If he mimes the vocals where does he get the tapes?

[Idisaffect]

one thing that does prove..

Dude, are you denying he's sometimes lip syncing? Why? Would you deny that a dog sings Seamus?

[J Ed]

no, I dont care that he's lipsynching
what I find revelatory about those clips is the quality of them relative to the muchbooted 1980 film

[Idisaffect]

Yeah but I'd rather have a rough quality video of the 80-81 Wall show than a pristine video of this new Wall show. The original show was a milestone. This new show is just typical, big budget, 21st century showbiz smoke, lights and mirrors.

[Flying pig437]

He is not miming the whole show, just little bits here and there I believe. That doesn't matter anyway. The whole show as one experience is what matters. How it comes about it very secondary, in my view.

would he even want to do it if he was miming the whole show? Surely he's not just in it for the money. It most be pretty unsatisfying miming all the way through.

[Flying pig437]

I always get the vibe off the lip-synch conspiracy types that they hate Waters anyway. You never really hear it in the context of "the gig was good but its a shame he lip synched" its always "rage rage rage Waters sucks AND he uses backing tapes". Its always like people want a reason to justify their anti-Waters feelings.

Does anyone even take any notice apart from fans? It's hardly headline news. And why wud anyone go to the gig if they were anti-waters?

[Hudini]

And why wud anyone go to the gig if they were anti-waters?

Well, Pink Floyd fans are probably the strangest bunch of music followers there is.

You have people who simply love everything they did alike, even though there are songs that are objectively awful.
You have people who simply love a part of their opus but hate (or are indifferent to) another.
You have people who love what one band member has done, both in band and solo, but hate (or are indifferent to) what another member did.
You have people who only listen to certain albums, and don't really care about others, or band members in general.
I have never heard of anyone preferring solo works by any Pink Floyd member to what band has done (while they were all recording together), but I guess there might be those people too.
Then again, you have people who fall into more than one category of those above.

So, it would be perfectly possible for a Pink Floyd fan to hate Waters and still go to the show, to feel the warm thrill of confusion, or simply because they like Pink Floyd's original album.
It is also possible that someone who hates Waters still goes to the show thinking it's their only chance of seeing something close to the original shows.
But the most probable scenario would be the one where a person who likes "The Wall" (or just a handful of songs from it) goes to the show, knowing not so much about Roger Waters, and finds himself enraged by an unexpectedness of an old geezer miming the vocals on stage...

We're all still Pink Floyd fans, no matter the difference in our preferences, and the fact that someone's been hating Roger Waters as a musician (or even a personality) doesn't necessarily mean that they also hate "The Wall".

[mosespa]

Is this what it feels like to read something I've written?

[ddebil]

No, I still have a small (but significant) vestige of joy in my heart.

[Freddie Mercury]

Dunno about you, but I can clearly hear Gilmour's voice while he's stepping away from the microphone and sitting down by the steel guitar, as is depicted here at about 0:14:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mdkI3CaL0o

Sorry for this not being a full song, obviously EMI has blocked all the content they have copyright to for playback in Serbia. Bastards.

FYI I remember the :14 mark sounds completely different on the Pay-Per-View version, I don't have it in front of me now, but I'm thinking that line wasn't even sung on it. So I think it was later dubbed in for home video, instead of being inserted live at the actual concert.

[Meandthem]

When watching the show in Copenhagen, I didn't care whether he lip-sync't or not. It is enough for me to know that he's doing what he once did and was satisfied with. He knows his forces - and though he has improved his singing abilities, he knows that his biggest attribution to PF are the lyrics. This is not Caruso trying to earn an extra buck by faking his way through the high "C" (dunno if Caruso ever did, but you get the drift!)
Roger is just delivering the show, being able to sing 95% of the songs live, leaving the 5% of what would tear his vocal chords to pieces, as lipsync, thus being able to sing the 95% again on the next show.

one thing that does prove...
all this celphone footage circulating on YouTube is of vastly better quality than the proshot film from 1980 we keep clamouring for official release of
this tour is definitely the reason that unreleased film is not part of the Immersion boxset

The part you see on the wall on the left of Roger, when his narcissisticly sings duo with "this poor miserable fucked'up young Roger" is cleansed up, so why shouldn't they be able to make a digitalized clean dvd of the rest of the Wall?

[Idisaffect]

"poor miserable fucked'up young Roger"

When Waters refers to his young self that way, I can't help but say - "You mean the guy who wrote all the good songs"? If it wasn't for him what would the rich, happy, non fucked up Roger be doing today?

FYI: 95% is not accurate.

[Meandthem]

FYI: 95% is not accurate.

What about the 5% then?


No, I wouldn't know, would I - it was just an estimate!

[pastchristmas]

Let's look at this from a slightly different angle.

Dick Clark, with his American Bandstand show, set out to bring the current, most "happening" music to the general public through televised performances. In that process, it occurred to him that if people were really going out to buy the singles in 45RPM form, they were going to expect to hear the same thing in the record as they did on the show. For this reason (as well as a few others not worth mentioning right here and now) he decided to have the performers mime to the sound of the single they were trying to sell through the show, so when people went to buy the record, they indeed heard exactly the same thing. We can all agree that some live performances do not sound the same as the album version, or even as good.

Pink Floyd themselves, when they appeared on Bandstand, mimed along to Apples And Oranges, when Syd held up his end poorly due to his gradual unraveling. They were a live, improvisational band who often sounded different with each performance but they were willing to play along with the rules to get that exposure and sell that single.

As an extension of that, when people see live performances featuring favorite singers, groups, etc., there is an expectation that the songs on the set list resemble the recorded versions as much as possible. Roger, unfortunately, has not been able to duplicate certain vocal parts due to his deteriorated vocal quality. To make sure that the live performance is not too different, and probably to cater to his own vanity as well, miming pre-recorded parts is often necessary.

So although some people aren't able to retain excellent vocals into their sixties like one Mr. Gilmour, it is admirable for them to at least care about their fans enough to make the performance sound as good as possible.

As far as the tapes go, it could be a combination of studio recordings and live recordings. Either way, it has to be and is well planned, synchronized and executed.

Roger could do a better job of actually miming, though. I remember how obvious it looked when he mimed the high parts of Every Strangers Eyes on the DVD and his lips were hardly moving. He could at least sell it more.

[my breakfast.]

You could scrounge his original vocal takes off the Wall, from the original Wall shows or from the Berlin Wall show.... if you needed Waters singing with better gymnastics.

[pastchristmas]

You could scrounge his original vocal takes off the Wall, from the original Wall shows or from the Berlin Wall show.... if you needed Waters singing with better gymnastics.

If you need even better gymnastics still, you could have Mariah Carey sing the parts and have Roger mime them.