Today the world was rocked by the news that pop superstar Prince passed away at his Paisley Park Mansion in Minnesota. He was 57.
As part of the natural mourning process, there will be an outpouring of tributes and remembrances about the iconic artist. For music fans, there’s no other way to put this other than that it sucks. A lovable musical enigma, Prince’s guitar-shredding and soul-funk-synth-pop could move mountains.
His performance at the 2007’s Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show is one of the best half-time performances of all time. In the middle of a massive Miami downpour, Prince tore up the stage with a completely live performance (read: no canned lip-synching bullshit), ending with an emotional “Purple Rain” while it was dumping buckets. It was a chilling, emotional moment in 2007 and it’s just as powerful now.
The NFL put out a great little documentary about the performance earlier this year. As a lover of live music, it chokes me up to watch it knowing that he gone. We’ll never have the experience of that moment again.
RIP Prince.
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Here’s Prince’s iconic performance at Coachella one year later, in 2008: