Miming at big events?

[Drumstruck]

You can probably guess what's coming..... anyone watch the RL Grand Final and Slash's "performance"?

....I heard a band but couldn't see one..... there was a drum kit hidden behind the marshall stacks but no drummer.... a number of guitars and basses on stands with no hands on them.... then the big lead break..... was it mimed?

Apart from asking what relevance overseas performers have to an Australian event, what demograph were they pitching it at? Surely the headbanging older youth aren't target RL watchers?

I'd rather see an Oz band there and one with more relevance to the target audience.

Now I feel better. At least the bunnies won - now there's a fairy tale ending

[Wiz]

pointless....

just....


pointless.....

on so many levels.

not your post.. I agree with you

[Chris H]

Tom Jones was pretty good at the AFL grand final this year. I think they learn their lesson last year not to serve up junk!

[ChrisW]

What is the 'target audience'.
I assume RL appeals to all age groups, and most Aussie sports are desperate to grab the female and family markets.

[Drumstruck]

What is the 'target audience'.
I assume RL appeals to all age groups, and most Aussie sports are desperate to grab the female and family markets.

I'd assume much the same Chris. At high level I suppose the target audience is predominantly Australia / N.Z. and focussed more on N.S.W / Qld / Vic in both city and country areas. Casting no aspersions on Mr Slash, I'd question whether his music is what that general audience would listen too.... if they asked me I'd suggest something more country rock in flavour.

But the other half of my query - was it mimed or played to backing tapes? I don't know

[ChrisW]

OK. I was just interested because I'm not into Rugby and wondered what the target audience was.
I saw Slash briefly and it looked like live guitar played to a backing tape. he could have been miming, but he looked like he was playing to me (unscientific opinion).
The Tom Jones AFL performance seemed all live. My old mate Robbie McIntosh sounding great on guitar!
The unusual thing to me was having all the entertainment before the games, when famously the NFL have their halftime show.

[gigpiglet]

lets just say it was a mime.

for those of us who have done TV audio, there is always pressure from a lot of angles to make things exact/ repeatable/ no errors/ changes etc etc
and mime is a great way to do that.
especially when the viewer its aimed at is not a music person, or even interested in the music at all - its all about the "name" and about how that looks/ feels to the show. SLASH is all that matters (in lots of ways the interviews while here, more than the actual performance) his playing (or not) in a situation like this is not actually relevant to the people that are calling the shots.

[Mark Bassett]

The first paid audio engineering gig I ever did was running monitors for a girl who was miming. Needless to say there was no feedback.

[ChrisW]

Miming is more common than playing live on TV. In my experience it's never the artist's choice.
Nothing more boring than miming to a record - and then working hard to make it look convincing.
Back in the old Top Of The Pops days, the UK union insisted musicians were paid for recording a song on the show. So you went to a BBC recording studio the day before the filming. Loaded up the stereo backing track, and pretended to record over it. then they played that 'recording' for you to mime to on the filming day.
In the end everyone agreed to drop the bizarre pretence. You got paid a small fee again for being on the original record, and you turned up to shoot the TOTP show (miming). You even got paid to stay at home if you were old and bald, and the artist didn't want you miming on TOTP.

[Drumstruck]

Yes, it was the same here on Countdown etc years ago, but it had trended towards real performances in more recent years - which is why I was surprised to see the old miming monster rear it's head again.....

Perhaps the Billy Idol debacle made them afraid of going live?

[rob]

I mime in the workshop every day ....

[Chris H]

I mime in the workshop every day ....

......that's it! Rob's up for next year's mime artist at the RL Grand Final!

[psycho_monkey]

OK. I was just interested because I'm not into Rugby and wondered what the target audience was.
I saw Slash briefly and it looked like live guitar played to a backing tape. he could have been miming, but he looked like he was playing to me (unscientific opinion).
The Tom Jones AFL performance seemed all live. My old mate Robbie McIntosh sounding great on guitar!
The unusual thing to me was having all the entertainment before the games, when famously the NFL have their halftime show.

I actually prepped the backing track for Slash.

He was playing live - the backing track was an edit of the album track, an instrumental, and a no-lead-guitar mix.

He's a lovely guy for what it's worth. I'm sure he'd rather have done a proper song or two with his actual band, but he was over here for promo, his band weren't....and that's what the NFL guys wanted!

[psycho_monkey]

lets just say it was a mime.

for those of us who have done TV audio, there is always pressure from a lot of angles to make things exact/ repeatable/ no errors/ changes etc etc
and mime is a great way to do that.
especially when the viewer its aimed at is not a music person, or even interested in the music at all - its all about the "name" and about how that looks/ feels to the show. SLASH is all that matters (in lots of ways the interviews while here, more than the actual performance) his playing (or not) in a situation like this is not actually relevant to the people that are calling the shots.

A lot of the time, the popsters playing on Sunrise etc are singing live...and occasionally even playing with the band (if they're a "band" act). Which is pretty challenging as a soundcheck...you basically get 2 3min windows in the ad breaks to set the mix.

I've sat in and "supervised" and I'm impressed.

[Drumstruck]

I actually prepped the backing track for Slash.

He was playing live - the backing track was an edit of the album track, an instrumental, and a no-lead-guitar mix.

He's a lovely guy for what it's worth. I'm sure he'd rather have done a proper song or two with his actual band, but he was over here for promo, his band weren't....and that's what the NFL guys wanted!

Thanks for that insight pm. To reiterate, I was not questioning Slash's ability etc, just the reasoning behind the approach.

[gigpiglet]

sunrise mentioned above is an exception.
(actually - for some reason most "morning shows" are)
nearly everyone plays live on sunrise, it is the channels preference.
they care about the music a bit there!
great crew.
great gear.
limited time and space, but of the (must be nearly 50) times ive done it, with acts as diverse as ricki lee, the whitlams, tallest man on earth, morcheeba, sia, brooke fraser, jools holland, thirsty merc etc etc its been a great gig and ive been happy with the result.