Vince Neil Trashes Coldplay’s Super Bowl Performance
Vince Neil tuned in to watch Coldplay‘s performance during the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday — and he wasn’t shy about sharing his displeasure after it was over.
As Neil’s Twitter followers soon learned, the former Mötley Crüe frontman came away convinced that not only was Coldplay singer Chris Martin lip-syncing to tape during the band’s set, but that he wasn’t even doing a convincing job of it.
WOW!! #coldplay worst LIP SINK performance I've EVER seen!!!
— Vince Neil (@thevinceneil) February 8, 2016
Perhaps to Neil’s chagrin, many of his followers were only too willing to offer their own unvarnished opinions regarding his own prowess as a live performer. His tweet received no shortage of responses, many of which pointed out Neil’s tendency to rely on the audience for vocals during shows — as well as his unfortunate misspelling of “lip sync,” which he quickly and colorfully blamed on his phone’s spell check function.
@thevinceneil @LaughlinSXM says the guy who uses backing vocals and can't spell sync
— Adam Wodon (@CHN_AdamWodon) February 8, 2016
Spell check dick heads
— Vince Neil (@thevinceneil) February 8, 2016
As many Crüe fans no doubt recall, the band had a long feud with Metallica stemming from the latter band’s accusations that their 1997 American Music Awards performance was delivered to tape. Neil weighed in on the controversy last fall, saying, “There is no lip-syncing in rock ‘n’ roll; I mean, it just doesn’t happen. So it’s kind of a stupid thing to even talk about, because, I mean, anybody who goes to the show can tell there’s no lip-syncing involved. It’s pretty lame.”
In Coldplay’s defense, they may not have had any control over whether they’d perform completely live during the Super Bowl. The Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ set at Super Bowl XLVIII was partly mimed, and after the group was roundly criticized, bassist Flea pointed out that playing to tape was something mandated by the league. “There was not any room for argument on this,” he explained in an open letter. “The NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period.”
You can read Flea’s entire letter on the subject, originally posted to the band’s official website, right here:
Dear everybody,
When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song ‘Give It Away’ at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded. I understand the NFL’s stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage, there a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the t.v. viewers. There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers stance on any sort of miming has been that we will absolutely not do it. The last time we did it (or tried to) was in the late 80’s, we were thrown off of ‘The Top Of the Pops’ television program in the U.K. during rehearsals because we refused to mime properly, I played bass with my shoe, John played guitar atop Anthony’s shoulders, and we basically had a wrestling match onstage, making a mockery of the idea that it was a real live performance.
We mimed on one or two weird MTV shows before that and it always was a drag. We take our music playing seriously, it is a sacred thing for us, and anyone who has ever seen us in concert (like the night before the Super Bowl at the Barclays Center), knows that we play from our heart, we improvise spontaneously, take musical risks, and sweat blood at every show. We have been on the road for 31 years doing it.
So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal-like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it. We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it, and besides many a long conversation amongst ourselves, I spoke with many musician friends for whom I have the utmost respect, and they all said they would do it if asked, that it was a wild trippy thing to do, what the hell. Plus, we the RHCP all love football too and that played a big part in our decision. We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig. I met and spoke with Bruno, who was a beautiful dude, a real talented musician, and we worked out something that seemed like it would be fun.
We recorded a track for the day, just banged one out from our hearts that was very like in spirit to the versions we have been playing live the last few years with our beloved Josh on guitar.
For the actual performance, Josh, Chad, and I were playing along with the pre recorded track so there was no need to plug in our guitars, so we did not. Could we have plugged them in and avoided bumming people out who have expressed disappointment that the instrumental track was pre recorded? Of course easily we could have and this would be a non-issue. We thought it better to not pretend. It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance. It was like making a music video in front of a gazillion people, except with live vocals, and only one chance to rock it. Our only thought was to bring the spirit of who we are to the people.
I am grateful to the NFL for having us. And I am grateful to Bruno, who is a super talented young man for inviting us to be a part of his gig. I would do it all the same way again.
We, as a band, aspire to grow as musicians and songwriters, and to continue to play our guts out live onstage for anyone who wants to get their brains blown out.
Sincerely,
Flea
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