A Princely performance, a pauper’s exit stage left

In the purple-suffused afterglow of praise and tributes following his death, one of Prince’s performances that drew effusive praise was his guitar work on the Beatles classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

That’s the solo he performed during the 2004 ceremony in which the late George Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At last count, the video had reached 24,342,895 views, no doubt sent into the viral ethersphere after it resurfaced on social media.

I’ve seen posts by people who, like me, never really cared for Prince’s music but were impressed by his performance. Both brief and detailed analyses of reactions ranged from “wow” to orgasmic to one observer’s, in a piece on Medium, comparing him to God and dissecting his solo almost frame to frame.

Far be it for me to dispute anything in Daniel Ralston’s analysis of Prince’s guitar work. After all, I’m not a musician — I just played the drums.

So while I won’t take issue with whether or not the solo is a thing of brilliance, I do find one thing about this performance disturbing: The after-solo.

It’s the part that comes after Prince plays his last note. He thrusts his guitar into the audience and then struts off stage without so much as a backward glance or an acknowledgement of his adoring fans, leaving behind those mere mortals on the stage: Musicians of such lesser talents as Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood and Dhani Harrison , whose father was being honoured posthumously.

I’m not sure what that casually cool gesture was supposed to signify. Was it Prince’s “take that suckers” response to those who didn’t want him to perform because he wasn’t a personal friend of Harrison? His way of saying, “How’s that performance for a song I had never heard of till last week?”

Or was it just Prince’s brattiness that even his followers seem to enjoy so much? Why, his tour manager himself admits that Prince felt “he had a Holy Hot Line and got a pass for behavior that would have been less than correct for others.”

For me, it was a gesture that tore down what was otherwise an historic musical monument in our time. It felt like an ego-inflated brain fart or a “fuck you” to the crowd and fellow musical legends, one that destroyed the wonderful performance that came before Prince left the stage.

This kind of hubristic act is never a good thing — not matter how great the musician. What talented people have to realize is that they should respect the people they play for, and with.

We’ve seen it with Guns n’ Roses who make a habit of leaving fans waiting — sometimes for hours on end — for them to start their concerts.

Van Morrison, it’s been said, sometimes turns his back to his audiences in concert.

Other artists, who would be wise to follow the example of Johnny Rotten , think nothing of lip syncing their songs, especially at the Super Bowl.

I’m not sure if Prince’s Hall of Fame exit was a solitary slip, that he was otherwise more gracious about his greatness. Certainly his statement upon his own induction into the hall of fame, with its message of “real spiritual mentoring,” suggests an understanding of what truly matters and it isn’t always the musician, whether he goes by a name or symbol.

As great as an artist is, as much as he or she has worked to achieve that level of greatness, it is never a good thing to flip the proverbial bird at the people who helped make him or her great. It’s also never a good thing to forget the simple fact that there may be/probably are people who are greater — and to be humble in learning that lesson.

When it comes to hubris or humility, even among the greats, I choose to admire the guy who bows to his audience and shakes the hands of his fellow musicians. The other guys can jam in front of their mirrors.

Claudio D’Andrea has been a journalist for 30 years, writing and editing for newspapers, magazine and online publications. You can read his stuff on LinkedIn and Medium.com and follow him on Twitter.