Roger Lip-Syncing: New Observation

[Tenniru]

WIth the recently-surfaced Colombia pro-shot/soundboard bootleg out, we have another closeup look at Roger's dubious vocals from the soundboard. Here there's even less attempts to hide any effects than the Rio broadcast, since this is only a reference mix for the camera directors.

The two prime culprits, Have A Cigar and Fletcher, produce an effect much stranger than anything I've heard before.

Have A Cigar has two distinct Rog vocals... I think. They both sound identical; no "whispering" like Rio. This could mean the stray vocal actually IS a reference mix for Rog, like the click track; he's THAT afraid of losing time.
It could also be a flanging effect, but that makes no sense at all.

Fletcher has the same effect; this time I'm more certain it's two diffirent vocals, not flanging. The guide vocal ends during the spoken section (which is odd, because if there's any place where they can lose time, it's there).
During the "screamed" sections, the two vocals continue; and they sound about as good as eachother.

Sheep has the same two-vocals-as-good-as-eachother effects, but this seems to be for a diffirent reason. One of the vocals has the "echo-in" and "vocode" effect, but the second doesn't. I can't say for certainty that he'd be lip-syncing, since if he was he wouldn't sound anywhere near as good as he's trying to be. It's possible that here both vocals were played into the crowd to produce a "phasing" effect (thank the distortion).

I can't speak for Rio, but here it seems like Rog has finished lip-syncing... although he seems to be having serious trouble keeping in time. The click track isn't just a metronome, but at points where there's a dynamics change/change in the music, it counts down the measure before.

[Freddie Mercury]

Roger could lip-sync the whole show and I'd still go to it again

[Craig Marion]

Roger could lip-sync the whole show and I'd still go to it again

I agree .... this topic is old who friggen cares if he lip synchs.

[Cowards]

It's all Eugene's fault. If only he'd had been careful with his axe, Roger wouldn't have had to scream at him. Silly beggar.

[corie]

It's all Eugene's fault. If only he'd had been careful with his axe, Roger wouldn't have had to scream at him. Silly beggar.

HA !

[Hudini]

I said it at least a dozen times and I will say it again:
When I saw Roger in Budapest this April he wasn't lip-syncing! I could tell that because he sang The Fletcher Memorial Home better than he did on the album but he was losing his breath on Sheep and that was so obvious. When he was supposed to sing that "Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay" he couldn't even make it to the point where the keyboards drown his voice. If he was lip-syncing he would have done it there for sure. As for Have A Cigar, if he's incapable of singing, he wouldn't be able to pre-record the vocals, would he? And he didn't use Roy Harper's voice to back him up for certain.

[nosaj]

He WAS lip-synching The Fletcher Memorial Home, Have a Cigar and possibly Sheep in Toronto in Sept.

[Tenniru]

Roger could lip-sync the whole show and I'd still go to it again

I agree .... this topic is old who friggen cares if he lip synchs.

I do. If I wanted to spend money on what is already mostly a cover band, I'd go see one that's both cheaper and actually live (like The Machine).


By the way, I don't think Roger ever lip-synced Sheep. If he was, the Rio soundboard would have revealed it; it didn't, which tells me it's just Rog closing his mouth while Jon Carin rocks the sustain/vocoder.

[Sonic Destruction]

Roger could lip-sync the whole show and I'd still go to it again

Absolutely 100% agree with this!

[PublicImage]

I do. If I wanted to spend money on what is already mostly a cover band, I'd go see one that's both cheaper and actually live (like The Machine).


By the way, I don't think Roger ever lip-synced Sheep. If he was, the Rio soundboard would have revealed it; it didn't, which tells me it's just Rog closing his mouth while Jon Carin rocks the sustain/vocoder.

Don't see him, them. If you're so interested in hearing live music and you know that he is miming, why are you downloading new recordings of his shows?

[Freddie Mercury]

Having a backing guide track that occasionally comes up if needed is different than totally lip-syncing the whole thing anyway IMHO. If there are a few lines occasionally that aren't sung live I can't say I'd really care. And at a rock concert it's so loud you can't hear those things anyway, it's not exactly the best environment for a purist listening experience in the first place IMHO.

[Tenniru]

I do. If I wanted to spend money on what is already mostly a cover band, I'd go see one that's both cheaper and actually live (like The Machine).


By the way, I don't think Roger ever lip-synced Sheep. If he was, the Rio soundboard would have revealed it; it didn't, which tells me it's just Rog closing his mouth while Jon Carin rocks the sustain/vocoder.

Don't see him, them. If you're so interested in hearing live music and you know that he is miming, why are you downloading new recordings of his shows?

Because they're free and I wanted to re-examine a raw soundboard mix to see if he was actually lip-syncing again (which he wasn't, to my glee; or if he was, he he has no reason to be as his "real" vocal is perfect).
The reason I even bothered posting this was to provide proof that he's STOPPED miming. This makes a Rog concert that much more appealing. If I knew it would be like Rio and he came back to Bristow, I wouldn't go; but if he did now, I might. But only the lawn. If it's a weekend.

Also, on further listening, it only seems a handful of the click tracks actually indicate a serious timekeeping problem on the musicians' part (Southampton Docks, Sheep); some actually help people like Jon Carin establish a near-impossible segue from Money to Us And Them in time to stay with the video (the robotic spoken instructions seem to be voice of Rog himself; it probably works better than other voices when it comes to scaring people into getting it right).
Sometimes I wish Rog would eschew the video for a manually-controlled lighting rig like the one Phish used to both illuminate a stadium and improvize a jam. Then again, we'd then have Rog becoming entirely useless as his backing musicians take the spotlight; not something I'd mind, as I love his backup band. Jon Carin is pretty much the sixth member of Pink Floyd, and seeing him at Bristow was almost as special as Rog himself.

[Hudini]

Jon Carin is pretty much the sixth member of Pink Floyd

Actually I count him as a seventh member after Tim Renwick. To me, Snowy White was also a Pink Floyd member for some time.

[Tenniru]

I think Carin's number increases due to the fact that he actually co-wrote a number of Floyd songs; if you hear the demo of Learning To Fly (from the legendary '92 Nick Horne BBC interview) recorded by Carin while Gilmour was out of the studio for an hour, Carin's importance to the post-Rog Floyd is revealed.

[AtomHeartMomma]

When I saw Roger last year, 9/2006, he was NOT lip-synching.....fact is, he flubbed two lines of a song, and had to re-sing (is re-sing a word?) the lines again. So NO, Roger did not lip-sync. The band was so together that they played without missing a beat.