Ashlee Simpson - video of lip synching on SNL

The media excerpt link is apparently courtesy of Brett Meisner from this discussion. Here's another possible link.

Dang! The one Saturday night I didn't record SNL and this classic moment happens! I've commented about the so-called "live" stuff on this blog before. Sure, stuff happens; things get mucked up on stage. But ya gotta go with it, right? But to walk out on the band? That was probably not a good thing.

Ashlee Simpson's band deserves lots of credit (rather than the blame she publicly lumped on them) for hammering it out and hanging in there...when performing live there's no such thing as "the wrong song" - once that train is in motion, that's the one going down the tracks.

Given that things can and will go wrong on stage, it pays to be able to "wing it" just a little bit. A pathetic little "hoe-down" dance for 15 seconds and then escaping from the stage is far from sufficient.

The reality is that a great opportunity was lost because of lack of preparation on Ahslee's part. And I'm not talking about the preparation for a "computer glitch" but rather the preparation of just being well-rounded entertainer - the preparation of being able to take the blame instead of passing it to "the band"- the preparation of being able to be in the moment, keep a cool head, and get through the tune, however poorly it comes off.

It's interesting when a singer/musician forgets a lyric, comes in wrong or just botches it big time - hey that happens; everyone is human. But the stuff that separates the hacks from the pros is what they're able to do next.

If you put entertainers from another era in the same situation, I wonder what Judy Garland would have done? How about Tony Orlando? Bobby Darrin? My guess is these seasoned entertainers (whom I'm sure experienced their share of "situations") would probably have turned the event to their advantage and at least gotten a laugh out of it.

And if this fiasco happened to a Jazz musician? Forget it! If a Jazz musician falls on stage and there's no one there to hear them, then that's called a typical night at the club! (I just made that up - and that's winging it!)

The SNL audience (both TV and in-house) was prepared to listen to some mediocre corporate manufactured pop music, but instead were subjected to Ashlee Simpson's great escape. And when reviewed that way, maybe Ashlee did us all a favor!