Posted by Roderick Stewart on 12/07/06 13:14

On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 10:19:31 +1100, "Cameron Dorrough"
<cdorrough@nortonconsultants.com> wrote:

>> Depends on what you mean by "justified", which I reckon depends on
>> what standards you are applying. If I went to my local music venue of
>> choice (which happens to be the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall), and
>> realised I wasn't hearing the musicians at all, but a recording they'd
>> done earlier to save them the effort of performing the same thing over
>> and over, I'd feel quite "justified" in demanding a refund. I can hear
>> music through loudspeakers in my own home any time I want.
>
>Rod, don't forget that the audiences at a CA concert and the London
>Philharmonic are there for totally different reasons. Specifically, the
>audiences at modern dance/rock concerts are there for the *show*
>(performance) - not the music - they can listen to that at home (or at full
>volume in their souped-up cars).

Yes, of course not everybody's tastes are the same, but if a show is
to present something that either isn't real, or *cannot* be real, as
in the case of simultaneous dancing and singing beyond the physical
capabilities of any real person, then why should we worry about
"realism" at all?

I've thought the same thing since seeing the very first "Top of the
Pops " shows on television many years ago, where Jimmy Savile would
introduce a band, we'd see a girl at the desk beside him place a
gramophone pickup on a record, and then we'd see the band miming to a
recording, evidently in reality played from a tape in the sound
control room because the girl was frequently as "out of sync" with her
gramophone as the band were with their performance. We were in effect
presented with two conflicting pretences - 1. that the band were
actually playing the music when they were not, or 2. that the
recording they were miming to was being played from the record player
operated by the girl at the desk, and not a tape in the control room.
Nobody seems to have been troubled by the fact that these two pieces
of fakery conflicted not only with reality but with each other.

Rod.

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