Paul McCartney Super Bowl haftime lipsynch?

I thought it was closer to 83%. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

i just had a read of this ! what a joke !
http://www.detnews.com/2005/screens/0502/07/C07-81974.htm

 

This appears in the AP story:

"There wasn't any danger of a lip-synch controversy, either: you could tell it was the lived-in voice of a 62-year-old singing."

This quote is actually pretty humorous when you think about. Did they think Paul McCartney might be lip-synched with someone else's voice?

 

I really liked the show and I wished he could have gone on longer.

Hey Jude wouldn't have been one of my choices either.

I thought his voice sounded too good.

 

Hi,

Clearly, the AP writer hasn't spent any time at our Forum ...... "There wasn’t any danger of a lip-synch controversy, either: you could tell it was the lived-in voice of a 62-year-old singing."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6924979/

Take care,
Jeffrey

 

A 20-foot TV - damn, how big's your kitchen?

 

It looked live to me as well.

 

I watched the half-time show with the presumption that every musical performance at every Superbowl - including every pre-show, every half-time show and even every rendition of the national anthem - is pre-recorded and that the artists are lip-synching. (If there is a complaint to be made about lip-synching, it really should be in regards to the national anthem.) My understanding is that the 'official', traditional excuse for the half-time shows' pre-recordings is that it is a necessity as no-one could put on a satisfactory performance under those conditions. (I take that with a grain of salt.) However, I was convinced that Paul was singing live (not certain about the instrumental accompaniment) until a close-up while he was at the piano during a quieter moment in 'Hey Jude'. In the end, I'm not really sure about the lip-synching, and enjoyed the performance for what it was.

It should be noted that: (i) this wasn't a 'real' concert; and (ii) since the early 1960s, McCartney has had no problem, while appearing on television, to either lip-synch to a totally pre-recorded track or to sing and play live along-side a pre-recorded backing track. (The 'All You Need Is Love' broadcast is a good example.)

The one objection I do have about the performance was a lingering close-up of a group of (obviously coached and seemingly) terribly excitied teen and pre-teen girls right at the foot of the stage swooning over a man who is old enough to be their grandfather. I found that to be a little creepy. Maybe they were just excited about being on national tv.

 

O.K. I caught that and that bothered me too. I think the drummer was live, especially during one shot where there was a cymbal "wash" sound and he whacked those cymbals exactly when it sounded like he did. I do believe he had a "guide vocal" ghosting in, the phantom count in almost proves this. He did dash pretty quick to the stool. You know he would not let what happened to him at Live Aid with the whole world watching happen again, and I don't blame him. So if he was guided by an extremely mixed low vocal of HIMSELF, but really not lip-synching, what is wrong with that? I think it was there to A. keep him on task and withing the time limit and B. something to fall back on in case worst case scenario happened like a dead mic (Live Aid, Hollywood Bowl) or any other technical problem. A Macca website produced a list of the exact four songs that he DID play by an Abby Road employee (who wisely remains anonymous) who said he came in a recorded a vocal for those four songs weeks ago. AND THAT"S O.K.

 

I agree with BeatleMatt...I think its entirely feasible that he pre-recorded vocal parts in case of mic gremlins. If these vocal parts were mixed low...or were used as a guide track in his monitors...who cares!!! Obviously, his lead vocal and playing was live...there was some strained vocals and one could see and hear him laugh slightly on Drive My Car. By the way, the countoffs may have come from Paul Wix's synthesizer....the orchestral parts for Live and Let Die are programmed and synched directly into it, perhaps the 1,2, 3 is there as well. Abe was most definitely playing live and both guitarists were playing the proper chords and notes when they were shown...Is this all backwash because McCartney proved he still has the chops at 62 1/2??? I sure hope not. Ron
PS On my HD feed the sound and video was occasionally off-track. Not during the performance, but it wouldn;t surprise me if this happened in some regions.

 

I watched and listened very closely to the tape yesterday. I would be willing to bet the farm that it was a completely live performance...no lip synching. There were just too many tell-tale signs of a truly live performance--and a great performance at that.

 

I thought things looked a little funny, but I noticed the following things:

- the drummer was not miming, he was perfectly in sync with the audio - that's the easiest way to tell
- Paul's little asides were certainly not mimed and the vocal did not change at all in sound, as someone mentioned before

 

I sure enjoyed it. It looked live to me. I'd like to hear Steve's thoughts on this matter? Is he on vacation here.....or just keeping his opinion and or inside knowledge a secret?

Come on Steve. What do ya know?

 

Someone mentioned to me they couldn't watch the game in hi-def, the audio was always lagging. So they switched to the regular channel. Maybe the HD channel was having a sync problem.

 

Don't know if he was lipping or not. If he was I'm sure it was because he was forced to.
I am surprised nobody has mentioned his clothing. It was a subtle play on Janet. Black and red with a star on the chest...funny stuff

 

never mind.

 

Ah, but one would expect if that was the case, the delay would be constant throughout the performance. At times, his mouth movements were dead on, and at other times they weren't.

There's no doubt the drumming was live. As JWB said, it's very easy to tell if drum hits are out of sync. (Which is probably why they were live!)

Upon further review, I revise my estimate to 81.5%

I don't blame Paul for doing it at all. A bang-bang television performance is a far different animal than a proper concert.

 

I'll abstain from the live/sync debate. I'm theorizing that the count in/Paul rushes to piano were part of keeping the dang thing on schedule. 12 minutes is 12 minutes. Anybody remember the 1987 (?) live spec where he ran out of time and got cut off before the Hey Jude singalong? He wasn't going to risk running off schedule again so someone was watching the clock.

 

What about the tell-tale sign of his lips moving independently of his vocals?

Guys, just because he's Paul McCartney doesn't mean he's exempt from the production requirements that occur in all live shows of this type. A prerecord almost always plays along with the live stuff, but due to sound issues the mixer sometimes has to favor one or the other.

None of this makes Macca a bad guy. Not like those skanky teenage girls who can't sing...

 

Hi,

Audio delays in a stadium setting do not prove lip synching.

The question that i've asked twice now and i don't believe anyone has answered..... why would a talented group of musicians need to pre-record such relatively simple songs? There are thousands of musicians who could play those rather simple tunes live w/ minimal errors. McCartney has played a very large number of stadium shows and his sound engineers are more than capable of handling the unique issues of such an engagement.... especially w/ a $3,300,000 paycheck.

Take care,
Jeffrey

 

Well, I imagine that if Paul and band mimed to backing tracks, it would be at the request of the halftime producers and the TV network, to lessen the chance of any mistakes or technical problems during the broadcast. Having a pre-mixed track already in place would be less work for them than doing a live mix on the fly.

The whole thing is kind of moot, though. Unlike most of today's performers who justifiably get criticized for lip syncing for lack of singing ability, we've got over forty years worth of concert singing work to prove that McCartney has the vocal chops to do the job live. A McCartney lip sync (again, if indeed that's what it was) shouldn't really be an issue here. We know he can sing.

 

To RDK...
What tell-tale signs are you referring to? I Tivo'd the HD feed and just watched a DVD- recorded version from the local standard feed. In the HD feed there appears to be some synch issues...subtle, but I spotted a few glitches during Get Back and a small portion of Live and Let Die, near the beginning. These problems are NOT on the standard feed. I believe that any major "live" production would entail having a pre-recorded vocal track "just in case" , but I don't see any sign of lip-synching here...check out the little laugh on Drive My Car and some of the yelps during Hey Jude... I think all this fuss is rather silly actually. He and his band sounded great...let's hope the tour this fall is just as good.

 

I'll answer your question. The reason they would use prerecorded stuff is due to time restraints. Plugging everything in, making sure everything was on. Ooops the guitar isn't working, no problem turn the guitar up in the recorded mix.

 

I assume that what we heard was a mixture of live playing and the safety prerecorded version, depending on what was needed.

 

Exactly!