From Far Out Magazine (12/1/2023)
There are a number of moments that define Prince as a musician, but one video probably puts everything into perspective the most effectively. It was from a concert in 2004 but did the rounds on social media shortly after the musician’s passing in 2016. It shows him on stage with legends, playing a song written by legends, but somehow managing to make it seem like he is the only person in the world.
It’s hard to find a music lover who hasn’t watched Prince, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne’s cover of the Beatles song ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ more than once. The way the three of them come together to perform arguably one of the most perfect songs of all time is truly astonishing.
The video comes from a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in which the writer of the song, George Harrison, was inducted alongside ZZ Top, Bob Seger, Jackson Browne, The Dells, Traffic and Prince himself.
The song is beautiful from start to finish, but most people find themselves staring in disbelief and repeatedly playing back Prince’s solo. The crowd sit in an awe-inspired silence as he makes his yellow telecaster sing. There is a mix of open and closed note picking, which he makes look effortless. He stands with his back slightly bent and a constant coolness on his face. Towards the end of his solo, he falls back off the stage only to be caught and pushed back onto it by a security guard, all while he continues to shred. It really is something to behold.
“They never rehearsed it, really,” said the show’s producer Joel Gallen, “Never really showed us what he was going to do, and he left, basically telling me, the producer of the show, not to worry… and the rest is history. It became one of the most satisfying musical moments in my history of watching and producing live music.”
Prince is onstage throughout the entire set, although he is cased in shadow and barely visible, to the point that you might only catch a glimpse even if you’re specifically looking for him. He takes centre stage at 4:43 of the clip, and from that moment on, despite sharing it with big names, he might as well be the only person there.
“You see me nodding at him, to say, ‘go on, go on,’” said Tom Petty, reflecting on the performance, “I remember I leaned out at him at one point and gave him a ‘This is going great!’ kind of look. He just burned it up. You could feel the electricity of ‘something really big’s going down here.”
As if all that wasn’t enough, the most talked about moment comes at the song’s end. Here, Prince takes off his guitar, nothing unusual about that, looks as though he is going to put it down, still normal, but instead opts to throw it in the air, which is odd. Oh, I forgot to mention that it never comes back down, either. The guitar seemingly vanished into thin air. It is a moment that is constantly talked about with onlookers and performers still trying to work out what happened.
“I didn’t even see who caught it,” said Petty, “I just saw it go up, and I was astonished that it didn’t come back down again. Everybody wonders where that guitar went, and I gotta tell you, I was on stage, and I wonder where it went, too.”
Seven years after his death, people still reflect on Prince’s best moments, a conversation which never seems to grow stale due to there being so many. There is no doubt he was unequivocally one of the greatest performers to ever take to the stage, and this is probably best demonstrated by that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance.
He was visible on stage for just over two minutes, joined by the likes of Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, but still does enough to spark a conversation that analyses his performance and adds a layer of mystery around it. There has never been anyone else like Prince, and we are unlikely going to see anyone of his calibre in the future, but with such a huge discography and plenty of footage of his incredible shows, there is more than enough to reflect upon and remember him by. No need to weep.