Lady's and Gentlemen....What you're hearing is not an all live performance! After paying high dollar for a live performance of the artist of your choice, you get a fake show of sorts. I've experienced performances that pretend to be "live" across all genres.
What does it mean to put on a live performance anymore, anyway? My interpretation of a live performance, is when there is a musician playing every instrument that I'm hearing, with the exceptions of syth. sounds because I've grown accustomed that it's a package deal. Also, all the backup singers need to actually be present and singing live too. Here's a few examples:
A southern gospel group called Psalms 101 played a CD with prerecorded tracks of all the other instruments, except for the lead guitar player and the vocals of the husband and wife team. Even the rest of the backup vocals are recorded. When someone requested a song off of one of their recordings, they tripped out because they didn't have the CD with the recorded music and backup vocals on it. Are they good? Yep! Are they live? Nope--is my vote.
I went to see Cher on her final tour (yeah, I know it lasted three years) and she rocked. Dancers, musicians, pyrotechnic show, some live musicians but there were tons of instruments and vocals in the mix that were not represented by human beings--this was hidden more in her concert because their were so many distractions by everything else going on--good job, but not really live!
Last night I took my mom to see Debbie Reynolds at the Strawberry Festival in Plant City. The performer will be 78 on April 1, 2010, so I give her props for just showing up, much less the jokes and trip down musical film's memory lane. She had a good jazz piano player (Joey Singer) that played a gorgeous baby grand piano--he was an exceptional pianist. She also had a jazz drummer--not my style of drumming--but he was very good. While performing portions of various musicals there were all kind of orchestra and string sounds, the whole "big band" feel--with no band, not even a synthesizer. Debbie did good, but the performance wasn't truely "live."
Here's my grip. If you're going to perform be honest about who and what you are. Why pretend to have a band that you don't have? I want "real" performances. I can accept the use of a synthesizer but it should not be the entire band, if that's the case you might as well perform with a soundtrack. Which brings us to Milli Vanilli. The pop group from the 1980's that reached stardum and was then exposed to the public that that were lip-singing to prerecorded tracks that were not even their own vocals. Everyone cried, "Fraud!" I agree. Yet, now we have become complacent and satisfied to pay more for less at every performance we attend. Often we don't even know we're getting less, in that many people do not even notice that the music/vocals are "canned."
The next time you go to a concert, sing, or performance of some type listen carefully and look around and ask yourself, "Is this really a live performance?"
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I agree so many artist are doing the lip singing. That is why I dont do concerts anymore. I feel they are just making a buck off of us. If they cant sing live them they should not go into a studio and make an album. They can change so much in the studio. I want a true voice and bank. I want to see the drums, base player, singer and all of them be real.
ReplyDeleteI think I am with you on this. As a big Jimi Hendrix fan, I appreciate the kind of passionate improv that marks a good live performer.
ReplyDeleteAnd, after watching Imogen Heap on Letterman, I have a greater appreciation for just how much is possible using loops in a live performance (Elipse".
I suppose the Imogen Heap performance blurs the lines between what is merely recorded and what is played live. Perhaps that's why I find it so interesting.