although mike has done some great performances throughout the years, think the bad and dangerous tours, the motown 25 'billie jean' performance, the grammy's '88 performance, the american music awards '93 performance; all these performances were at least partly lipsynched. why? he's trying to give the people something bigger and better everytime. the showelement in his performances have grown in importance throughout the years, but the live music element has become of lesser importance.
how can a skilled performer like mike even consider lipsynching onstage? well okay, on award shows you try to give the audience everything you've got in those five minutes of stagetime. maybe in those five minutes show is more important to him than music. but lipsynching on your own tour!? come on.
on the american and european leg of the bad tour there was little lipsynching going on. only 15% to 20%. still, pretty ridiculous if you think about it. on the dangerous tour though, mike already lipsynched nearly half of the show. but the ultimate low is ofcourse the history tour; probably 90% lipsynched. even the back-up singers were lipsynching from time to time. and besides that his 'live band' only played a couple of songs completely live. the rest came straight from tape, even jennifer batten's solo on 'scream'.
my question to y'all; has this bothered you as much as it's been bothering me? i went to my first mj concert in 1996. i went to the opener of the history tour in prague. cost me a lot of money. i had to come over from holland. you can understand my disappointment after seeing him lipsynching almost the entire show..

Lipsynching during a concert is a lack of respect for the fans IMHO.
If you can't sing & dance at the same time, just do one thing, but don't pretend you can do both, and take fans for fools.
It's funny cuz i just saw ONE "artist" using lipsynching in a show...it was the little sister, Janet on her Velvet tour
I would have been closer to the stage, i would have throw something in her face so people can see she was faking.
I was sooo pissed off & still wonder why i bought a ticket to see such an "artist" ...

know how you felt. like i said, i witnessed the same thing in prague. i felt like telling everybody that he was faking it, but i just couldn't. me and my friend just kept silent after the show on the way back to holland. we had a few laughs about the fans on the bus who did think mike performed completely live. i saw janet in concert too. only it was the tour supporting the 'janet' album. i did not get the impression she was lipsynching back then, but on the other hand i can't really say i knew most of the songs..

I Ain't cool with alot of LipSynching especially on stage but then again you can put alot of Major Pop Artists Name in the Blank when it comes too Lip-Synching.another way too Bash MJ isn't good really.Name Me a Pop Artist who hasn't Lip-Synched things&I'll show you some Gold Outside.Cheap Shot MJ Threads are Wack.One thing about MJ is that He understands the Concept of ShowBiz.He knows what will work&won't.Most Acts that do a Network TV Show Lip-Synch that is nothing new.watch the old Ed Sulliven Shows&get back at me.stop the MJ Hatin"

Well, I've never liked MJ miming. I don't like it when ANYONE mimes, although over the first 20 years of his career he more than makes up for it. I don't know why Motown 25 or the first half of Grammys 88 were mimed, but he started doing it a lot more on tour in his mid 30s. I believe a lot of it was due to health problems as he regularly used to get dehydrated and he had some sort of problem with his lungs in the early 80s. I can't remember the name of it, but I could find out. DUring the Dabgerous and HIStory tours, depending on the show, different songs were mimed.

It's such a shame and there shouldn't be an excuse. MJ always says he's a perfectionist, and I think he thinks the visual aspects of shows are more important when that just isn't true. The Victory and Bad tours (no tracks were mimed at all on the 1st leg of the Bad tour and near the end it was only the last couple of songs) were nothing visually compared to Dangerous and HIStory, but they kick ass a hell of a lot more... although as intimate as I like it at a concert, I still think the leaving the stadium via jet-pack has never been bettered

I'm seriously hoping this CBS concert special will be different next year. MJ has already said that he's sort of sick of doing Billie Jean in the same way all the time, but it's the audience who wants it. I disagreed with him when I read that interview 2 years ago, but looking at the MSG concert last year, it's obvious that was the highlight for the crowd. He does mix it up performance wise, but the miming is so obvious it's hard to take. Maybe as that was a celebration of his career, that was a goodbye. Or maybe I've got too much faith.

Ellie said:

he did lipsynch on the american and european leg of the bad tour. 'smooth criminal', 'bad', 'the way you make me feel' and 'man in the mirror' were lipsynched. mike did start some live ad libbing near the end of the three last mentioned songs..

Yes, and Bad, TWYMMF and MITM were always the last songs anyway. Don't know about Smooth Criminal.

Still, a few RealPlayer clips fo the Bad tour among others: http://michaelvideos.com/movie.htm
[This message was edited Sun Nov 24 10:23:28 PST 2002 by Ellie]

Ellie said:

Regarding Smooth Criminal...I saw an MJ concert in Europe during 1993 and the song was performed LIVE.

Yeah, I used to have a few mp3s of Smooth Criminal on the Dangerous tour and it was definitely live.

Ellie said:

well, listen to the broadcasted and many bootlegged bucharest concert from october 1st 1992. do you think that's sung live, because it's not. his vocals are straight from tape except for mike's closing line "you've been hit, you've been struck by a smooth criminal". as a matter of fact i'm listening to mike's 1988 barcelona gig right now and near the end of 'smooth criminal' (after all the "i don't know"'s) mike does some live ad-libs. but that's it, believe me!

He was live on that Show when He did"Working Day&Night".DAMN MIke Wrecks that Jam Live.and the thing is it shows MJ can rock a Non-Hit Song as Hard as a Hit.that Song is one of my Highlights He does Live.

I think I said before, it depends on the show. Every concert is not the same.

He has nothing to prove we all no he can sing live and what an amazing voice he's got...he just wants to give us the best performance.

Im with u all the way. Lipsynching sucks. I guess its cool for some, but its not for me. U see more of your entertainers do this, more than the real artist, like your JB's, Prince, Sly, Jimi, and so on, and so on. It just seems like music is one big Justin Timberlake, Britney, Ja Rule, Ashanti etc. Which is unfortunate.