The caller had spent more than $100 on tickets for the recent David Bowie show at the World Music Theatre, and now he was worried.
”I heard Bowie`s playing with only a four-piece band,” he said. ”I paid a lot of money to hear him play the hits, but there`s no way a four-piece band is going to sound just like his records.”
The guy probably would`ve felt a lot more secure about getting his money`s worth had he been going to tonight`s show by New Kids on the Block at Alpine Valley Music Theatre or Friday`s performance by Milli Vanilli at Poplar Creek Music Theatre.
Unlike Bowie`s show, which was essentially sung and played ”live” in the old-fashioned sense of the term, the shows this week by New Kids and Milli promise to be ”live” in the narrowest sense. Sure, the New Kids and Milli will be onstage dancing their legs off, but many of the sounds blasting from the speakers will have been recorded months ago.
As a result, their live and recorded sound will be virtually indistinguishable-right down to the lead vocals, some observers say. And that`s just the way their fans want it, according to promoters.
New Kids and Milli are among the major pop acts, including Janet Jackson, George Michael and Madonna, accused recently of lip-synching at least some of their lead vocals in concert. Such reports have prompted legislation in New Jersey, New York and California that would require promoters to inform ticket buyers in advance whether portions of a concert will be prerecorded.
Though record-company spokesmen for these acts deny the lead vocals are lip-synched, they acknowledge the heavy use of computerized backing tracks.
”Milli`s lead vocals are live, but some background vocals are not,”
says Jonathan Grevatt, a spokesman for Arista Records in New York.
Steve Karas of IRS Records in New York, formerly a publicist for Columbia Records act New Kids on the Block, recalls that the group two years ago would ”run around town lip-synching three or four songs at three clubs a night.”
”It was a quick, easy and mistake-free way to gain mass exposure,” he says. ”No one seemed to mind that they were lip-synching. In fact, it was encouraged. I had them booked on a TV show once that required them to sing live, but they couldn`t hit the notes like they did on record.”
Pop critic Jon Pareles of the New York Times says the New Kids still rely on canned vocals: ”To achieve some of those perfect harmonies without some sort of gimmickry, they`d have to be superhuman.”
Superhuman performances are just what people expect when they pay as much as $35 a ticket, according to concert promoters and record-company spokesman. Like the caller who inquired about how Bowie`s live show would compare to his recorded performances, many younger fans these days are paying to see a note-perfect re-enactment of the videos they see on MTV rather than a spontaneous performance subject to all manner of human failings-a raspy voice, a forgotten lyric, a butchered high note.
It`s no wonder that recent shows by Janet Jackson and Madonna at the Rosemont Horizon looked and sounded more like expertly choreographed videos than rock concerts.
In reviewing the recent Madonna concert at Madison Square Garden, Pareles said about half the show consisted of lip-synched vocals and canned music.
”On the slower songs such as `Like a Virgin` and `Live to Tell` her throat was tensing up and it was clear she was singing,” he says. ”But on the uptempo songs, the husky quality in her voice wasn`t there. She sounded more girlish, like she does on record. The tone was clearly different, like there were two different singers on stage. I kept writing in my notebook,
`Fake, fake, fake.` ”
Madonna`s publicist, Liz Rosenberg, has denied the charges, noting that Madonna had to cancel several recent tour dates, including one in Chicago, because of a sore throat: ”If she was lip-synching, do you think we`d be canceling shows?”
I`ve seen Madonna and Jackson in concert twice each in recent months and couldn`t be absolutely sure they were lip-synching, though they were undeniably using preprogrammed music and backing vocals. During Jackson`s opening night show in Miami on March 1, I clearly heard and saw her gasping for breath while trying to sing during a particularly rigorous dance sequence. Record-industry sources say artists such as Jackson and Madonna use a live microphone, but also pipe preprogrammed lead vocals through the sound system as a backup because their shows are so demanding physically, requiring them to dance virtually nonstop for at least 90 minutes a night. This gives them the option of blending their voice with the canned music or lip-synching if they need a breather.
”I couldn`t tell if Janet Jackson and Madonna were lip-synching, but even if they were, it`s not because they were trying to defraud anyone,” says Jerry Mickelson, co-owner of Jam Productions, which promoted both artists`
recent shows at the Rosemont Horizon. ”It was to make the show better, to make it sound like the record.”
But some legislators believe that`s deceptive.
New Jersey Assemblyman Joseph Mecca, cosponsor of legislation that would fine promoters $50,000 if they fail to inform ticket buyers in advance of prerecorded lead vocals, says the bill resulted after ”talking to teens who felt ripped off going to concerts expecting live performances, only to find the music was canned.”
”Consumers have a right to know.”
But Mecca`s bill, as well as similar legislation in New York and California, is a long way from becoming law, and it remains to be seen whether most concertgoers share his concern.
One doubter is Barry Lyons, a 17-year industry veteran who is vice president of promotion for IRS Records in Los Angeles.
”Then why not post a sign at all movie theaters saying Tom Cruise isn`t playing himself in all the scenes in `Days of Thunder` but has a stunt double?” he asks. ”So what if the New Kids lip-synch? People pay to enjoy an entertainment experience.”
Lyons and other industry representatives say canned ”live” performances have been an integral part of pop music for three decades.
”Tapes have been an accepted part of the business since the first pop act lip-synched on the old Milton Berle show, since Chuck Berry lip-synched on `American Bandstand,` ” Lyons says. ”Those cavalcade of stars tours with Gene Pitney, Bobby Darin, Peter and Gordon-they were all canned.”
Lyons even volunteers the information that one of his most successful acts, the Fine Young Cannibals, extensively uses preprogrammed music in their live performances.
Such acts are still in the minority, Lyons says, but perhaps not for long.
Those who got their rock `n` roll baptism in a dimly lit bar on Saturday night while a garage band blasted out ”Surfin` Bird” have different expectations of what a live performance should be than those raised on a steady diet of Bon Jovi videos.
It`s the MTV crowd that buys most concert tickets and albums these days. Tonight`s show will mark the fourth consecutive sell-out performance by the New Kids in the Chicago area in the last four days. A few weeks ago, Madonna sold out three shows and Jackson two at the Rosemont Horizon.
”If anyone felt cheated, I`m not aware of it,” Jam`s Mickelson says.
But the odds are he would have heard complaints had Jackson or Madonna not lived up to the standards of their MTV videos. Being spontaneous and vulnerable on stage, risking intense emotion or abject failure, is no longer the ideal. Today`s Video Age fans demand something a bit more high-tech:
perfection.
