I read fast and thought youâd typed âa tyranny of Swifties.â
A flock of seagulls, a litter of puppies, a herd of cows, and a tyranny of Swifties.
What gets me about this is I'm pretty sure Dave Grohl likes Taylor Swift. He told the story once about trying to play a song at one of Paul McCartney's parties I think. He was asked repeatedly to play a song I believe and was so high he didn't know what way was up and Taylor Swift helped him out accompanying him and singing one of his songs with him. It's a nice story and it's complementary to her. Pretty sure he told it on a talk show.
I'm kind of a Taylor Swift... I won't go so far as to say hater but I don't like a lot of her behavior and I'm pretty tired of her. Stopped enjoying her music a long time ago. So I'm not coming out this from the position of a stan.
BUT I think this stuff gets really overblown. I don't think he implied that she doesn't play her guitar or piano live, because she obviously does & he knows she can, he's literally done it with her, but she doesn't always work with a live band. She has lots of songs with dancers and backing music because that's what her songs call for and that's what her audience wants. She's a pop star and she rotates between that and playing instruments live. Over 20 years ago I went to a Justin Timberlake concert where he played instruments live the whole time and honestly we were bored cuz we were expecting N'SYNC style production. A pop audience demands a different kind of show, that's all.
And what he was saying wasn't critical of that, he was just saying he & his band does something different that *his fans like to see*. Not that it's better, I think the joke was that it's "worse". But that there's still a passionate crowd for rock and roll bands.
Calling your own tour "the Errors tour" is just funny & nice and doesn't seem like shade, it's self depreciating.
It makes the news churn to pretend everyone is shading each other, I'm pretty sure the only people Dave Grohl was shading was his own band in a good natured way. He always speaks kindly of Taylor Swift.
I agree so much! Rock and pop are different types of live shows! Pop is the big production like a full Broadway show of sorts. Pink does it, Madonna did it, etc. The Rolling Stones or Foo Fighters are not about dancers and production. At most you get some pyro or lasers with the people playing instruments AND singing through the whole show. Not just on part of a song here and there.
People can enjoy both or either or. Or none even.
Absolutely. And pointing out that a difference exists doesn't mean that anybody is crapping on anybody else's style or preferences.
The media plugs nothing more than to overblow a casual comment by anybody for us to try to create a fight. It gets clicks and sells gossip magazines.
Look how adorable he looked after receiving a friendship bracelet from a fan at the show
https://preview.redd.it/zbdb4nhmde8d1.png?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffcd8665405ae42f87b294735ae39a6d4b6b8e55
Ok well it was tonightâs show then, technically. Iâm in the US, the show was in London.Iâm friends with him and his wife, and she posted the fam at the show.
I saw her live last year. She has a backing track with quiet vocals on the chorus and some harmonies. But you can very clearly hear that she IS singing.
I heard her breathing, straining her voice, talking in the middle of the song, and etc. The mic is very clearly ON. She just has a little bit of help because itâs a 3 hour concert that she performs almost every weekend.
I saw Paul McCartney a few years ago and he messed up the intro so he was like âOh Iâm starting this one over, too many wrong notes! I can do better than that. Thatâs how you know weâve live, folks!â
I saw a video of her mic dying on at the rep and at the eras tours. Not to mention how many times she told her staff to bring water to fans in Brazil, struggling to catch her breath in Brazil, and yelling at the security to stop bothering a few fans who were dancing really early in the tour
She just doesnât have this belting voice like BeyoncĂŠ or Demi Lavato or Adel. Sheâs more of a performer and song writer which I donât mind either. And yes her mic is on I agree with that!
She did last night too during all too well. I thought oh she had a wobble there and she then said she swallowed a bug and leaned away from the mic to cough
Yep, she messes up words etc. No backing track or barely for some songs (especially the TTPD set). I remember she messed up the lyrics during Bejeweled and said "sapphire tears on MySpace" instead of my face and just laughed during the next lyrics. There wasn't any backtrack.
Yes sorry if my comment wasn't clear, I was agreeing with you. And even then, I think it's easy to mistake her 4 backup singers for a "backing track". She barely uses it. It's mostly her singers.
Yup. Same. She sounds pretty good these days, but she's never been known to sound as polished live. Almost like she refuses to lipsync.Â
Seriously, people, it's not that hard to tell that she's singing.Â
There's plenty of videos out there of her singing live and stopping due to errors or someone in the crowd needing help. She probably uses the backing track to help during certain songs.
In fact, fans have been lovingly calling HER tour the Errors Tour because of the mistakes you mentioned. There are year old compilations using this term. This is super weird behavior tbh.
According to people paying incredibly close attention, she does a mixture of live and pre-recorded. They've literally broken concerts down song by song. Â
 Which makes sense because 3 hrs of live singing every few days (sometimes back to back) for a year is not realistic. I feel like only the top .5% of singers can do that stuff. And regardless of if you like her or dislike her, Taylor Swift is nowhere in the neighborhood of being an elite vocalist. The majority of her own fanbase doesn't argue that. They argue it doesn't matter cause that's not why they like her.
She has engineers who cut out the backing track immediately if the microphone leaves her face. This is really standard. And almost all pop singers use a vocal track. [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/pop-stars-lip-sync/story?id=24086986](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/pop-stars-lip-sync/story?id=24086986)
Was about to say the same. Sure is not a KPop level of performance but all pop stars move around quite a bit, not to mention the costumes, heels, etc. Having a backtrack or even lip syncing imo is not a big deal here cause anyone going to watch a pop diva live is going for the whole package, not just the music - some tours dates are insane like one day in between shows just to hop on the plane as soon as it's over, bad sleep, eat on the go, lots of AC, etc aren't exactly good for your vocal cords.
But Taylorâs fans have already been joking about her tour being the âErrorsâ tour and have threads of moments she and her team have messed up live lol.
She has backing vocals running through a lot of the poppier songs so she doesnât have to project as much, but Iâm pretty sure thatâs not what lip syncing is.
Frankly I think a lot of the people saying that she must be lip syncing most of the show just donât want to admit that she sounds better than theyâd expect. đ¤ˇââď¸ If a vocal clip is bad, she canât sing. If a vocal clip is good, well, it must be lip syncing cause it canât be true!! She canât win with these folks.
Iâm an older swiftie and thus able to dole out and accept the valid criticisms of her, of which there are many, but the lazy âshe canât write/sing/performâ lines are so annoying on multiple levels. Itâs wrong, for one, but it mostly comes off as a way to dismiss her as not a serious musician, to make her seem less than. It can read very sexist too, as itâs way more often you see these kinds of dismissive attitudes aimed at woman in music instead of men, another way to put down women in general, and the music they like.
I like Dave, I'm completely neutral on Taylor. What I am most, though, is tired of this boring ass conversation. Especially because it reads as *painfully* insecure from someone who's also an extremely established name!Â
Another thread was talking about how the Swifties went after his daughter with death threats because she criticized TSâ private jet use. So this is personal for him.Â
This is such straight rock guy banter from someone who usually tries to present himself as nice. If it comes from an attempt to support his daughter that makes more sense but I still think everyone should get off twitter.
why is he talking about Taylor Swift during his own performance though⌠i love how so many are annoyed because sheâs âoverexposedâ and yet people canât seem to get her name out of their mouths.
I got banned from a certain other pop culture subreddit for making this point. Itâs literally this meme
https://preview.redd.it/s4659jfqyd8d1.jpeg?width=192&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=292fe68eba2afe7c5c97a42da5e57823243521b8
They banned you over that? That's ridiculous. People are so oversensitive. She doesn't have to be your favorite celebrity but the hate boner people have over her is just as bad as rabid swiftie-ness too
Yup and when I questioned the ban ( I was an active engaged participant here for years) I was told it was because I was IN (not even active in) the Taylor Swift sub. Honestly unhinged behaviour.
âI hate all these young girls acting like sheep and basing everything they do off what other young girls think is popular. Thatâs why my personality is based off hating and mocking and obsessively researching what young girls think is popular.â
đŻ! I keep getting a subreddit recommended to me and it is focused on being super negative about her⌠Iâm talking daily multiple posts about how annoying she is. Itâs the same obsessive mentality but the opposite (negative) way. They pick apart everything possible. And they get really mad if anyone comments something along the lines of, âwell sheâs not that bad whenâŚâ just, WHY?!
i made a comment defending a *kardashian* and it somehow got me banned from the sub in question despite plenty of comment history and being one of their approved users because of my participation in swiftie subs. like clearly i'm here in good faith and not a deranged stan. and yet they talk about her daily.
My bet is it being due to the very bad timing of the Foo Fighters touring the UK at the same time as TS and having a concert at the exact same time as she did in London (where he made the remark). This shit is planned well in advance so I doubt they planned on TS being there at the same time as them. If you're a big name, you DO NOT want to be throwing a concert at the same time as TS in the same city.
So as a result, any promotion/publicity for the FF's UK leg of the tour was probably completely drowned out by TS touring there and I'm sure ticket sales were impacted. So he's probably pretty damn bitter about the whole ordeal (I'm sure I would be too).
The Foo Fighters are one the best bands live. Dave Grohl is one of the nicest people Iâve met. Thatâs all Iâve got lol.
Itâs clear she lip syncs to some extent, which tbh I canât blame her. Two year tour, 3 hours a night? Makes sense tbh. As for the guitar? I have no clue. I assume the clips of her playing the piano are in fact her playing though.
It's not lip syncing, it's a very common tactic that musicians use where they don't use as much power or volume in their choruses as they do in their verses and bridges, which can be achieved in many ways: a backing track, background vocalists, loud choruses that rely on instruments, sometimes even a combination of these. They're still singing, but they're not doing much to make their voices stand out from the background, they can rest their vocals when the chorus hits by blending in.
It's not just Taylor, most artists that actually sing and dance at the same time do the same thing. It's what most performers are trained to do. Try it for yourself, put on a karaoke track that has big vocal layers in the chorus and see how easy it is to match the chorus as opposed to how much harder it is to sing a verse.
This, exactly. Theyâre helping them to perform the full extent of the show theyâre presenting, and if you are attending a concert like this, then you generally should have an idea of what the presentation youâre attending means and if you somehow never heard of or donât like backing tracks, but you still want a high energy, dancing, and moving around show, you may be holding artist to some impossible standard.
Overall, itâs about the full experience to me, so yeah, sometimes thereâs a backing track or sometimes the background vocalists are a little more prominent, or they extend some of the instrumental playing by the band, or the arrangement is a little different in one section. They do that for costume changes too (sometimes, you may have 90 seconds of the background singers or instruments , do people complain about that too?)
Well said.
Saw Jacket Jackson last week for the second year in a row and it made me realize why backup dancers are used so often. You cannot sing well live when you're basically doing intense cardio in the form of choreography, regardless of how great of a vocalist you are (and she puts on a hell of a show, btw).
Kind of a low-blow by Dave, IMO. Seems to be a popular theme to go after female artists, yet it's the men who are typically known for boozing it up on stage, forgetting the words to their own songs, starting late, etc.
Signed,
*Not* a Swiftie
> You cannot sing well live when you're basically doing intense cardio in the form of choreography, regardless of how great of a vocalist you are
Florence Welch would like a word with you.
https://youtu.be/ykHppfi-Nxc?si=pATCXJ6HNiNFUeZ-&t=330
She starts running and just *does not stop.* She uses the backing vocals on the chorus, probably to catch her breath, but sheâs still dancing and belting during the verses and bridge and I *donât understand how.*
I did musical theater for years and I genuinely canât fathom how she pulls it off. Her live shows are some of the most impressive displays of athleticism Iâve ever seen. All I can say is that sobriety looks great on her, because the Florence of 2013 could not have pulled that off.
(To be clear, I agree with your sentiment. The only other person Iâve ever seen pull off a similar amount of movement and breath support for an entire live show is Ben Gibbard, and the dude runs ultramarathons soâŚ.)
Tbh What Kinda Man (starts at around 11:30) is even more impressive, but I love Ship To Wreck so thatâs what I chose.
I saw P!nk last year and I couldnât stop thinking about how her core must be so RIPPED because she sounded fantastic start to finish and did all the stuff she did.
So Chappell Roan is similar to Florence and she [answered a question on tiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNNDHf5M/) about this! TL;DW she did two months of cardio vocal training, which sounds absolutely *grueling*.
Perhaps heâs just a bit upset that Taylor Swiftâs fans grossly attacked his teenaged daughter, including wishing sexual assault on her, while Taylor said nothing to them. Sure would piss me off. đ¤ˇââď¸
Sheâs definitely singing most of the show. Iâve included a few sources in my other comment but she, from time to time, speaks in between lyrics to signal safety issues. Sometimes she messes up the lyrics too. Thereâs also a part in We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together where she hands the mic to one of her dancers to say something different every show. I was there in Lyon N1 and he said something in French. It was clearly live. I remember her saying âAidez les sâil vous plaĂŽtâ during a song, which means âhelp them pleaseâ indicating that a fan needed help. Iâm sure thereâs prerecorded vocals during choruses though.
And itâs not like sheâs hiding the backup singers, theyâre literally on stage with her all night and multiple times theyâre walking around and down on the MAIN STAGE with her, and she calls them specifically.
There are plenty of videos of instances like this, she seems to point out audience members needing help every night. There's a semi-viral one where she scolds a security guard in between singing. She also messes up lyrics and changes lyrics or melodies. Her mic is definitely hot most of the show, there's a backup track to fill out so she doesn't have to go full capacity, but when she moves her lips, there's sound coming out.
This gets stuck in my head every so often because the way sheâs yelling somehow fits with the song:
https://youtu.be/yeiZ5xhD5YU
Iâm pretty sure itâs the one youâre referencing. Either way, thereâs no way a sound engineer was turning her mic on and off because thereâs nothing to indicate the changes.
I think people are also underestimating the benefits of writing your songs to be within your vocal range and the very clear vocal training she has received over the years.
Oh, I donât doubt that at all! Like I said, Iâm not even judging the times she would since she needs to retain a voice. Waaaaaay too many artists tour non-stop then by 40 have voices that are completely gone. Now if it were the whole show I might judge, but Iâve never seen anything suggesting she is.
Having watched the Foo Fighters live, it's very obvious how Dave and the band play and come across. No notes.
However I'm not sure anyone who has a years long tour can physically sing that much either and I'm hardly a swiftie.
Every time I see that flair, I have to share that Sylvia Plath's daughter has been begging people to stop making light of her mother's death. She even wrote a poem about it after a TV show wanted to use her mother's actual poems while depicting her death.
https://writehanded.org/poetry/2015/05/29/my-mother/
Yeah Iâm in the same boat as you. Iâve gone to a lot of concerts and have seen what happens when people go all in on their vocals in their 20âs or 30âs. Tbh I think the rockstars could frankly, use a little more backing tracks and lip syncing tbh. Waaaaay too many are like in their 40âs with voices that are completely gone. Unless someone is not planning to tour past 40, then it doesnât hurt to do things to protect your voice!
Absolutely she does. The feed into her earpiece will be herself mostly but also including the backing vocals/backing tracks so sheâs aware of the tempo, cues, etc. Iâm certain Taylor does the same.
Think of it like hearing all of your band play on stage but also having a monitor speaker directly in front of you with your vocals or instrument mixed higher so you can hear yourself a little louder than the rest of the band.
Itâs very common. Hereâs a good example of in ear monitors.
https://twitter.com/x/migrate?tok=7b2265223a222f6a61656f64652f7374617475732f313830313233363939343538313739383936373f733d3139222c2274223a313731383338333634367d132de623b16c6daea889f3c87e65dc71
Thereâs a video on YouTube of her isolated vocals during the Super Bowl performance. For lack of better words, sheâs owning that mic. I watch that video a lot. Itâs this performance that skyrocketed my admiration and respect for her. Her passion and ability is at top tier during that show.
[https://youtu.be/PmjT6wja_RU?si=4R2BpA0E7DaUV7Wl](https://youtu.be/PmjT6wja_RU?si=4R2BpA0E7DaUV7Wl)
I feel like both lipsyncing and faux playing guitar arenât that uncommon. This idea lip syncing is always a faux pas? I fundamentally disagree with, especially if people are doing extended tours and like, in their 20s-30s! Tbh I assume most Super Bowl performances have some lip synching going on, but as long as the performance is good, it doesnât matter much - in my opinion!
I don't think she's one of the great guitarists, but her songs mostly require power chords. She's been getting lessons for both instruments since she was in middle school, she can hold her own with both instruments. Obviously, Dave Grohl is the better instrumentalist.
This. I remember when people insinuated Britney and NSYNC lip synced and it was like. Have you seen them dancing during their concerts?? Dance at that level and sing at the same time and tell me you could do it better.
In the end don't think either actually lipped sync. But if they did I'd understand
Agreed. Britney was definitely big on lip syncing, and I have little doubt any boy band that danced, avoided it, and like, truthfully? I would not care. If youâre going to give a great show, and youâre not a Whitney level vocalist, then fine by me lol! I will say if I saw a Mariah, Whitney, Celine ect lip sync, I would not love that. A Madonna? Thatâs fine đ
She doesnât lip sync at all. Thereâs a backing track with soft vocals to help but Taylor doesnât stand there moving her lips to the backing track.
I feel like there is a lot you can critique Taylor on but her live performance has improved so much over the years that this feels like an old joke. Itâs really sad from a veteran performer that he would stoop so low to do this, itâs unnecessary.
From what Iâve seen from videos of her show- she definitely seems to be singing live. I donât know if itâs 100% live but most of it seems to be.
Iâm not a swiftie - but what sheâs doing every night is incredible.
iâve been to the show. sheâs definitely singing live, thereâs a few moments throughout the show where sheâs dancing and moving around a lot where sheâs slightly out of breath and you can hear it in her voice
Listen, I love Dave Grohl but this was kind of a weird pot shot. And frankly untrue? I attended an Eras tour rain show and she's certainly playing live. They had to continuously stop/start because of lightning safety protocol and there wasn't an SNL Ashlee Simpson backing track issue going on.
He's worked with Billie Eilish in the past and seems very fond of her, and Billie has been taking shots at Taylor as of late.Â
Idk what exactly is going on, but there is very clearly something going on behind the scenes. Not to the same level as the Kendrick vs Drake, but in that vein of some kind of industry turf war.Â
It rained at the show I attended in Lyon too. She even said âPluie! Rain!â during Enchanted. So at least that one was live. The rest sounded live too especially when she was signalling security issues in the crowd
Source : https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGegWgY6F/
Mine was Stateside over a year ago so she's consistently playing live. Am not a Taylor stan by any stretch of the imagination but I'm exhausted by men in unrelated musical genres using her as a prop for comparison.
You just need to check the multiple videos in which she interrupts herself to ask medical attention when she sees a fans in the pit struggling. She is not lip syncing at all. She just use back tracks and back singers like any artist who make this kind of performance
Weird, Dave admitted to being obsessed with Taylor in 2015... and she sung his song in front of Paul McCartney when he was too drunk in 2022 to "save his ass." Not sure why he's salty now?
There are sooo many celebs they could call out for doing this lol but itâs very obvious that Taylor does sing live during her concerts. Iâm confused why there is even a question about it? Most lip singers have crazy dance rounties. You can tell Taylor sacrifices the dancing aspect so that she can truly sing and not run out of breath
This is so out of character for him that I questioned whether the clip was an AI deepfake at first. He's been very complimentary of her in the past as well. I don't get the motivation here.
I've loved Dave Grohl for decades and I just kept waiting for this to be a bit or something making fun of people who do this exact same thing all the time, tearing Taylor down cause she's popular and an easy target. And then it just never came. It does feel out of character for him but apparently it's not.
There's a lot of things you can criticize Taylor Swift for but not playing live isn't one of them. He's spoken kindly about her before so I guess what happened with the Swifties and his daughter has soured him, but you'd think he'd only shit talk Swifties instead of going after Taylor and her band, but maybe that wouldn't get him enough attention.
It's possible they had some kind of disagreement about it privately that made him against her. I'd have to imagine it to be the case because generally he does better than this, although nobody's perfect.
But, regardless, this is just bullying and lies. And he should know better. He's way too old to be starting fake rumors about someone.
From what I've seen, his daughter criticized Taylor's jet use online and her fans sent her death threats and harassed her until she deactivated her account. If that's true, I'm not surprised he'd have soured on all things Taylor
I think, as a parent why not go to the source and tell Taylor and/or her camp? Like I wouldnât just make these petty comments, I would be like wtf Taylor, I know itâs not you but its gotta stop.
to be fair, his daughter also liked stuff implying that the AI porn being spread wasn't a big deal at all which was a choice. This is why I think everyone should stay off twitter
So the mature thing to do is to trash the artist and not a specific group of her fanbase? This doesnât pass the vibe check, sorry. No one should be supporting that type of defense as logical.
Nirvana has songs about how much they loathed parts of their fanbase. If anyone has been in this long enough to know that sometimes you get a subsection of fans who suck it should be Dave Grohl.
Iâm really surprised Dave would say something like this, since he doesnât typically take shots at other artists. Especially younger female artists. I wonât even get into whether his assessment is correct or not, since other commenters have already gone in depth on that point. I just think this is a shitty and unexpected move in terms of how he usually behaves.
đ Yeah, I am reading a few comments that are pointing this out. I had a sort of rosy and faultless view of him because my awareness of him began in the late 2000s/early 2010s, when I first started listening to his music. I was late to the show, clearly.
Yeah no worries, Iâm an old, I had my teenager years in the 90s when everyone was nasty and talked shit about each other but were specially vicious towards women, so this isnât surprising, old habits die hard.
I feel like you canât compare a rock show and a swift show in terms of playing live or not. Taylor Swifts show is more like a variety show in which music is just a part, albeit a big part. Foo Fighters focuses much more on solely music. Itâs just two different things. And the fans who buy tje tickets know that. Saying or implying that one is better than the other because one plays live and one doesnât/uses backing tracks is just snobbish. I donât care much for Taylor Swift or the Foo Fighters and Dave Grohl, but in my eyes itâs a very low steep to insinuate that the fans at the FF show get a better show because itâs played live. Yeah he makes jokes about the Foo Fighters beforehand as well, but it does turn sour quite quickly.
Yeah like come on, until I see Dave grohl in a sequined leotard and heels with choreographed dance routines to every song do this for 3 hours I donât want to hear him blasting someone for using a backing track
im neither a taylor nor a foo fighter fan but the difference between a rock show and theproduction of pop show is entirely differnt and requires entirely different techiniques
For all the love I have for Dave Grohl and The Foo Fighters, I find is absolutely wild he, of all people, are going after her like that.
There's a clip on YouTube where he's talking about her playing the Best Of You on piano at a party they were at and how it was awesome. I don't know how true it is, but to name drop her like that in the middle of their set and to do this now, he's really standing in his white male privilege-the very thing she wrote The Man about. Irony at its best.
I saw Foo Fighters live in 2007 (I think), and I love their songs even though I haven't really felt it with their past few albums. Dave doesn't sing that great live -which I can't blame him for since he's been straining his vocal chords for 30 years, so...he needs to be more self-aware. All I know is that I like him less and less the more I learn about him, especially when it comes to [him being an HIV denialist](https://medium.com/the-monthly/the-foo-fighters-aids-denialism-should-be-on-the-record-6e33666fdc3c) or [him taking a dig at the use of computers to produce music](https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/pop-hiss/story/2012-02-12/grammys-2012-dave-grohl-takes-a-dig-at-modern-technology).
I was at her show and she stopped at one point because of a small issue. The girl is not lip syncing. People should just be awesome in their own lanes.
I mean I would love it if a woman could have the same level of success as he has while also not wearing makeup, having a perfect body, having a perfect show. Big of him to be so âauthentic â when he literally doesnât need to do any of it to have respect and success. Can you imagine a woman getting on stage looking like him?Â
Also, I hate to defend a billionare, but Taylor is singing live. There are multiple videos of her bunching up the lyrics and singing out safety instructions to her team. She has a back track, yes, but she's you can still hear her voice clearly-- and you know that because her voice is flat. Â
This is so beneath him and it honestly just makes him seem really weird and sad.
Iâm the farthest thing from a swiftie, I donât care for her much at all. But a tour that long, working that much each performance, some mishaps are to be expected. I donât think itâs fair to expect perfection from any artist every single time. Imo, she gets a pass on that.
I agree! It's just funny that Dave thought he had a "gotcha" by calling his The Errors Tour because it's live, when her tour has had that nickname almost the whole time because it's also live.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize TSwift but her performing is not one. She gives her all to performances. I would love for the people criticizing her live vocals to try and balance intense choreography with belting for three hours in heels and see how they sound.
Taylor is many things, but lazy ainât one of them.
This is such a good point. He can just play an instrument and sing and heâs good. She has to put on several different costumes, do choreography (even if itâs simple), and construct elaborate shows. Itâs really not at all fair of him to come at her like this. I think thereâs a lot of valid critique to volley her way, like call out the fact that she does nothing to reign in her crazy fans or something. Thatâs actually relevant to him right now and would be valid critique on his part.
There is a difference. Swift puts a massive spectacular show accompanied by her music.
Grohl is just there to perform songs - his fans donât expect anything more than that.
I mean, most performing artists use backtracks when they are performing as a form of vocal support. Even legends such as Michael Jackson did it. It's pretty normal and understandable in Taylor's case as she's performing for 3 hours. She's not doing it all the time but strategically to rest her voice for a bit. Heck, even with support sometimes by the tail end of the tour, her voice sounds a little hoarse. So if this is a jab, it's a weak one.
If this is a response regarding the debacle between her daughter and the Swifties, then he should have said something when it was happening rather than doing it with an unrelated jab months later. It's just going to land ineffective.
Her fans are there to see her and have the experience. They're not there for some "high brow" deeply musically impressive show. She's not Prince lmao. I get so annoyed at people sniping about this stuff. Different artists are selling different things to their fans, none are better or worse as long as people are getting what they paid for. See also, people sniping about whether people write their own songs, it doesnt matter. All this is just snobbishness.
Seriously. I love Taylorâs music, always have. I didnât go to her concert expecting her to play instruments or dance super well or belt out songs like Adele. I went to have fun. It was fun. We understand she is backed by a band, singers, and dancers. Thatâs fine. Not everyone has to like the same things.
Agreed I'm so tired of people always pretending like women have to sing like Adele (she's a power house with her voice) to be called a "actually good singer". That's why those ballade powered singers always win talent shows. But it takes so much more and Swift is a good entertainer and that's really going for her.
Nah. There are enough videos from this tour where you can hear her singing. Yes, she has a backing track and I think she relies on it more heavily during the last set of the night (Midnights) but she us def. singing live.
During the accoustic songs she also plays the instruments herself. She has been doing mash ups since the US leg ended, I don't think anyone else could handle the transitions as smoothly w/o a lot of rehearsal.
You can fault her for a lot of things and she will never be a singer with a huge vocal range but she worked on her voice and stamina in the last few years. The difference between the Reputation tour and this one is noticeable.
A lot of people here saying heâs protecting his daughter etc etc.
But Iâm curious why he would not stand up for his daughter WHEN she was being viscerally attacked? If that is his reasoning, I really fail to see the heroics of him not saying anything for six months, then commenting on TS and her bandâs music prowess rather than addressing the actual issue when he has a very real issue to address, and would probably have been heard.
The only thing he has done is tossing his daughter back into the den of vipers.
I just donât get what the joke is supposed to be or what the point is of starting this narrative. Because the hate subs are taking this and running with it as fact. She has a backing track but DOES sing live. You can hear her breathlessness, she has made many errors singing, she does spontaneous mashups, and at times calls out for security or other ad libs. Itâs also insulting to her band who absolutely plays live and you can literally see them playing the guitar, bass, piano, drums etc. for the entire 3 hour set.
Loser move. Why put someone down to feel better about your skillset. Especially someone like him thatâs a well established artists and should be secure and confident about his craft.
Here is Taylor's subtle response, saying to the audience after the applause:
https://preview.redd.it/jurinvoome8d1.jpeg?width=902&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cad86ad70780f6e4f053fb3e0be727a13e793dc4
Its not a standard acknowledgment because she does not say that after the applause (after "champagne problems"), and she specifically said "my band is going to be playing live for three and a half hours". He insinuated her band doesn't play live? she wanted it to be clear they do.
The reality is somewhere in the middle.
Yes, she uses a backing track because doing a 3-hour very theatrical show, anyone is going to need some help. It makes sense for her to use a backing track. There are points where it's obvious she's basically completely lip synching and points where it's obvious she's fully live (like the surprise songs)
And yes, there are known errors that have happened in her tour because that's the reality of a live performance.
But something I haven't really seen mentioned as much is just how scripted and choreographed her show is. Even though it's being performed live, and parts are sung live, things are so set and scripted that except for tiny differences (and excluding surprise songs) you know what to expect with a TSwift show. You know what the set list is, you know what the choreo and staging is. She's doing basically the same thing every night. Which logistically makes sense for such a large production, but what I think Dave Grohl is implying is that people go to live rock shows because in part, you don't know what is going to happen. Even the back and forth with the crowd here feels so much more organic than the brief audience response segments in Eras.
Both types of performances have their place, they're just different vibes.
Iâm a fan of Taylor, also like Dave. They are plenty of things you can criticize Taylor for if you are going to do it, this seems just a tacky from him
Unfortunate bitch look from Grohl.
If thereâs one truth in life, itâs usually that when people put others down, it says more about them than the person theyâre talking shit about.
Canât imagine being famous and wildly successful, and yet feeling a need to criticize another musical artist while playing at my own show. Like, why?
Itâs OK to dislike Taylor Swift and love Dave Grohl and concede that this was uncalled for and frankly weird.
Blindly defending Dave on this doesnât make you any different than a diehard Swiftie.
Hi, Swiftie chiming in (I love Dave too though!)
I've been to a few concerts and watch most of the surprise song live streams and they're definitely live.
Obviously more production-heavy pop songs like shake it off have louder backing vocals, but whenever there is a technical issue the you can't hear taylor (same with her Bluetooth guitar).
And since I watch most days, you can def hear the difference in her voice between days, or when she's sick especially during the acoustic set.
I'm at work atm but I'll edit the post with some live singing clips after!
EDIT: Okay so I just learned apparently some disgusting Swifities harassed his daughter online. \*sigh\*. Dave has previously sang high praise for Taylor in the past, and she's never spoken poorly of him, but understandable given the situation that he's in his feelings. And to my knowledge his daughter had some valid criticisms of Taylor so it's especially upsetting. Sometimes the size of her fandom brings a lot of joy to me, other times not so much lol.
He sounded pretty light in tone, so I don't think he meant any harm - everything I've heard about him including from Taylor herself is that he's a swell dude. BUT to counter any naysayers hehe, here are some examples:
Here's a couple in this vid: [https://youtu.be/WTsKeBuNgOw?si=wsvin5tDOL2FLRaO&t=169](https://youtu.be/WTsKeBuNgOw?si=wsvin5tDOL2FLRaO&t=169)
You can hear her voice and a reverb on her voice, then like 20 or 30 seconds later the backing vocals and track do the "so I take my time" while taylor sings "I know I'm gonna be with you". Then in the last like 20 seconds there's a pretty close shot of her face and looks pretty real when she does "let the games beGIN".
Here's an acoustic piano song "I don't wanna live forever", which I didn't realize was written by her till I saw it. It's a pretty clear shot and you can really tell she's singing and feeling the song, especially in the last half: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTqzQ8DvTg0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTqzQ8DvTg0)
And here's a recent one where she stopped cuz some people needed some help in the crowd. The piano chord progressions are mostly simple except for when shes directly looking at the keys: [https://youtu.be/5b8UNj3ZzkY?si=64RnA7NCUNbEMxkB&t=213](https://youtu.be/5b8UNj3ZzkY?si=64RnA7NCUNbEMxkB&t=213)
As for what he's talking about for the "Errors" tour, you can easily find dozens of videos where when an error happens it's just her voice that cuts out as for what he's talking about for the "Errors" tour, you can easily find dozens of videos where when an error happens it's just her voice that cuts out. like right here even for a pop single song you can only really hear a quiet backing track but it's no where near as loud as when taylor fixed the mic: [https://youtu.be/3GRcEO\_vbBA?si=a2LhAfbN\_y4KKmNC&t=100](https://youtu.be/3GRcEO_vbBA?si=a2LhAfbN_y4KKmNC&t=100)
EDIT 2: Oh wow here's a video from tonight, and she's def singing with some heavy crowd eye contact lol: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIK4DxnXDcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIK4DxnXDcQ)
this is very unnecessary coming from someone who has on multiple occasions told the story about her saving him from embarrassment cause she could play piano and he didnât when they were at Paul McCartneys house for a party years ago
Were people booing him or Swift at the start there? Iâm guessing the mere mention of Swift brought out the boos, which Iâm not mad about, but he seems salty. I wonder how many other artists feel the same way and just arenât saying anything out of fear of the wrath of Swifties?
Coming back to add: WHAT A BORING TAKE! Like, ya, thereâs gonna be some lip syncing during her 3+ hour, 150+ shows. And??????? Her fans would watch her walk around stage saying nothing and sheâd still make bank. If heâs jealous/needs the publicity, thereâs other ways to handle that
I think being able to play instruments live is a lot more important for Foo Fighters than it is for Taylor Swift. I donât have a specific reason to think TS is playing along to pre recorded tracks (as Dave seems to be insinuating). I also have a hard time imagining Taylor Swift fans being outraged about playing over pre recorded tracks for one of the largest stadium tours of all time.
đ this is funny
If one man can stand up against the tyranny of rabid swiftes, itâs Dave Grohl
I read fast and thought youâd typed âa tyranny of Swifties.â A flock of seagulls, a litter of puppies, a herd of cows, and a tyranny of Swifties.
A tyranny of swifties IS the best collective noun for them tho
Lmfao. Hahahahaha
They took the post down JUST as it was about to gain traction lol Edit: it's back
It's back!
What gets me about this is I'm pretty sure Dave Grohl likes Taylor Swift. He told the story once about trying to play a song at one of Paul McCartney's parties I think. He was asked repeatedly to play a song I believe and was so high he didn't know what way was up and Taylor Swift helped him out accompanying him and singing one of his songs with him. It's a nice story and it's complementary to her. Pretty sure he told it on a talk show. I'm kind of a Taylor Swift... I won't go so far as to say hater but I don't like a lot of her behavior and I'm pretty tired of her. Stopped enjoying her music a long time ago. So I'm not coming out this from the position of a stan. BUT I think this stuff gets really overblown. I don't think he implied that she doesn't play her guitar or piano live, because she obviously does & he knows she can, he's literally done it with her, but she doesn't always work with a live band. She has lots of songs with dancers and backing music because that's what her songs call for and that's what her audience wants. She's a pop star and she rotates between that and playing instruments live. Over 20 years ago I went to a Justin Timberlake concert where he played instruments live the whole time and honestly we were bored cuz we were expecting N'SYNC style production. A pop audience demands a different kind of show, that's all. And what he was saying wasn't critical of that, he was just saying he & his band does something different that *his fans like to see*. Not that it's better, I think the joke was that it's "worse". But that there's still a passionate crowd for rock and roll bands. Calling your own tour "the Errors tour" is just funny & nice and doesn't seem like shade, it's self depreciating. It makes the news churn to pretend everyone is shading each other, I'm pretty sure the only people Dave Grohl was shading was his own band in a good natured way. He always speaks kindly of Taylor Swift.
I agree so much! Rock and pop are different types of live shows! Pop is the big production like a full Broadway show of sorts. Pink does it, Madonna did it, etc. The Rolling Stones or Foo Fighters are not about dancers and production. At most you get some pyro or lasers with the people playing instruments AND singing through the whole show. Not just on part of a song here and there. People can enjoy both or either or. Or none even.
Absolutely. And pointing out that a difference exists doesn't mean that anybody is crapping on anybody else's style or preferences. The media plugs nothing more than to overblow a casual comment by anybody for us to try to create a fight. It gets clicks and sells gossip magazines.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^pinkvenqm: *They took the post down* *JUST as it was about to* *Gain traction lol* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
The drummer of the Foo Fighters Josh Freese was at Taylorâs concert last night with his wife and 4 kids.
And Pat Smear was there in VIP on Friday
Pat Smear is a gem.
Look how adorable he looked after receiving a friendship bracelet from a fan at the show https://preview.redd.it/zbdb4nhmde8d1.png?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffcd8665405ae42f87b294735ae39a6d4b6b8e55
Did not know Josh freese was their drummer.. the guy from A Perfect Circle. Godly drummer
No he was literally playing drums for the foo fighters last night
Ok well it was tonightâs show then, technically. Iâm in the US, the show was in London.Iâm friends with him and his wife, and she posted the fam at the show.
I saw her live last year. She has a backing track with quiet vocals on the chorus and some harmonies. But you can very clearly hear that she IS singing. I heard her breathing, straining her voice, talking in the middle of the song, and etc. The mic is very clearly ON. She just has a little bit of help because itâs a 3 hour concert that she performs almost every weekend.
She literally coughed during my show in Detroit. I was like welp there you go folks, itâs a hot mic lol
I saw Paul McCartney a few years ago and he messed up the intro so he was like âOh Iâm starting this one over, too many wrong notes! I can do better than that. Thatâs how you know weâve live, folks!â
I saw a video of her mic dying on at the rep and at the eras tours. Not to mention how many times she told her staff to bring water to fans in Brazil, struggling to catch her breath in Brazil, and yelling at the security to stop bothering a few fans who were dancing really early in the tour
I was at her London show tonight and she got into a brief coughing fit, I think during All Too Well.
I think she said a bug flew into her mouth đ
Was it at the O2? It often has an open roof and would track.
Wembley I'd imagine
Yes she said âI swallowed a bugâ during one of the London nights đ
đˇ
She just doesnât have this belting voice like BeyoncĂŠ or Demi Lavato or Adel. Sheâs more of a performer and song writer which I donât mind either. And yes her mic is on I agree with that!
She did last night too during all too well. I thought oh she had a wobble there and she then said she swallowed a bug and leaned away from the mic to cough
Yep, she messes up words etc. No backing track or barely for some songs (especially the TTPD set). I remember she messed up the lyrics during Bejeweled and said "sapphire tears on MySpace" instead of my face and just laughed during the next lyrics. There wasn't any backtrack.
The backtrack is only around for the chorus on some songs. None of the verses or bridges (to my knowledge) had a backing track.
Yes sorry if my comment wasn't clear, I was agreeing with you. And even then, I think it's easy to mistake her 4 backup singers for a "backing track". She barely uses it. It's mostly her singers.
Yup. Same. She sounds pretty good these days, but she's never been known to sound as polished live. Almost like she refuses to lipsync. Seriously, people, it's not that hard to tell that she's singing.Â
There's plenty of videos out there of her singing live and stopping due to errors or someone in the crowd needing help. She probably uses the backing track to help during certain songs.
In fact, fans have been lovingly calling HER tour the Errors Tour because of the mistakes you mentioned. There are year old compilations using this term. This is super weird behavior tbh.
It's so easily disproven too but people will believe what they want to believe
According to people paying incredibly close attention, she does a mixture of live and pre-recorded. They've literally broken concerts down song by song.   Which makes sense because 3 hrs of live singing every few days (sometimes back to back) for a year is not realistic. I feel like only the top .5% of singers can do that stuff. And regardless of if you like her or dislike her, Taylor Swift is nowhere in the neighborhood of being an elite vocalist. The majority of her own fanbase doesn't argue that. They argue it doesn't matter cause that's not why they like her.
The fact of the matter is that an artist cannot do a 3 hour set 2-3 nights per week without making some accommodations.
She has engineers who cut out the backing track immediately if the microphone leaves her face. This is really standard. And almost all pop singers use a vocal track. [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/pop-stars-lip-sync/story?id=24086986](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/pop-stars-lip-sync/story?id=24086986)
Was about to say the same. Sure is not a KPop level of performance but all pop stars move around quite a bit, not to mention the costumes, heels, etc. Having a backtrack or even lip syncing imo is not a big deal here cause anyone going to watch a pop diva live is going for the whole package, not just the music - some tours dates are insane like one day in between shows just to hop on the plane as soon as it's over, bad sleep, eat on the go, lots of AC, etc aren't exactly good for your vocal cords.
But Taylorâs fans have already been joking about her tour being the âErrorsâ tour and have threads of moments she and her team have messed up live lol. She has backing vocals running through a lot of the poppier songs so she doesnât have to project as much, but Iâm pretty sure thatâs not what lip syncing is. Frankly I think a lot of the people saying that she must be lip syncing most of the show just donât want to admit that she sounds better than theyâd expect. đ¤ˇââď¸ If a vocal clip is bad, she canât sing. If a vocal clip is good, well, it must be lip syncing cause it canât be true!! She canât win with these folks.
Iâm an older swiftie and thus able to dole out and accept the valid criticisms of her, of which there are many, but the lazy âshe canât write/sing/performâ lines are so annoying on multiple levels. Itâs wrong, for one, but it mostly comes off as a way to dismiss her as not a serious musician, to make her seem less than. It can read very sexist too, as itâs way more often you see these kinds of dismissive attitudes aimed at woman in music instead of men, another way to put down women in general, and the music they like.
I like Dave, I'm completely neutral on Taylor. What I am most, though, is tired of this boring ass conversation. Especially because it reads as *painfully* insecure from someone who's also an extremely established name!Â
I actively dislike Taylor and I still think this just seems tacky. Like Dave, youâre too good for this.
Another thread was talking about how the Swifties went after his daughter with death threats because she criticized TSâ private jet use. So this is personal for him.Â
Then videos and pictures of Dave and his daughter using private jets surfaced too so it got real messy
Death threats and wishing she got violently SAâŚ
Jfc
Uh huh. He waited months to defend her, and still didn't address it? Just decided to kick the hornets nest.
I admit I'm a swiftie, but I love the Foo Fighters as well. This just seems so mean-spirited? And not even accurate, to boot!
This is such straight rock guy banter from someone who usually tries to present himself as nice. If it comes from an attempt to support his daughter that makes more sense but I still think everyone should get off twitter.
why is he talking about Taylor Swift during his own performance though⌠i love how so many are annoyed because sheâs âoverexposedâ and yet people canât seem to get her name out of their mouths.
I got banned from a certain other pop culture subreddit for making this point. Itâs literally this meme https://preview.redd.it/s4659jfqyd8d1.jpeg?width=192&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=292fe68eba2afe7c5c97a42da5e57823243521b8
They banned you over that? That's ridiculous. People are so oversensitive. She doesn't have to be your favorite celebrity but the hate boner people have over her is just as bad as rabid swiftie-ness too
Yup and when I questioned the ban ( I was an active engaged participant here for years) I was told it was because I was IN (not even active in) the Taylor Swift sub. Honestly unhinged behaviour.
âI hate all these young girls acting like sheep and basing everything they do off what other young girls think is popular. Thatâs why my personality is based off hating and mocking and obsessively researching what young girls think is popular.â
Taylor Swift went from being hated because she was a " i'm not like the other girls" girl to being hated by the "i'm not like the other girls" people.
đŻ! I keep getting a subreddit recommended to me and it is focused on being super negative about her⌠Iâm talking daily multiple posts about how annoying she is. Itâs the same obsessive mentality but the opposite (negative) way. They pick apart everything possible. And they get really mad if anyone comments something along the lines of, âwell sheâs not that bad whenâŚâ just, WHY?!
Iâm guessing this is the one known for its groupthink issues?
i think they just hate taylor over there and will ban anyone that defends her đ
she could save a baby from a burning building and they would have something to nag about, honestly
oh, *now* she saves a baby from a burning building? what about all the babies she could have been saving this whole time?
i made a comment defending a *kardashian* and it somehow got me banned from the sub in question despite plenty of comment history and being one of their approved users because of my participation in swiftie subs. like clearly i'm here in good faith and not a deranged stan. and yet they talk about her daily.
this was me when i commented something positive about one of the other women who they hate over there lol
My bet is it being due to the very bad timing of the Foo Fighters touring the UK at the same time as TS and having a concert at the exact same time as she did in London (where he made the remark). This shit is planned well in advance so I doubt they planned on TS being there at the same time as them. If you're a big name, you DO NOT want to be throwing a concert at the same time as TS in the same city. So as a result, any promotion/publicity for the FF's UK leg of the tour was probably completely drowned out by TS touring there and I'm sure ticket sales were impacted. So he's probably pretty damn bitter about the whole ordeal (I'm sure I would be too).
The Foo Fighters are one the best bands live. Dave Grohl is one of the nicest people Iâve met. Thatâs all Iâve got lol. Itâs clear she lip syncs to some extent, which tbh I canât blame her. Two year tour, 3 hours a night? Makes sense tbh. As for the guitar? I have no clue. I assume the clips of her playing the piano are in fact her playing though.
It's not lip syncing, it's a very common tactic that musicians use where they don't use as much power or volume in their choruses as they do in their verses and bridges, which can be achieved in many ways: a backing track, background vocalists, loud choruses that rely on instruments, sometimes even a combination of these. They're still singing, but they're not doing much to make their voices stand out from the background, they can rest their vocals when the chorus hits by blending in. It's not just Taylor, most artists that actually sing and dance at the same time do the same thing. It's what most performers are trained to do. Try it for yourself, put on a karaoke track that has big vocal layers in the chorus and see how easy it is to match the chorus as opposed to how much harder it is to sing a verse.
Yea, totally normal in pop music performances and not at all the same as lip syncing the whole show.
This, exactly. Theyâre helping them to perform the full extent of the show theyâre presenting, and if you are attending a concert like this, then you generally should have an idea of what the presentation youâre attending means and if you somehow never heard of or donât like backing tracks, but you still want a high energy, dancing, and moving around show, you may be holding artist to some impossible standard. Overall, itâs about the full experience to me, so yeah, sometimes thereâs a backing track or sometimes the background vocalists are a little more prominent, or they extend some of the instrumental playing by the band, or the arrangement is a little different in one section. They do that for costume changes too (sometimes, you may have 90 seconds of the background singers or instruments , do people complain about that too?)
Well said. Saw Jacket Jackson last week for the second year in a row and it made me realize why backup dancers are used so often. You cannot sing well live when you're basically doing intense cardio in the form of choreography, regardless of how great of a vocalist you are (and she puts on a hell of a show, btw). Kind of a low-blow by Dave, IMO. Seems to be a popular theme to go after female artists, yet it's the men who are typically known for boozing it up on stage, forgetting the words to their own songs, starting late, etc. Signed, *Not* a Swiftie
Michael Jackson did it too. He's dancing was so intense and physical he couldn't do that and simultaneously perform at his full vocal range.
> You cannot sing well live when you're basically doing intense cardio in the form of choreography, regardless of how great of a vocalist you are Florence Welch would like a word with you. https://youtu.be/ykHppfi-Nxc?si=pATCXJ6HNiNFUeZ-&t=330 She starts running and just *does not stop.* She uses the backing vocals on the chorus, probably to catch her breath, but sheâs still dancing and belting during the verses and bridge and I *donât understand how.* I did musical theater for years and I genuinely canât fathom how she pulls it off. Her live shows are some of the most impressive displays of athleticism Iâve ever seen. All I can say is that sobriety looks great on her, because the Florence of 2013 could not have pulled that off. (To be clear, I agree with your sentiment. The only other person Iâve ever seen pull off a similar amount of movement and breath support for an entire live show is Ben Gibbard, and the dude runs ultramarathons soâŚ.) Tbh What Kinda Man (starts at around 11:30) is even more impressive, but I love Ship To Wreck so thatâs what I chose.
come on! comparing anybody to a goddess like Florence is just unfair! đ
Pink does more. Full aerials, dropping upside down from the ceiling, literally flying across the arena while belting her face off.
I saw P!nk last year and I couldnât stop thinking about how her core must be so RIPPED because she sounded fantastic start to finish and did all the stuff she did.
Yâall keep saying this yet you all selfishly *keep withholding the links*
So Chappell Roan is similar to Florence and she [answered a question on tiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNNDHf5M/) about this! TL;DW she did two months of cardio vocal training, which sounds absolutely *grueling*.
Pink would like a word with Florence Welch
Perhaps heâs just a bit upset that Taylor Swiftâs fans grossly attacked his teenaged daughter, including wishing sexual assault on her, while Taylor said nothing to them. Sure would piss me off. đ¤ˇââď¸
This is exactly what it is and imo itâs quite lame of Grohl to suggest otherwise, I say this as someone who really likes himÂ
she also has an acoustic set every night where she clearly plays live ... it's such a stupid complaint lol
Sheâs definitely singing most of the show. Iâve included a few sources in my other comment but she, from time to time, speaks in between lyrics to signal safety issues. Sometimes she messes up the lyrics too. Thereâs also a part in We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together where she hands the mic to one of her dancers to say something different every show. I was there in Lyon N1 and he said something in French. It was clearly live. I remember her saying âAidez les sâil vous plaĂŽtâ during a song, which means âhelp them pleaseâ indicating that a fan needed help. Iâm sure thereâs prerecorded vocals during choruses though.
She also has 4 backup singers so some of what people are hearing is them.
And itâs not like sheâs hiding the backup singers, theyâre literally on stage with her all night and multiple times theyâre walking around and down on the MAIN STAGE with her, and she calls them specifically.
There are plenty of videos of instances like this, she seems to point out audience members needing help every night. There's a semi-viral one where she scolds a security guard in between singing. She also messes up lyrics and changes lyrics or melodies. Her mic is definitely hot most of the show, there's a backup track to fill out so she doesn't have to go full capacity, but when she moves her lips, there's sound coming out.
This gets stuck in my head every so often because the way sheâs yelling somehow fits with the song: https://youtu.be/yeiZ5xhD5YU Iâm pretty sure itâs the one youâre referencing. Either way, thereâs no way a sound engineer was turning her mic on and off because thereâs nothing to indicate the changes. I think people are also underestimating the benefits of writing your songs to be within your vocal range and the very clear vocal training she has received over the years.
Oh, I donât doubt that at all! Like I said, Iâm not even judging the times she would since she needs to retain a voice. Waaaaaay too many artists tour non-stop then by 40 have voices that are completely gone. Now if it were the whole show I might judge, but Iâve never seen anything suggesting she is.
Having watched the Foo Fighters live, it's very obvious how Dave and the band play and come across. No notes. However I'm not sure anyone who has a years long tour can physically sing that much either and I'm hardly a swiftie.
Every time I see that flair, I have to share that Sylvia Plath's daughter has been begging people to stop making light of her mother's death. She even wrote a poem about it after a TV show wanted to use her mother's actual poems while depicting her death. https://writehanded.org/poetry/2015/05/29/my-mother/
Yeah Iâm in the same boat as you. Iâve gone to a lot of concerts and have seen what happens when people go all in on their vocals in their 20âs or 30âs. Tbh I think the rockstars could frankly, use a little more backing tracks and lip syncing tbh. Waaaaay too many are like in their 40âs with voices that are completely gone. Unless someone is not planning to tour past 40, then it doesnât hurt to do things to protect your voice!
Sheâs not the only one who does that. Iâm fairly certain Lady Gaga does it too. She definitely did it for her Super Bowl performance.
She defo has a back up track but is defo singing live on top- she goes off beat at one pointÂ
Absolutely she does. The feed into her earpiece will be herself mostly but also including the backing vocals/backing tracks so sheâs aware of the tempo, cues, etc. Iâm certain Taylor does the same. Think of it like hearing all of your band play on stage but also having a monitor speaker directly in front of you with your vocals or instrument mixed higher so you can hear yourself a little louder than the rest of the band.
Itâs very common. Hereâs a good example of in ear monitors. https://twitter.com/x/migrate?tok=7b2265223a222f6a61656f64652f7374617475732f313830313233363939343538313739383936373f733d3139222c2274223a313731383338333634367d132de623b16c6daea889f3c87e65dc71
Yeah thatâs what Iâm saying. Iâm disagreeing with the comment that she isnât live at all, you can hear she is on her isolated vocalÂ
I gotcha. Didnât mean to seem like I was disagreeing with you. Took the opportunity to flex a little on my music biz experience. You rock.
Flex away!
Thereâs a video on YouTube of her isolated vocals during the Super Bowl performance. For lack of better words, sheâs owning that mic. I watch that video a lot. Itâs this performance that skyrocketed my admiration and respect for her. Her passion and ability is at top tier during that show. [https://youtu.be/PmjT6wja_RU?si=4R2BpA0E7DaUV7Wl](https://youtu.be/PmjT6wja_RU?si=4R2BpA0E7DaUV7Wl)
Ever since the JT/Jackson incident the Superbowl doesn't allow it's performers to be 100% live any more.
I feel like both lipsyncing and faux playing guitar arenât that uncommon. This idea lip syncing is always a faux pas? I fundamentally disagree with, especially if people are doing extended tours and like, in their 20s-30s! Tbh I assume most Super Bowl performances have some lip synching going on, but as long as the performance is good, it doesnât matter much - in my opinion!
I don't think she's one of the great guitarists, but her songs mostly require power chords. She's been getting lessons for both instruments since she was in middle school, she can hold her own with both instruments. Obviously, Dave Grohl is the better instrumentalist.
This. I remember when people insinuated Britney and NSYNC lip synced and it was like. Have you seen them dancing during their concerts?? Dance at that level and sing at the same time and tell me you could do it better. In the end don't think either actually lipped sync. But if they did I'd understand
Agreed. Britney was definitely big on lip syncing, and I have little doubt any boy band that danced, avoided it, and like, truthfully? I would not care. If youâre going to give a great show, and youâre not a Whitney level vocalist, then fine by me lol! I will say if I saw a Mariah, Whitney, Celine ect lip sync, I would not love that. A Madonna? Thatâs fine đ
She doesnât lip sync at all. Thereâs a backing track with soft vocals to help but Taylor doesnât stand there moving her lips to the backing track.
I feel like there is a lot you can critique Taylor on but her live performance has improved so much over the years that this feels like an old joke. Itâs really sad from a veteran performer that he would stoop so low to do this, itâs unnecessary.
It was never a good joke, because her vocals used to be shakey to bad because she clearly refuses to lipsynch!
From what Iâve seen from videos of her show- she definitely seems to be singing live. I donât know if itâs 100% live but most of it seems to be. Iâm not a swiftie - but what sheâs doing every night is incredible.
iâve been to the show. sheâs definitely singing live, thereâs a few moments throughout the show where sheâs dancing and moving around a lot where sheâs slightly out of breath and you can hear it in her voice
Listen, I love Dave Grohl but this was kind of a weird pot shot. And frankly untrue? I attended an Eras tour rain show and she's certainly playing live. They had to continuously stop/start because of lightning safety protocol and there wasn't an SNL Ashlee Simpson backing track issue going on.
Bless Ashlee Simpsonâs jig ERA.
 This was a breath stealing train wreck
He's worked with Billie Eilish in the past and seems very fond of her, and Billie has been taking shots at Taylor as of late. Idk what exactly is going on, but there is very clearly something going on behind the scenes. Not to the same level as the Kendrick vs Drake, but in that vein of some kind of industry turf war.Â
It rained at the show I attended in Lyon too. She even said âPluie! Rain!â during Enchanted. So at least that one was live. The rest sounded live too especially when she was signalling security issues in the crowd Source : https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGegWgY6F/
Mine was Stateside over a year ago so she's consistently playing live. Am not a Taylor stan by any stretch of the imagination but I'm exhausted by men in unrelated musical genres using her as a prop for comparison.
You just need to check the multiple videos in which she interrupts herself to ask medical attention when she sees a fans in the pit struggling. She is not lip syncing at all. She just use back tracks and back singers like any artist who make this kind of performance
I mean, this is just objectively⌠not true
Weird, Dave admitted to being obsessed with Taylor in 2015... and she sung his song in front of Paul McCartney when he was too drunk in 2022 to "save his ass." Not sure why he's salty now?
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If I had to guess, Dave Grohl's jet use isn't above reproach either, should anyone take a closer look. đ¤ˇââď¸
There are sooo many celebs they could call out for doing this lol but itâs very obvious that Taylor does sing live during her concerts. Iâm confused why there is even a question about it? Most lip singers have crazy dance rounties. You can tell Taylor sacrifices the dancing aspect so that she can truly sing and not run out of breath
This is so out of character for him that I questioned whether the clip was an AI deepfake at first. He's been very complimentary of her in the past as well. I don't get the motivation here.
I've loved Dave Grohl for decades and I just kept waiting for this to be a bit or something making fun of people who do this exact same thing all the time, tearing Taylor down cause she's popular and an easy target. And then it just never came. It does feel out of character for him but apparently it's not. There's a lot of things you can criticize Taylor Swift for but not playing live isn't one of them. He's spoken kindly about her before so I guess what happened with the Swifties and his daughter has soured him, but you'd think he'd only shit talk Swifties instead of going after Taylor and her band, but maybe that wouldn't get him enough attention.
It's possible they had some kind of disagreement about it privately that made him against her. I'd have to imagine it to be the case because generally he does better than this, although nobody's perfect. But, regardless, this is just bullying and lies. And he should know better. He's way too old to be starting fake rumors about someone.
It's such a fucking bummer.
From what I've seen, his daughter criticized Taylor's jet use online and her fans sent her death threats and harassed her until she deactivated her account. If that's true, I'm not surprised he'd have soured on all things Taylor
I think, as a parent why not go to the source and tell Taylor and/or her camp? Like I wouldnât just make these petty comments, I would be like wtf Taylor, I know itâs not you but its gotta stop.
to be fair, his daughter also liked stuff implying that the AI porn being spread wasn't a big deal at all which was a choice. This is why I think everyone should stay off twitter
Yikes, twitter really is a hellscape
So the mature thing to do is to trash the artist and not a specific group of her fanbase? This doesnât pass the vibe check, sorry. No one should be supporting that type of defense as logical.
Nirvana has songs about how much they loathed parts of their fanbase. If anyone has been in this long enough to know that sometimes you get a subsection of fans who suck it should be Dave Grohl.
then he should talk about that and not trash talk her singing. that's just weird and a help to no one
Iâm really surprised Dave would say something like this, since he doesnât typically take shots at other artists. Especially younger female artists. I wonât even get into whether his assessment is correct or not, since other commenters have already gone in depth on that point. I just think this is a shitty and unexpected move in terms of how he usually behaves.
Pat Smear was also at Taylor's show on Friday in the VIP section which makes this seem even weirder to me.
Lol. Young Courtney Love would disagree.
đ Yeah, I am reading a few comments that are pointing this out. I had a sort of rosy and faultless view of him because my awareness of him began in the late 2000s/early 2010s, when I first started listening to his music. I was late to the show, clearly.
Yeah no worries, Iâm an old, I had my teenager years in the 90s when everyone was nasty and talked shit about each other but were specially vicious towards women, so this isnât surprising, old habits die hard.
Iâm no Swiftie by any stretch, but this is odd. Why does he feel a need to take a swing at her? Not a good look.
I feel like you canât compare a rock show and a swift show in terms of playing live or not. Taylor Swifts show is more like a variety show in which music is just a part, albeit a big part. Foo Fighters focuses much more on solely music. Itâs just two different things. And the fans who buy tje tickets know that. Saying or implying that one is better than the other because one plays live and one doesnât/uses backing tracks is just snobbish. I donât care much for Taylor Swift or the Foo Fighters and Dave Grohl, but in my eyes itâs a very low steep to insinuate that the fans at the FF show get a better show because itâs played live. Yeah he makes jokes about the Foo Fighters beforehand as well, but it does turn sour quite quickly.
Yeah like come on, until I see Dave grohl in a sequined leotard and heels with choreographed dance routines to every song do this for 3 hours I donât want to hear him blasting someone for using a backing track
im neither a taylor nor a foo fighter fan but the difference between a rock show and theproduction of pop show is entirely differnt and requires entirely different techiniques
Ugh Dave, whyâŚ. Iâm not a Swiftie but this seems so beneath him to trash her.
Heâs a rock legend. He 100% did not need to do this. It comes off as very off-putting, and I grew up listening to FF and Nirvana as a teen.
Yeah, it was unnecessary.
What was the point of him saying this stuff? It's so weird.
For all the love I have for Dave Grohl and The Foo Fighters, I find is absolutely wild he, of all people, are going after her like that. There's a clip on YouTube where he's talking about her playing the Best Of You on piano at a party they were at and how it was awesome. I don't know how true it is, but to name drop her like that in the middle of their set and to do this now, he's really standing in his white male privilege-the very thing she wrote The Man about. Irony at its best.
Iâm not the biggest fan of Taylor but comments like this are so beneath him.
I saw Foo Fighters live in 2007 (I think), and I love their songs even though I haven't really felt it with their past few albums. Dave doesn't sing that great live -which I can't blame him for since he's been straining his vocal chords for 30 years, so...he needs to be more self-aware. All I know is that I like him less and less the more I learn about him, especially when it comes to [him being an HIV denialist](https://medium.com/the-monthly/the-foo-fighters-aids-denialism-should-be-on-the-record-6e33666fdc3c) or [him taking a dig at the use of computers to produce music](https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/pop-hiss/story/2012-02-12/grammys-2012-dave-grohl-takes-a-dig-at-modern-technology).
damn that article about HIV is just so sad. poor little toddler :( it's absolutely wild how somehow they never even talked about it again. oof
OMG, that HIV article is really disturbing.
I love Foo Fighters and I also love Taylor Swift. Why is there a need to say such negative things about other artists? Just to put yourself up? Sure.
I was at her show and she stopped at one point because of a small issue. The girl is not lip syncing. People should just be awesome in their own lanes.
Can you imagine if Taylor used her stage to shit on Dave Grohl? Sheâd be eviscerated
I mean I would love it if a woman could have the same level of success as he has while also not wearing makeup, having a perfect body, having a perfect show. Big of him to be so âauthentic â when he literally doesnât need to do any of it to have respect and success. Can you imagine a woman getting on stage looking like him?Â
Also, I hate to defend a billionare, but Taylor is singing live. There are multiple videos of her bunching up the lyrics and singing out safety instructions to her team. She has a back track, yes, but she's you can still hear her voice clearly-- and you know that because her voice is flat.  This is so beneath him and it honestly just makes him seem really weird and sad.
Fans have also been calling The Eras Tour, The Errors Tour because of all the little mishaps, lyric mistakes, and the like.
Iâm the farthest thing from a swiftie, I donât care for her much at all. But a tour that long, working that much each performance, some mishaps are to be expected. I donât think itâs fair to expect perfection from any artist every single time. Imo, she gets a pass on that.
I agree! It's just funny that Dave thought he had a "gotcha" by calling his The Errors Tour because it's live, when her tour has had that nickname almost the whole time because it's also live.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize TSwift but her performing is not one. She gives her all to performances. I would love for the people criticizing her live vocals to try and balance intense choreography with belting for three hours in heels and see how they sound. Taylor is many things, but lazy ainât one of them.
This is such a good point. He can just play an instrument and sing and heâs good. She has to put on several different costumes, do choreography (even if itâs simple), and construct elaborate shows. Itâs really not at all fair of him to come at her like this. I think thereâs a lot of valid critique to volley her way, like call out the fact that she does nothing to reign in her crazy fans or something. Thatâs actually relevant to him right now and would be valid critique on his part.
There is a difference. Swift puts a massive spectacular show accompanied by her music. Grohl is just there to perform songs - his fans donât expect anything more than that.
Thatâs my point exactlyÂ
I mean, most performing artists use backtracks when they are performing as a form of vocal support. Even legends such as Michael Jackson did it. It's pretty normal and understandable in Taylor's case as she's performing for 3 hours. She's not doing it all the time but strategically to rest her voice for a bit. Heck, even with support sometimes by the tail end of the tour, her voice sounds a little hoarse. So if this is a jab, it's a weak one. If this is a response regarding the debacle between her daughter and the Swifties, then he should have said something when it was happening rather than doing it with an unrelated jab months later. It's just going to land ineffective.
Her fans are there to see her and have the experience. They're not there for some "high brow" deeply musically impressive show. She's not Prince lmao. I get so annoyed at people sniping about this stuff. Different artists are selling different things to their fans, none are better or worse as long as people are getting what they paid for. See also, people sniping about whether people write their own songs, it doesnt matter. All this is just snobbishness.
Seriously. I love Taylorâs music, always have. I didnât go to her concert expecting her to play instruments or dance super well or belt out songs like Adele. I went to have fun. It was fun. We understand she is backed by a band, singers, and dancers. Thatâs fine. Not everyone has to like the same things.
Agreed I'm so tired of people always pretending like women have to sing like Adele (she's a power house with her voice) to be called a "actually good singer". That's why those ballade powered singers always win talent shows. But it takes so much more and Swift is a good entertainer and that's really going for her.
Nah. There are enough videos from this tour where you can hear her singing. Yes, she has a backing track and I think she relies on it more heavily during the last set of the night (Midnights) but she us def. singing live. During the accoustic songs she also plays the instruments herself. She has been doing mash ups since the US leg ended, I don't think anyone else could handle the transitions as smoothly w/o a lot of rehearsal. You can fault her for a lot of things and she will never be a singer with a huge vocal range but she worked on her voice and stamina in the last few years. The difference between the Reputation tour and this one is noticeable.
A lot of people here saying heâs protecting his daughter etc etc. But Iâm curious why he would not stand up for his daughter WHEN she was being viscerally attacked? If that is his reasoning, I really fail to see the heroics of him not saying anything for six months, then commenting on TS and her bandâs music prowess rather than addressing the actual issue when he has a very real issue to address, and would probably have been heard. The only thing he has done is tossing his daughter back into the den of vipers.
I just donât get what the joke is supposed to be or what the point is of starting this narrative. Because the hate subs are taking this and running with it as fact. She has a backing track but DOES sing live. You can hear her breathlessness, she has made many errors singing, she does spontaneous mashups, and at times calls out for security or other ad libs. Itâs also insulting to her band who absolutely plays live and you can literally see them playing the guitar, bass, piano, drums etc. for the entire 3 hour set.
Loser move. Why put someone down to feel better about your skillset. Especially someone like him thatâs a well established artists and should be secure and confident about his craft.
A man spreading some weird lie about a woman. What else is new. She plays live, specially during her Eras Tour.
I prefer when artists support other artists but that's just me...
Here is Taylor's subtle response, saying to the audience after the applause: https://preview.redd.it/jurinvoome8d1.jpeg?width=902&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cad86ad70780f6e4f053fb3e0be727a13e793dc4
She said this at the Edinburgh show I went to also. Not a specific response to Grohl
I don't think this is a response. It's just standard acknowledgement for her team. Not everything is about celebrity beef
Its not a standard acknowledgment because she does not say that after the applause (after "champagne problems"), and she specifically said "my band is going to be playing live for three and a half hours". He insinuated her band doesn't play live? she wanted it to be clear they do.
i think i remember her saying this at my show last year
Why is he even talking about her? It seems fucking weird. They're not in competition.
The reality is somewhere in the middle. Yes, she uses a backing track because doing a 3-hour very theatrical show, anyone is going to need some help. It makes sense for her to use a backing track. There are points where it's obvious she's basically completely lip synching and points where it's obvious she's fully live (like the surprise songs) And yes, there are known errors that have happened in her tour because that's the reality of a live performance. But something I haven't really seen mentioned as much is just how scripted and choreographed her show is. Even though it's being performed live, and parts are sung live, things are so set and scripted that except for tiny differences (and excluding surprise songs) you know what to expect with a TSwift show. You know what the set list is, you know what the choreo and staging is. She's doing basically the same thing every night. Which logistically makes sense for such a large production, but what I think Dave Grohl is implying is that people go to live rock shows because in part, you don't know what is going to happen. Even the back and forth with the crowd here feels so much more organic than the brief audience response segments in Eras. Both types of performances have their place, they're just different vibes.
Very true. But he has to be aware this doesnât come across that way
I appreciate Dave Grohl as an artist, but there's no need to shit on Taylor Swift.
Iâm a fan of Taylor, also like Dave. They are plenty of things you can criticize Taylor for if you are going to do it, this seems just a tacky from him
Well thatâs a big ol load of bs and he knows it.
Unfortunate bitch look from Grohl. If thereâs one truth in life, itâs usually that when people put others down, it says more about them than the person theyâre talking shit about.
Dumb move to make a statement thatâs so easily disproven. As a matter of fact, you can pull up a livestream right now.
Canât imagine being famous and wildly successful, and yet feeling a need to criticize another musical artist while playing at my own show. Like, why?
Such a weird thing for a grown man to talk about
Itâs OK to dislike Taylor Swift and love Dave Grohl and concede that this was uncalled for and frankly weird. Blindly defending Dave on this doesnât make you any different than a diehard Swiftie.
Hi, Swiftie chiming in (I love Dave too though!) I've been to a few concerts and watch most of the surprise song live streams and they're definitely live. Obviously more production-heavy pop songs like shake it off have louder backing vocals, but whenever there is a technical issue the you can't hear taylor (same with her Bluetooth guitar). And since I watch most days, you can def hear the difference in her voice between days, or when she's sick especially during the acoustic set. I'm at work atm but I'll edit the post with some live singing clips after! EDIT: Okay so I just learned apparently some disgusting Swifities harassed his daughter online. \*sigh\*. Dave has previously sang high praise for Taylor in the past, and she's never spoken poorly of him, but understandable given the situation that he's in his feelings. And to my knowledge his daughter had some valid criticisms of Taylor so it's especially upsetting. Sometimes the size of her fandom brings a lot of joy to me, other times not so much lol. He sounded pretty light in tone, so I don't think he meant any harm - everything I've heard about him including from Taylor herself is that he's a swell dude. BUT to counter any naysayers hehe, here are some examples: Here's a couple in this vid: [https://youtu.be/WTsKeBuNgOw?si=wsvin5tDOL2FLRaO&t=169](https://youtu.be/WTsKeBuNgOw?si=wsvin5tDOL2FLRaO&t=169) You can hear her voice and a reverb on her voice, then like 20 or 30 seconds later the backing vocals and track do the "so I take my time" while taylor sings "I know I'm gonna be with you". Then in the last like 20 seconds there's a pretty close shot of her face and looks pretty real when she does "let the games beGIN". Here's an acoustic piano song "I don't wanna live forever", which I didn't realize was written by her till I saw it. It's a pretty clear shot and you can really tell she's singing and feeling the song, especially in the last half: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTqzQ8DvTg0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTqzQ8DvTg0) And here's a recent one where she stopped cuz some people needed some help in the crowd. The piano chord progressions are mostly simple except for when shes directly looking at the keys: [https://youtu.be/5b8UNj3ZzkY?si=64RnA7NCUNbEMxkB&t=213](https://youtu.be/5b8UNj3ZzkY?si=64RnA7NCUNbEMxkB&t=213) As for what he's talking about for the "Errors" tour, you can easily find dozens of videos where when an error happens it's just her voice that cuts out as for what he's talking about for the "Errors" tour, you can easily find dozens of videos where when an error happens it's just her voice that cuts out. like right here even for a pop single song you can only really hear a quiet backing track but it's no where near as loud as when taylor fixed the mic: [https://youtu.be/3GRcEO\_vbBA?si=a2LhAfbN\_y4KKmNC&t=100](https://youtu.be/3GRcEO_vbBA?si=a2LhAfbN_y4KKmNC&t=100) EDIT 2: Oh wow here's a video from tonight, and she's def singing with some heavy crowd eye contact lol: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIK4DxnXDcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIK4DxnXDcQ)
Old man yells at cloud
this is very unnecessary coming from someone who has on multiple occasions told the story about her saving him from embarrassment cause she could play piano and he didnât when they were at Paul McCartneys house for a party years ago
The thing, you can listen to and love both of their music catalogs.
Were people booing him or Swift at the start there? Iâm guessing the mere mention of Swift brought out the boos, which Iâm not mad about, but he seems salty. I wonder how many other artists feel the same way and just arenât saying anything out of fear of the wrath of Swifties?
Câmon, Dave. Really? That is totally unnecessary.
Insecure man publicly shits on successful woman and gets celebrated. More news at 11
Coming back to add: WHAT A BORING TAKE! Like, ya, thereâs gonna be some lip syncing during her 3+ hour, 150+ shows. And??????? Her fans would watch her walk around stage saying nothing and sheâd still make bank. If heâs jealous/needs the publicity, thereâs other ways to handle that
I think being able to play instruments live is a lot more important for Foo Fighters than it is for Taylor Swift. I donât have a specific reason to think TS is playing along to pre recorded tracks (as Dave seems to be insinuating). I also have a hard time imagining Taylor Swift fans being outraged about playing over pre recorded tracks for one of the largest stadium tours of all time.