Couldn't agree more, Fangz.
As a fan of someone who has NEVER mimed during a TV or live performance, I think anyone who does this is 'short-changing' their fans. In one of his books, Will said that early on in his career he was asked to mime at a TV performance. He replied "No. Why should I when I can sing?".
Quite often due to the problems in soundchecking an entire band to play completely live on programmes such as TOTP where there are a lot of acts on in a short space of time, the band 'mime' to a pre-recorded backing track, but there's absolutely no reason why the singer shouldn't sing live.
It's pretty easy to spot the mimers, though IMO ...... exaggerated lip movements, no movement from the throat muscles, the voice sounding exactly the same no matter how near or far the mic is held from their mouth ......... and the performance sounds exactly the same as the record.
