Singing the blues as if Satan were strangling his soul with a live cobra, Gregg Allman whipped up on "Whipping Post" as his Hammond B-3 organ howled along with him. At song's end, the Daytona Beach native grinned at the throng of fans who had come out to see his first concert in these parts in seven years. Allman then ...
Oops. Excuse me. I was just...er, pre-writing my review of Gregg Allman's Feb. 28 Bike Week concert at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach.
Yes, I know -- it's traditional to do such things live, to actually see and hear a concert and then conceive and write a review in the heat of the moment. But I decided to "write-sync" my review because, well, what if my laptop explodes the night of Allman's concert and I have to scramble to get the damn thing to work and the time to craft my golden prose is squeezed?
You, dear reader, could be deprived of my best and wittiest work!
You see, "there's too many variables to go live."
Oops. Excuse me. I was just...er, pre-writing my review of Gregg Allman's Feb. 28 Bike Week concert at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach.
Yes, I know -- it's traditional to do such things live, to actually see and hear a concert and then conceive and write a review in the heat of the moment. But I decided to "write-sync" my review because, well, what if my laptop explodes the night of Allman's concert and I have to scramble to get the damn thing to work and the time to craft my golden prose is squeezed?
You, dear reader, could be deprived of my best and wittiest work!
You see, "there's too many variables to go live."
That's the lame excuse Rickey Minor, producer of the Super Bowl
halftime show, wheeled out to explain why he had Jennifer Hudson
pre-tape her rendition of the national anthem and lip-sync to it during
the event. Ditto for Faith Hill as she "sang" "America the Beautiful"
at the game.
"I would never recommend any artist go live, because the slightest glitch would devastate the performance," Minor confessed to the Associated Press. And this just a few weeks after Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma lip-synced ... er, finger-synced their performance at President Obama's inauguration.
Sheesh.
Though Minor insisted he instigated Hudson and Hill's lip-syncing, let's get real about what's really at play here: Artists' egos, plus an ever-growing belief in American society that style should triumph over substance -- that a beautiful simulation is more desirable than flawed reality.
To twist the wisdom of Billy Crystal's Fernando character on "Saturday Night Live": It is better to look good than to be good.
Some people aren't bothered by Hill and Hudson's fakeroo -- it was a ceremonial occasion, they say, and not an actual concert.
In an article by Associated Press writer Jocelyn Noveck, event show producer Don Mischer said many artists "absolutely want to go with prerecorded tracks because they worked hard to create a sound, and they want their fans to hear the music the way they intended it."
Really? According to Mischer's logic, music artists should not be performing at concerts at all -- they should be staging mass record listening parties, lest we fans be subjected to something less than the artist's golden intent.
Don't give a pass to Jennifer Hudson, Faith Hill, Yo-Yo Ma or Whitney Houston (who, it has been reported widely now, pre-recorded her 1991 Super Bowl national anthem performance).
Rather than dare to perform live, these artists (and who knows how many others?) wimped out. Rather than risk chipping the golden veneer of their vaunted reputations, they chose to participate in a deception.
That, some say, is just show biz! I say it's just a pathetic human version of those mechanical country singing bears at Disney World.
Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com
"I would never recommend any artist go live, because the slightest glitch would devastate the performance," Minor confessed to the Associated Press. And this just a few weeks after Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma lip-synced ... er, finger-synced their performance at President Obama's inauguration.
Sheesh.
Though Minor insisted he instigated Hudson and Hill's lip-syncing, let's get real about what's really at play here: Artists' egos, plus an ever-growing belief in American society that style should triumph over substance -- that a beautiful simulation is more desirable than flawed reality.
To twist the wisdom of Billy Crystal's Fernando character on "Saturday Night Live": It is better to look good than to be good.
Some people aren't bothered by Hill and Hudson's fakeroo -- it was a ceremonial occasion, they say, and not an actual concert.
In an article by Associated Press writer Jocelyn Noveck, event show producer Don Mischer said many artists "absolutely want to go with prerecorded tracks because they worked hard to create a sound, and they want their fans to hear the music the way they intended it."
Really? According to Mischer's logic, music artists should not be performing at concerts at all -- they should be staging mass record listening parties, lest we fans be subjected to something less than the artist's golden intent.
Don't give a pass to Jennifer Hudson, Faith Hill, Yo-Yo Ma or Whitney Houston (who, it has been reported widely now, pre-recorded her 1991 Super Bowl national anthem performance).
Rather than dare to perform live, these artists (and who knows how many others?) wimped out. Rather than risk chipping the golden veneer of their vaunted reputations, they chose to participate in a deception.
That, some say, is just show biz! I say it's just a pathetic human version of those mechanical country singing bears at Disney World.
Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com
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