Ministry official in synch with real concert fans

It's not often I feel it necessary, or am inspired enough, to put pen to paper in support of the actions of a government ministry, but today I do.

Sun Qiuxia, a spokeswoman for the culture ministry, spoke to me this month (through the news pages of China Daily) in the most mellifluous of tones. Her words came to my ears like a beautiful melody, despite their offbeat rhythm.

What she said (before this musical analogy hits a bum note) is that from next year, all professional performers caught lip-synching or pretending to play their instruments at live shows will have their business licenses revoked.

In other words they'll be banned; prevented, for good, from making a profit from cheating audiences, conning music lovers, and generally being fakes.

How fantastic is that? A government official, who probably wears a dark suit to work every day, telling a load of musos to get real, and keep it real or else.

Sun, or whoever drafted her speech, clearly has a love for music. She also fully appreciates how much it means to fans to experience a live concert.

Is there anything better than seeing and hearing your hero or heroine singing just for you? Of course there isn't. Music touches our souls in a way nothing else can; all great musicians know this, and that is why they do not cheat.

Only someone with no interest in music (or no soul) could ever defend bands that pretend to play. Why on earth would anyone want to go to a concert simply to listen to a flawless, studio-recorded performance? That is not the point.

Singers and bands often make mistakes when they are performing live, and their fans notice ... but they don't care. In fact, they love it. It makes the whole thing more real, more memorable, more exciting.

I remember going to see Prefab Sprout at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester about 10 years ago. It was a really relaxed sort of gig, almost acoustic, and all was going well until half way through the second set when the band began playing The Sound of Crying. Seconds after the opening notes it became very clear that front man Paddy McAloon was on the wrong page; the band knew it, the audience knew it.

It was only as he approached the middle eight - a whole verse too soon - that it dawned on him that he had cocked up. He turned to the band, who by that point could do little to help, then back to the audience and burst out laughing.

It was fabulous. He laughed, we all laughed. He apologized and started again.

As far as I'm aware, although musicians (I exclude the members of boy- and girl bands, and winners of talent shows in this group) who lip-synch are widely abhorred, the practice is not actually a crime in the United Kingdom or the United States.

However, thanks to the efforts of "cred" officials like Sun Qiuxia, and those obviously very nice, street-smart people at the culture ministry, doing so at a live show in China soon will be.

Western governments, and musicians, please take note.

(China Daily 11/25/2008 page20)