I worked with a vocalist recently, who decided to take my wireless mic and sing from the other side of the hall. I guess for "shtick" or some such thing. (like no one has ever seen a wireless before, right? 2004? Huh?) As you know, and any experienced singer SHOULD know, sound takes time to travel, so there's a slight delay from the time he sings into his mic till the time he hears himself. Likewise, he hears the music on a slight delay. So he kept singing according to what he heard, throwing the whole band off tempo...the band would adjust to accomodate the singer's change, and the singer would hear THAT change with a delay, hence a vicious cycle was unleashed.Speaking of wireless mics... I did one gig where one of the bride's relatives --in a black hat and payos-- was standing in front of the band the entire first dance set. This fellow was gesturing towards the guitarist, and playing air guitar, pretty much the entire set.
When the band was about to begin the second dance, he pulled out a wireless headset mic and asked if he could sing with the band. The band owner decided to let him sing because"nobody minds" and so we plugged in his mic and began the second dance set with the Belzer hora. This singer --who does ocasionally perform at gigs -- immediately began dancing and clutching at his headset mic ala Michael Jackson/Britney Spears. The sight of a guy in a suit, black hat, and payos dancing like this was enough to cause all of the musicians to "lose it" laughing, but then the singing began. I never thought I'd hear the Belzer Nigun "sung" with rap inflections and phrasing, but this guy proceeded to do it. We were all laughing so hard the regular vocalists couldn't sing. And of course, everyone kept looking at the band as though this was our idea. He "rapped" through the entire hora set -- I never laughed so hard for so long at a gig. I'd never allow it on my own gig, but it was quite funny.
