I am sure this has been discussed before but i was wondering how prevalent backing tracks are with most touring acts. I saw the Psychedelic furs at a gig in toronto a few years ago and when they started the song heaven, richard butler had no mic- yet i heard his voice Anyone onstage "could"have sung that jntro though it should be Richard. Ruined the show for me, maybe doubt everything that followed. Anyone else have similar experience? I have no video to back it up but i remember him grabbing the mic after.
I think I knew Legs by ZZ Top had fake vocals but I assumed the rest was real. I had fun anyway. I'm pretty sure Aerosmith was using tapes way back on the Permanent Vacation tour but they sounded better than the train wreck (kept-a- rollin') I saw in the late 70's and early 80's.
when we saw the happy mondays with a friend in paris for the bellyaches tour, we saw behind the curtain on the right of the scene a men with keyboards playing, we thought it was oakenfold. we laughed and didn't understand why the have to do that because we already knew that the mondays were burglars!!! ha this show was great inded!
I guess this opens up a can of worms, because to me, having an offstage keyboard player(a la VH) doesn't make me conclude that I didn't see a live show. I'd draw the line at lead vocals, though. Also, I saw an opening set from Michelle Branch where she sand live over pre-recorded music. THAT sucked. Dan
I knew New Order would have prerecorded tracks when I went to see them in 2005, but I really didn’t expect the melodica part of “Run Wild” to be a backing track. Especially after Barney did the melodica part in “Love Vigilantes” live! He threw the melodica into the crowd after that, though, so maybe they needed a backup plan
Saw Dolly Parton in 2016 at The Ohio State Fair and the ENTIRE SHOW was lip-synched/play-synched. On stage was just Dolly, a lead guitar/banjo player and a bass guitar player. No amps, no stage monitors, NO drummer. She explained the drummer wanted too much money to tour, so she booted him and was using a drum machine (hold for audience laughter). You simply can't "fake" playing the drums. It looked more like a music video shoot than a LIVE concert set-up! Also, every act we'd ever seen at The Ohio State Fair was "captured" using LIVE video camera operators (usually 2) who's live video feeds would be shown on the screens that flanked the stage for the cheaper seats. Dolly's show had NO live video projection. We left at the intermission and gave our very good seats to a mother and daughter who were so far stage left that they were seated in Wheeling, West Virginia. The kicker was, ALL the tickets for this show were noticeably more expensive than other Big Name acts that played at the fair and it was completely SOLD OUT.
I saw Muse a few years ago... great show, an audio-visual stunner. However, it seemed a little too good to be true. My hats off to them if it was all live, but songs like Knights of Cydonia seem very hard to pull off.
Aerosmith never completely faked it, but they usually have a keyboard player who triggers a lot of things, including the backing vocals which are never completely live. Steve Miller and Rod Stewart have also been busted for lip synching parts of their live show.
My brother told me that our oldest sister went to see the Monkees back during the 60's, and it was too obvious that tapes were used.
Fascinating thread in the context of another thread on the board. The other one discusses labels using MP3 files as a source for CD's, and while I'd rather they didn't do it, if they do and I can't tell by listening to it, I begrudgingly accept it and just get on with loving the music. But when it comes to a live performance, I want live, not mimed. Other than due to special FX, I'd rather hear a bad performance of a song than an artist miming. Even with the Fx thing - just make another arrangement etc. An obviously mimed "live" show is just not on, imo.
I've never heard a rumor that The Monkees used tapes back in the 60s. The rumor I always heard was that there was a band (the opening act The Sundowners?) playing the actual music while the guys onstage mimed. My first concert was The Monkees in 1967 - I was 11. I remember a lot of stupid screaming and the music being barely audible. I remember a point where Davy took over the drumsticks while Micky was playing and I definitely believe that Mike and Peter played live in their solo spots - Pete played banjo. We sat way to the right of the stage halfway up the side and we could see the stage and backstage - there was no evidence of a backing band behind the stage. I've always believed that The Monkees were capable of playing and did play their own instruments onstage at that point because the music was barely heard through the din and no one was scrutinizing the musical details anyway.
Funny how we have an issue with this and yet its perfectly acceptable in the pop world. I have seen a few clips of Billie Eilish live and each time it seems (I could be wrong) she's double tracking/singing along to a taped vocal and nobody bats an eye. Infact one performance I caught the tape was doing more work that she was.
The live shows from their first tour were all released by Rhino. Those are the Monkees playing, with the backup band added on their solo spots. The one tape that's out there (from Japan) shows that they also played on the second major tour. The tour after Peter left was a different story, an R&B styled backup band was used. Fans are endlessly frustrated that there are no recordings of this.
If you see a pop-oriented show with a lot of flashy production numbers, it's almost always lip synched. That applies to a lot of people who can actually sing-- Madonna (in recent years), Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry. Usually there is an "unplugged" section where they sing live to prove they can do it. For better or worse, Michael Jackson broke that ground, starting on the second leg of the Bad tour. The exception is Lady Gaga who lip synched on one tour and thought it was a failed experiment. She always sings live now.
Most hip hop shows I’ve seen mostly have backing tracks. A few have had live bands or a DJ, but a lot don’t. And that’s fine with me. A good chunk of hip hop I like has weird production that is probably very difficult to recreate live, and the show is all about the performer anyway. One of the best shows I saw a few years back was Vince Staples by himself on a stage. He was charismatic enough and had interesting enough visual effects that it carried the whole show. It stinks when rappers use a backing track with the full vocal track, though. Not all do, but some do, and it bugs me.
That is considerate of her. I cannot imagine any of the older legends even thinking about lip - synching a concert
