http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=143886

It's hard to tell for sure but at 1:15 none of the screens appear to be on.

Considering half the performances from vocal artist these days consist of them doing everything but singing on stage, while half-assed lipsyncing to pre-recorded vocals and not even trying to hide it, it wouldn't surprise me at all to know that someone who remixes music for a living is playing pre-recorded audio at a live show.

I remember seeing a video of a Lady Gaga concert where she was performing a song she did with Beyonce a few years ago, and while she was "singing" (dancing to it) it was the studio recorded single that was played on the radio, and as a result the Beyonce part still played, and Gaga even acknowledged it by saying "SING IT BEYONCE!" and just stood there still doing nothing until the Beyonce part was over. They didn't even take the time to edit it for the show or make a new pre-recorded version for her to mouth to, nope, just used the radio version. And the entire audience was completely cool with this.

After that, nothing about the state of live music really surprises me anymore.

Same as it's been since the 50s.

Oh come now OZ, at least they used to hide, or even attempt to hide it, even as late as the mid-2000s. Remember Ashlee Simpson on SNL?

Nope, but I do remember seeing all of those TV appearances by one hit wonder bands in the early 60s where they just fade the track out at the end while the band is still pretending to play.

What is confusing to me is where this weird confusing thing began that being a DJ is the same thing as being a composer. Like that when a guy like this is "performing" like this he is actually playing music on an instrument of some sort. I mean, when you see an EDM artist perform they usually have keyboards and samplers and all that shit and it's fairly obvious. It's weird to me that someone can show up to an event with millions of people with 4 CD players and that it some how is a "performance" by that guy. It's one thing when the DJ is crafting something out of multiple tracks (Aphex Twin's recent set in Glastonbury was a fucking mindblowing example of this) but that is clearly NOT what is going on when people like Guetta get on stage. I dunno, it's all weird to me.

Ever see someone try and lip sync convincingly to a song who isn't a professional? They blatantly can't. We can't either.

Indian artists will sometimes use the recording they are lip-syncing to as the straight man in a comedy act where they break the illusion for laughs.

I've never heard of anyone having a problem with this practice outside of America.

We don't want our entertainers to put forth their best face, we want them to fuck up and fail before us. We aren't entertained by things, but by our enjoyment towards hating the thing which is there to entertain us.

We're claiming the Divine Right of Kings and the earth is our court jester.

I think the original post is gone but deadmau5 hit the nail on the head with the rant “we all press play” http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2012/06/23/deadmau5-on-edm-perfo rmance-we-all-hit-play/