Re: Lip Synching

I think I would have to agree with Donnie that lip-syncing live concerts
is not typically considered acceptable for live performances by serious
musicians, at least here in the U.S.  If it were discovered, the band in
question would get *serious* flack.  I've seen many concerts, and I've
never seen a concert that was lip-synced, except perhaps a Gary Newman
concert I saw a couple of years ago, and some people in the audience
were giving him much flack about it.  I'm not sure if they were correct
though, because if they were, he did a remarkably good job of staying
synced.

> Can you please turn the sound up on the stage?" huffs Spooner to the
> soundman. "I can't even hear the track I'm lip-synching to." (from
> concert review published in "The Guardian", UK)

Is this about Fischerspooner?  They are an exception because they make
no bones about the fact that they lip-sync their live performances, so
you know what you are getting before you show up.  If you've heard
Fischerspooner, you can see how they might have a hard time peforming
this stuff live -- the stuff I've heard is innately studio material --
even the vocals.  So, I've heard that they instead concentrate on making
a dramatic multimedia extravaganza for live performances, and don't try
to pretend that they're not lip-syncing.

> Enrique Iglesias will look to dispel accusations that he is the next
> Milli Vanilli [...]

> The Billboard awards marked another year of squealing 'N Sync fans,
> [...] (Witness Britney Spears lip-synching another [...]

> It didn't even matter that Jackson was almost certainly lip-synching
> the most physically demanding songs, [...]

I think that these bands can all be safely classified as "crap", as
Donnie put it.

Lip-syncing on TV appearances is a completely different issue.  As any
devout Kate Bush fan will know, the vast majority of her TV appearances
were lip-synced.  TV shows used to almost always be lip-synced,
regardless of the wishes of the musicians, because the producers of the
TV shows typically didn't want to be bothered with the non-trivial
problem of setting up decent sound for live performance.  Saturday Night
Live was a notable exception.  These days, in the US at least, TV shows
are increasingly facilitating true live performance.

|>oug