engineers are very underrated members of a touring act’s road crew.
I’d have loved to experience Prince in concert again, but his ticket prices skyrocketed on subsequent tours, as I ranted about here in 2011. Even as recently as a month ago, I checked out the ticket prices for one of the intimate Toronto shows he announced a couple of days ago before they were played, which would turn out to be some of his final performances. Alas, they were priced far beyond my means, plus their high exclusivity would have made getting tickets a longshot anyway.
While I frequently didn’t connect with a lot of Prince’s music, I always respected his musical integrity that predominantly saw him do things on his own terms, which included taking plenty of musical risks. During his 2007 Super Bowl halftime show, I remember wondering why the hell a guy with a catalog as deep as his was doing a cover of the Foo Fighters “Best Of Me” on such a high profile platform with such a limited amount of performance time. Talk about an out-of-left-field song choice. Prince made it work, though, and that performance is now one the Super Bowl’s most acclaimed halftime shows.
As much as I’m now crushed for only having had one experience of seeing Prince’s next-level kind of talent in person, I also consider myself fortunate for having had the opportunity.
