Yeah, he's a damn good guitarist, although he only shows bits and pieces of that in the average song. Some of the stuff off of Purple Rain shows more than most, and that's when I had to revise my opinion of him.

At first I said something like, "Oh, sure, he's pretending to play a guitar." After hearing what he was playing I realized that he really was more than capable.

The bending over backwards ~ and the tossing of the guitar ~ are both classic moves. For the back bend, check out Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap; they poke fun at that (and nearly everything else in rock music =).