Can You Say "Milli Vanilli"

  
Villi Manilli                            Red Hot Chili Peppers

From the Chicago Tribune: As our regular readers might recall, we didn't especially enjoy Red Hot Chili Peppers' appearance Sunday night during the otherwise-delightful Super Bowl halftime show by Bruno Mars.
Did our distaste for the band's rendition of "Give It Away" have anything to do with the fact that Flea appeared to be playing a bass that wasn't plugged in, as a number of keen-eyed observers pointed out following the performance? It did not.
Before it's a concert, the Super Bowl halftime show is -- like the football game that surrounds it -- a full-tilt TV spectacle, one far more dependent on energy and charisma and visual style than on whether actual instruments are being actually played before our eyes and ears.
A great live vocal performance, such as the one Mars gave at the end of his gig in "Just the Way You Are," is nothing to be dismissed, especially if the singer is also busy providing energy and charisma and visual style. But it's not crucial to a halftime's success....
The takeaway? The Chili Peppers (or three-fourths of them) weren't playing their instruments at the Super Bowl.
But Flea has his reasons for doing so, and they're ones that strike us as pretty reasonable. In fact, he writes, "I would do it all the same way again."
Read on below for Flea's full statement:
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 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?   http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-lat-red-hot-chili-peppers-were-miming-at-super-bowl-20140204,0,4793801.story
At least they admitted to it even though it was a fake performance