PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic What constitutes live performance?

That's a tough one.

Leilani and I perform live over my backing tracks. We both sing, play guitar and synth and I also play sax and flute 'live' over the tracks (choice of instrument depends on the song). None of the solos are in the backing track and we always play/sing live. So it isn't karaoke - although it is definitely related to it.

We certainly are alive, but some of our music is pre-recorded.

I've gone to the ballet where the dancers performed to pre-recorded music. As a musician I'd love to hear a real orchestra accompany them, but the ballet has a difficult time surviving and are always short of money. To pay an orchestra would 'break the bank'. So in the same respect of this question - Is the ballet live?

When we performed on the cruise ships in the late 1980s, the orchestra performed to a click track while the dancers and production singer did the main show on stage. All the vocals except the lead were on the click track along with duplicates of what the live orchestra played in 'the pit'. How live is that?

Back in the 1970s I went to a multi-band rock concert to see Dr. John (unfortunately he didn't show up). In the Alice Cooper segment, they did a faux-hanging of Alice (Vince) and during the parade to the gallows, the backing tape obviously broke, because midway through, the only sound was the parade drum coming over the PA set. They continued to hang him without the feedback guitars.

I know many major concert stars no longer play/sing live but lip-sync to a special concert recording of their tunes. Why? Couple of reasons (1) there is too much money at stake to risk if the singer loses his/her voice to the flu and (2) with all the gymnastics that singers are expected to do these days, it's very difficult to sing on pitch while doing cartwheels.

I really don't know how to answer the question. Semi-live? Computer assisted? Perhaps a new term needs to be coined.

More importantly, does the audience care? Does the audience make a distinction? Or do they just care about how well they are being entertained.

We've been playing with backing tracks since the mid 80s and it has been our primary source of income for all those years. We were in a 5 piece band before that, and when we were out of work for 2 months due to personnel problems, we went duo/tracks (since my first instrument is sax). The audiences we play for like it, and almost all of our work is either repeat business or referral.

We have played cruise ships, 5 star hotels, and have appeared on MTV, ABC, CBS, NBC and The BBC using backing tracks. Probably couldn't have done that "frang-a frang-a-ing" on the guitar while we sang over that.

So obviously it works.

But is it live?

Interesting question.