This year’s edition of Boston’s Independent Film Festival is in full swing, and as we noted earlier in the week, there are more than a few must-see music documentaries showing around town. And with the screening of music documentaries comes potential musical performances, and that’s what we got last night at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge.
After a showing of Who is Lydia Loveless?, the Columbus, Ohio title singer jumped up on stage and performed two songs — one from her forthcoming album, which is the central theme of filmmaker Gorman Bechard’s doc, and a cover of Prince’s 1980 pop earworm “When You Were Mine”, a track made famous by Cyndi Lauper a few years later and holding steady as one of the catchiest songs ever written.
Loveless is no stranger to covering Prince, as in 2015 she released a Record Store Day cover of “I Would Die 4 U” on purple 7-inch vinyl. “Covering Prince in the studio was probably the most devastating recording experience of my life, and that’s not melodrama,” Loveless tells Rolling Stone Country. “We used to cover a few of his songs live and it was fun and energizing, but when you’re trying to create magic that he has already done such a grand job of, it’s just crushing.”
Prince passed away on April 21 at the age of 57. Click here for our continuing coverage. [h/t Bradley’s Almanac]