Dolly Parton MIming?

[CaledonianGonzo]

Nobody expects the Ritchie Sambora. His main weapons are fear and surprise.

Edited July 1, 2014 by CaledonianGonzo

[Midnight Man]

I didn't think she was miming - that would have been harder work than actually singing!

I took my niece to see Britney a few years ago and there was no doubt about it - she hardly uttered a word between songs, no video screens (in the O2) - it was obvious.

If Dolly was miming then the mix between her recorded singing and live interjections was flawless. She may just be a very good at what she does.

[ancient_one]

And in all of this, don't forget that there was a female backing singer, no doubt singing the same lines as Dolly. So if you heard words but the lips weren't moving, they might have come from the backup-Dolly on stage. That's not miming - that's having a backing singer.

[Jules007]

Who cares. It's Dolly Parton. She can do what she fecking likes. Seen her sing live in old seventies footage, sounded beautiful. She can now come out and spit on us for all I care.

[pancakes]

I was in the front pit for Dolly but too far back to properly see. I'll be honest though, the thought did cross my mind, but only for the first couple of songs. The vocal mix was weird at the start, not quite loud enough and all sounding a bit processed. It definitely improved and it was clear soon enough that if the start was mimed, it was only the start.

This is exactly what I thought! I think the first couple were mimed and then the rest wasn't. It definitely sounded different and you were at the front and I was at the back.

Excellent show though and everyone got into it.

[FloorFiller]

why would she mime the first few songs and then go on to singing properly? didn't somebody already say that they saw Emily in the crowd who radio'd in mid-way through Jolene to have the sound turned up? so that's why the sound changed after a couple of songs - not because she'd switched from miming to singing

it was a great set. i just wish i wasn't suffering from a hangover through it as it really impaired by enjoyment of it. surely the biggest crowd of the weekend? it was ridiculous

[TheNewUnion]

We were right at the back so had the usual sync issues with the sound and the screens, impossible to tell if she was miming. The sound changed noticeably for the better when she switched to the hand mic

[CaledonianGonzo]

Didn't seem like she was miming to me as she sounded out of breath at a couple of points - either due to age or nerves - and I suspect that wouldn't have been kept in on a recording.

[pancakes]

why would she mime the first few songs and then go on to singing properly? didn't somebody already say that they saw Emily in the crowd who radio'd in mid-way through Jolene to have the sound turned up? so that's why the sound changed after a couple of songs - not because she'd switched from miming to singing

it was a great set. i just wish i wasn't suffering from a hangover through it as it really impaired by enjoyment of it. surely the biggest crowd of the weekend? it was ridiculous

I don't know why, can anyone offer an explanation as to why the sound changes?

[Tremor2005]

Stephen Fry says she wasn't - that's good enough for me

[Miss_Boo]

I thought she was miming at first when she had the headset on, but then the flawless links between songs, chatting inbetween them, talking over the start of the music etc etc.... if that was miming then she must be a bl00dy expert at doing it!! I'd have thought to mime a song then literally carry on in the same breath and speak would be almost impossible.

I'm giving Dolly the benefit of the doubt..... set of the weekend! )

[grumpyhack]

I don't care. It was a good show and I thoroughly enjoyed it as did the rest of our gang. We were too far back to tell and the thought never crossed our minds.

[Miss_Boo]

I love her even more after watching this!!

Another flawless performance.... the haters will say she's miming here too I suppose!

[amfy]

That was 30 years ago. It's not hating to say she's miming. She had a beautiful, effortless singing voice. That's what sets her version apart from the overwrought Whitney Houston version of I will Always Love You.

......but at 68, it is likely that whilst she can still sing, that beautiful effortlessness has gone.

People still love to come and see her, & her vibrant, funny & self-effacing personality, at the centre of a massive singalong of her songs. She has earned the right to mime if she wants. It's not like someone who simply can't sing.

[Andy_T]

I said to my friend during her first song it looked like she was miming, then we agreed during the second or third that it must have been that she was out of sync with the backing singer as we didn't notice it again. We were stood near one of the speaker stacks half way up the field and they definitely turned them up part way through one of the songs, can't remember which song though.

[Miss_Boo]

I just find it impossible after watching her set again and again that she was miming. She ad-libs over some of the songs. She sang acapella with the crowd to 9 to 5... A little help from backing singers? yes, probably. But miming her set? Absolutely not.

[Pink_Tequila]

I think she did what James Brown did when he played perhaps. A backing singer sang louder when his voice dropped out slightly or got out of breath and just doubled up the rest of the time. I do not believe she was miming to a backing track but working alongside the backing singer

[CaledonianGonzo]

Kasabian must have been fuming:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jun/30/dolly-parton-national-newspapers

[rockgodbob]

I was at the back of the field to watch Dolly, the moment she started singing Jolene, there was a massive change between the eq of her dialogue and her singing which i doubt was purely eq and effects. The tonal difference between her speech and singing voice was massive. She and her people have said she wasn't miming, true she was singing but i doubt the singing that we heard on the pyramid and at home was the same singing coming out of her mouth.

Simple, she was tracked i.e. a pre recorded vocal track was played alongside her vocal.

Most of what we heard (at least 80-90 percent) was the pre recorded vocal.

thats my guess, i'm not going to watch the iplayer as I love Dolly but really didn't enjoy her performance on sunday I felt Kenny Rogers last year was far better (with not as good songs)

Bob

[Starchild771]

My sound engineer son doesn't think she was miming (we were stood by the horseshoe). There was a problem early in the set with the delay stacks, thats why she switched to a hand mike. People at the back couldn't hear. His explanation in crayon for idiots like me: Light travels much faster than sound and so the timing of the delay to the video is crucial. The video will be seen before the sound gets to the watcher if they are any significiant distance away from the source. If there is more than one sound source (second speaker stacks) then both sound and video needs different delays to ensure that everyone hears the same thing at the same time and it matches what their eyes see.

A lot of the stages had a video sync problem, lips out of time with sound ether fast or slow. Can't comment on BBC coverage, it was universally poor from what I have seen. They always manage to murder the sound.

What you/your son says isn't wrong but Dolly has notoriously been using a backing track to support her singing (aka miming) for sometime now (done plenty of sound engineering myself too).

I'm not surprised to see this complaint as I was going to start a thread discussing how people felt about her miming before Glastonbury started. I was checking out some pre- Glastonbury performances on YouTube and I realised that she uses a substantial amount of backing track . No problem with people doing that but I decided not to watch her as I prefer the energy and rawness of full-blown live performance - warts and all.

The reality is that some performers really struggle to perform some of their material as they get older and feel need a little "help" from technology.

This is from when people were complaining about a Hollywood Bowl show back in 2011:

[Troop Dogg]

She was using the auto-cue screens for the mud song, so she must've sung some of the set live?

[rockgodbob]

She did sing at least a couple live, but most i would say were tracked. I've been a professional sound engineer for over 25 years, trust me you notice the signs ( eq changes, effects changes, certain tapping of mike to let engineers know to track the song etc).

There are some massive artists out there who people haven't realised are "tracked" live and they've got away with it for years, i've known backing singers for those artists not actually know that the artist was tracked, And they're singing the BV's!!!!!

that's how good these things can be

[The Placid Casual]

I thought this as soon as she started 'singing', it just sounded too perfect. She put on a very good show though so I'm not too arsed

[Starchild771]

how different is Dolly miming (if she was) to say, Brian Wilson having a veritable choir backing him to the point of taking over when necessary?

Huge difference for me.

[rockgodbob]

see even though i'm a soundie, it really doesn't bother me, good performance is good performance

Edited July 1, 2014 by rockgodbob