Super Madonna

“Lip sync dirty

Lip sync is a dirty word to some in the live performance business, especially Elton John. Can anyone imagine Elton John sitting at a piano with frozen keys? Would he fake pounding his fingers against detached ivory so that all is heard is the sound from the electronic system feeding images of his lips moving synchronously with his own singing and recording of his piano? What would be the point of that?

If people wanted to hear a recording of the singer, they would listen to their iPod. If they paid for a live performance, they would want to see 65 year-old Elton sitting erect in pink sun glasses at his keyboard with microphone and delivering an animated concert.

Elton doesn’t like Madonna lip-syncing.

Let me try to explain to Sir Elton the circumstances.

Fifty-four year-old Madonna has to do more than sit at the keyboard. She must sing and dance like 26 year-old Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga vows to never lip sync and that is easy for her to say now.

In the Super Bowl performance, Madonna’s routine involved complex apparatus, gymnastics, dance, and song routines integrated with interaction with a host of other performers before an enormous crowd of home viewers and live attendees all in a compact time slot that must be executed with precision.

At age 54 – 65, I would have been gasping at best. In fact, I most likely would have thrown something out of joint and would have been prone with a microphone in hand while the “show must go on” around me lying there. While ambulance lights enter the performance area, I would be lying prone attempting to move my lips to the recording and it would be all out of whack.

Go ahead and pull the pyrotechnics lever and take me away.

Get up from the piano stool Elton and try singing and dancing.”