Ok, I have been doing some looking around and talking to some friends and it appears that you were right Kaz and that Darius did in fact mime on Ant and Dec’s show last night.
I really hadn’t noticed that he was, obviously looking elsewhere other than his lips.
For what it’s worth here is my two pennyworth about miming.
Just because an artist mimes occasionally when performing doesn’t mean that they cannot sing live. There are many other reasons often out of the artists control as to why this happens, sometimes technical issues at the studio concerned and sometimes management decisions.
Record companies often ban their artists from singing live, especially before a new single is released. It isn’t that the artist can’t perform, it’s purely a marketing decision so that the potential record buying public hear what the released version is going to be like. For example, Pete Waterman was asked a while ago why some of his artists, including Kylie, often mimed when performing on TV and his reply was that he never allowed them to sing live as he wanted the audience to hear the CD versions to give them more exposure.
Apparently Mercury took this stance with both Colourblind and Rushes as well, but in both cases, after the singles were released Darius has usually performed them live. Incredible is released on 3rd March.
Not all TV Shows are geared up for live performances and sometimes they are just not practical. It is a lot easier for the producers to get an artist in to mime to his/her single release and the speed that many of these shows are put together, often with artists arriving at the last minute and then dashing off to other commitments mean that it is just not possible.
Darius had been over in Europe all of this week and actually only flew back into the country yesterday a short time before this ‘Live’ show went out on air, it is quite possible that there wasn’t adequate time for proper rehersals and that this added to the decision to lip synch.
There are some times when miming is completely out of the question, I remember Janette commenting a little while ago that she was sure that Gareth had mimed one of the songs he performed on the ‘Gareth and Will’ tour and I can’t think of any reasons why this would ever be acceptable.
There are some artists who NEVER sing live when performing on TV – Westlife for example (and before any Westlife fans have a go, it is a HUGE Westlife fan who told me that
) – and I am NOT defending this. Artists should be strong enough do do live performances, but they should not necessarily be castigated if they do mime occasionally. Darius has proved on many occasions, every Saturday night about a year ago for example, that he is more than capable of singing live and I’m sure that we will hear a live performance of Incredible soon on TOTP’s and/or C
uk where he HAS consistently sung live in the past.
