Lip-Synching on TV to the Record

omg the drugs.....

dan c

 

You can hear the vinyl record trailing-off at the end in this infamous clip

 

This reminds me of when Blur appeared on Top Of The Pops to "perform" Charmless Man, which they did with miniature guitars and giant drumsticks, not even attempting to follow the actual track in places:

 

I remember with fondness Anne Murray lip-syncing "Snowbird" on America 2-Nite (1978). Martin Mull and Fred Willard begin lip-syncing along with her and clowning around the set while Murray begins to panic, still lip-syncing.

 

Apparently, the only artist to perform live in all the years of American Bandstand was B.B. King.

 

At the start of this "performance" of So Serious on American Bandstand in 1986 (which turned out to be one of the original ELO's final promotional appearances), you can hear that Jeff Lynne's microphone was still on from the previous short interview, meaning that some of the pre-recorded track bled through, creating a slight delay:



While this conclusively proves what artists and the audience heard, the most hilarious aspect is surely watching Louis Clark and Dave Morgan playing cellos on a song that doesn't even feature strings in its studio form - they'd also do this for a few other television shows around the same period! Who was convinced by such a thing?

 

Well, ELO mimed to tapes at their concerts, too. From what I've read, you didn't know what you were hearing at an ELO gig.

 

See, for me that's a whole different level of .... "wrong". If bands "played" to pre-recorded tracks on TV that is one thing , however, if people paid to see them "live" and that was not the case that's an entirely different problem and it's a BIG problem. If I was wathcing TV and it appeared that "live" was not "liive" that was bad. IF I was at a live performance and the music was not "live" ... that was just sad and weak an most certainly would represent fraud in the eyes of the courts - in ANY country

 

Believe me, I don't disagree. But these days, nobody even cares.

 

I'd rather not open that proverbial can of worms yet again... I've had countless lengthy discussions in another thread about ELO's use of tapes on its 1978 Big Night Tour (and the return of pre-recorded elements during far more recent shows), but there really isn't anything further to say beyond the evidence I tried presenting before, which included old print articles along with live recordings where it was possible to match certain aspects from one concert to the next.

At least one US promoter took the group to court back in the day for this very reason, arguing that the lower than expected ticket sales were because of the band's reputation as a glorified mime act already following it. In reality, their sound engineer was able to demonstrate various technical obstacles they felt required tapes to best overcome. For example, the violin and cello parts often had to be lowered in the mix due to these instruments frequently going out of tune, mainly as a result of the heat generated on stage by the overhead lighting. Also, it was deemed necessary to use the album tracks as a guide to keep everyone in sync, especially since the fibreglass "spaceship" design used around this period would regularly cause large amounts of unwanted reverb. In many ways, this was a precursor to the click approach that has now become something of a more accepted standard. However, a more controversial outcome was raising the tapes in the mix so the crowd would hear this for large portions of a set, as happened in the original broadcast version of their Wembley '78 performance, with this same mono source used for subsequent VHS, CD and DVD releases until the multitracks were located years after the damage had already been done to ELO's credibility, meaning that only a handful of remaining dedicated fans ever got to hear a more honest representation of their sound.

 

You are correct but I find the factd no on every really cares sort of sad / depressing. Almost want's to make me listen to Justin Beber's noise this PR people try and call music .....

Good point and well researched. I am familiar with that case the ruling party in that case chose to stick to the ":word of the law" and not the "spirit of the law". All involved were lucky the party that was ruled against was unable to affort the cost of appealing that decision or things may have been VERY different going forward. Thank you for bringing that up - I honestly forgot about it until you mentioned it

 

In relation to instrumentalists/bands on that show, I've read somewhere that Duane Eddy and his band performed live on there as well...

 

Not true!

There are tapes of Jerry Lee Lewis in circulation that a fan taped directly off the TV with a reel-to-reel tape recorder from his 1957 "American Bandstand" performances... They are 100% live performances, and include his first performance where he sings "Crazy Arms" and "Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On", his appearance where he performs songs from his first EP, and another where he sings "Great Balls of Fire" and Dick Clark promotes the movie "Jamboree"... These were all 1957 "AB" appearances, and predate the "Saturday Night Beechnut Show" by several months... As a matter of fact, there's a taped clip where Dick Clark and Jerry Lee Lewis did a phone interview and Dick mentions that the "AB" audience voted for Jerry Lee Lewis (The Jerry Lee Lewis Trio) as the best small group of 1957 and he says to Jerry Lee that he'll see him soon on a Saturday evening show they'll be on together, and that of course was the debut episode of Dick's Saturday night show. (And yes, those appearances are also on the tapes.)

 

I love this one when Cass says to "cue the tape".

 

I'll be damned - I read some erroneous information. Imagine that!

 

I want to thank all the people that have contributed to this thread. I must say it is definitely unexpected. I wish in some ways I was still the same guy from 7 years ago that started this thread, but life got much more complicated and stressful since 2010. It is a joy to see this thread come back to life and I appreciate each and every person keeping it going!

 

Why? That's a great performance!

 

The band agreed not to sing the word "higher" in the lyrics when on live TV ...... and then Morrison went ahead and sung the tune with the word "higher" in it anyway. Live TV, no delay = The Doors won that round lol

 

Ah, gotcha.

 

By the way, not every host liked it when their acts were forced to lipsync. Again, from Australia: