Playback

Sophia Wells72 said:I can only tolerate lip-syncing if there’s an accident, an illness, or some unexpected disaster with someone's voice—but a live performance is meant to be it. Come on, man, just show up and give it everything you've got.

Even then, because at that point, it's already a planned, recorded playback. If you don't plan for it, you won't have it.
I think it's obvious to anyone who has watched Pink, Britney Spears, Madonna, etc., that they might need partial playback during certain points when they are acting more like athletes or dancers. But honestly, they could just include an extended instrumental section in the song instead. Why should Madonna have to do it the whole time if ten or twelve backup dancers are jumping around?

I also find it silly when synth-heavy Bands have a live Drummer while everyone else relies on drum machines. I feel like that sometimes goes against the genre and the spirit of the music. Either play it live, or if there isn't a drummer in the group, don't bother having one live.

Since I didn't want to start a whole new thread, I wanted to ask your opinion on this:
The current tour by Morten Harket.
The posters say "The Voice of A-ha," and tickets in Germany are a whopping 70 Euros, yet he doesn't sing a single song by A-ha! What are your thoughts on that?

Ultimately, it falls on the promoter to ensure everyone actually knows who they're paying to see—though I'm honestly not sure how much mainstream recognition this guy has as a solo artist—and to pull in as large a crowd as possible. Still, it feels a bit cheap to me, almost like a gimmick. I’d bet my life that at least a third of the people showing up to his show will be sitting there hoping for at least one A-ha track, thinking, "maybe he'll surprise us with it at the end."

It seems a segment of any audience expects the hits from the glory days, even if it's just half a single. It was the same thing with Roger Waters; at least a third of the crowd, those less familiar with his specific setlists, were clearly waiting for some (other) Pink Floyd songs. There was a similar vibe when Michael Jackson performed during the Symphony tour, where a huge chunk of the crowd—especially here in the States—was expecting the greatest hits in a new arrangement. When they didn't get it, well, the complaining started. The setlists had been published for ages and were available to anyone with two clicks. It's quite similar to when Robert Plant played in Miami near Times Square about six or seven years ago with his backing band, The Strange Sensation. People were practically vibrating with anticipation for the Led Zeppelin repertoire. And frankly, that's exactly why most of them showed up.

So, this is really just about drawing a crowd. I don't think the guy is exactly Robert Plant, so it's not like everyone recognizes him instantly. To be honest, I've never been able to commit his name to memory, even after reading it countless times. Even if you hadn't mentioned A-ha, you would have had to Google him. 😁 In his case, adding that detail to the posters is probably almost necessary. Or maybe just a decent photo so people can look at it and go, "ohhh, that's the guy from A-ha" (😬).

P.S. Should we start a new thread? It would be easy to spin this off into its own discussion if you're up for it...

Rebecca Flores33 said:Not even then—because if it’s already planned that way, they’re just running a playback track. If you don't plan for it, you won't have it.

That holds true for most cases. As for the other side of things, it’s pretty obvious there are certain moments that are absolutely critical for organizers; they don't want to leave anything to chance, so there's always that backup ready, heaven forbid something goes sideways. In most instances, that backup is never actually needed, though I suppose there have been moments in music history where everything was set for a live performance, only for things to shift at the very last second—for one reason or another—and they ended up relying on playback. I'm not talking about full-blown concerts here, but more like a minor appearance or maybe just a couple of songs.

But honestly, you just don't see concerts relying on playback anymore...
Playback was such a massive trend back in the nineties...
There isn't a single major global music festival where playing to a track is considered acceptable...
It feels like it’s mostly stuck in certain corners here, specifically at the CMT Music Awards or those localized country festivals over in the North America...

In my view, playback is only an option because listeners expect to hear the exact polished version they recognize from the radio. Most people spend 99% of their time listening to studio recordings rather than live performances. And that brings us right back to the original question: why aren't these artists actually playing live, if the backing tracks are already pre-recorded?