Yeah, they got it!

October 23, 2020 9:06 AM

The Go-Go's perform "We Got the Beat" live for The Today Show, September 2020. (SLYT) (The Go-Go's previously)

I'm a huge fan of this clip, but especially Jane Wiedlin's haircut.

posted by Gelatin (38 comments total)

Jane Wiedlin is my hero for all time.
posted by mykescipark at 9:11 AM on October 23, 2020 [14 favorites]

They look like they're having such fun.
posted by Gelatin at 9:13 AM on October 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

I'm just waiting for some tv show set in the '80s to use 'This Town' in a prominent scene.
posted by box at 9:16 AM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

I wonder how they did this live. I thought the usual way to do a music performance over Zoom was to record all the parts separately with a metronome and then combine them later.
posted by zixyer at 9:43 AM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

Middle-aged ladies still killing it. Love them all.
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:13 AM on October 23, 2020 [6 favorites]

Here are the Go-Go’s performing the same song forty years ago, with their original bassist Margot Olavarria.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:20 AM on October 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

My wife has tried (and tried and tried) to set up realtime video/audio for music, choir specifically. It's demonically hard to do, and depends on all kinds of Deep Magic from Before Time networking considerations. She was just about able to get it to work for two people with really good network connections, one of them being a professional audio engineer, but for three connections it seemed impossible.

If they really managed to get it to work for five people, that's beyond amazing to me.
posted by bonehead at 10:23 AM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

This is so joyful!!!
posted by kimberussell at 10:25 AM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Almost certainly pre-recorded, given all the video remixing. But yow! Middle-aged ladies rocket!
posted by tspae at 10:28 AM on October 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

"I wonder how they did this live. I thought the usual way to do a music performance over Zoom was to record all the parts separately with a metronome and then combine them later."

Despite the title of "live from the Today show", I don't see anything in the video that indicates that this wasn't done that way.

The Showtime documentary mentioned in the "previously" link is fantastic.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:33 AM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

With all of the edits and split-screen stuff, there's no way they actually played this live, outside of the context of the Today Show crew playing a pre-recorded segment in the middle of their live program.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:42 AM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

Well, shoot, the Go-Go's' YouTube channel lied to me.
posted by Gelatin at 10:48 AM on October 23, 2020

This is great! And no, there is no real-time, simultaneous, mediated music-making possible right now, the solutions just aren't there (or are not widely available enough, e.g., just one or two slow/laggy connections will completely tank an ensemble's ability to play/sing together). This is tracked & mixed, but no less fun for it.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:58 AM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

I mean, ISDN has been a thing for decades. They could have played it live together (audio-only), then edited the video together. Or they could have recorded all the tracks except the vocal, then had Belinda Carlisle sing over it live.
posted by The Tensor at 11:10 AM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

I think the only live realtime performance I've seen is a modular synthesizer improv group, where time alignment was always accidental, anyways.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:12 AM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

ISDN has been a thing for decades

ISDN isn't multi-nodal and multi-directional, is it? And it requires a whole bunch of specialized equipment and codecs and etc. The thing with ensemble music-making is that everyone needs to hear everyone else, in real-time with virtually no lag, in all directions over all connections, using gear/software/networks available at (all) home(s). Otherwise, remote recording over a click or other already-recorded tracks is still just tracking, but with distance.

We've found one solution that can do that fairly well with up to 10-12 musicians simultaneously, but the connection requirements for each participant currently prohibit any common usage, especially from homes. There is also a solution that works with some-but-not-catastrophic delay for 5-8 participants, our student jazz combos have been using it mostly for fun and to practice together but say it's not useful for actual rehearsal; we're using another tool that works well for vocalists up to 10 participants, but only the director/instructor can hear everyone while the singers only hear themselves and the accompanist.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:33 AM on October 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

One of them could have been playing "Riders On The Storm" and Protools could probably fix it
posted by thelonius at 11:45 AM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

ISDN isn't multi-nodal and multi-directional, is it?
Doesn't need to be. This is a TV production, they could have had a drop at each home, brought it all back to the studio and done an audio and vision mix live. It's how a lot of sports events are covered. Sync sound? Use a landline, essentially lag free, for return sync sound. Cel phones and internet are too laggy.

Hell NBC could have had terrestrial microwave and a small crew at each location. Or satellite trucks for that matter
posted by Zedcaster at 11:54 AM on October 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

...Or even set up a "home" in a nearby NBC affiliate studios.

But yeah, those grids of singers and musicians are never actually live. A couple of years ago Berklee School of Music made a fuss about having two performers on opposite coasts play together, and I think they used a dedicated circuit across Internet2 that probably had all sorts of Cisco nerds sweating it out until it was done.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:05 PM on October 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

But the Go-Gos are awesome: they do, indeed, still have the beat.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:05 PM on October 23, 2020 [8 favorites]

they could have had a drop at each home

running a custom drop for a three-minute number seems like quite a lot of effort and $$$, even for a national morning show.

especially when the problem of remote recording has been solved for decades. This is only slightly different than any other remote recording scenario, the only complications are that there's video involved and it's happening in everyone's living room.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:15 PM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Occam's razor also applies to online performances. Although NBC could have sent someone to each of their houses to set up equipment for an expensive ISDN connection, I think it's safe to assume this was done just like all the. others. They each record themselves separately to a click (or, more likely, a recording of the song), and then it's assembled later. Far cheaper and faster for the same result.
posted by jonathanhughes at 12:17 PM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

Jane Weidlin's haircut is super dope, but I gotta say her outfit is every bit as dope.

she's just like 100% dope head to toe. still got the rock n' roll bounce too. love to watch it from my middle-aged work from home station where I am slowly turning into pudding.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:17 PM on October 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

Use a landline, essentially lag free, for return sync sound. Cel phones and internet are too laggy.

I have some bad news about landlines - a lot of them run over the internet these days and even if you're wired right into your neighbourhood exchange a landline still gets jammed into a 32kbps window (or less) over the backhaul.

Or satellite trucks for that matter

Awesome as this performance is, I'm not sure it justifies corralling every satellite truck in LA to record. And if you think cell phones are laggy, well...

anyway, good to see people still love the Gogos.
posted by GuyZero at 12:20 PM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

A very very great song but still not as good as "Our Lips Are Sealed," which I rank among the most brilliant tunes ever recorded.
posted by Dr. Wu at 12:59 PM on October 23, 2020 [9 favorites]

A very very great song but still not as good as "Our Lips Are Sealed," which I rank among the most brilliant tunes ever recorded.

I know! A lot of people will tell you "We Got The Beat" is the superior song, but pay no mind to what they say; doesn't matter anyway-hey-hey-HEY.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:20 PM on October 23, 2020 [11 favorites]

"Head Over Heels" is the winner, just for that first chorus when the staccato chords suddenly go away, and the funky bass riff and handclaps appear out of nowhere.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:28 PM on October 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

Occam's razor also applies to online performances. More importantly, a trouble free show applies. I'm almost certain that the performance wasn't live-to air.

Having said all that, it was a great performance. I'm also loving that people are referring to 60 year olds as "middle aged". Head over Heels FTW.
posted by Zedcaster at 1:31 PM on October 23, 2020 [6 favorites]

I'm also loving that people are referring to 60 year olds as "middle aged".

60 is the new old age of youth. 70 is the new youth of old age.

//69 and still rockin
posted by tspae at 3:11 PM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

Awesome as this performance is, I'm not sure it justifies corralling every satellite truck in LA to record. And if you think cell phones are laggy, well...

The odd 1985 video of Mick Jagger and David Bowie performing Dancing in the Street came about but because they had apparently planned to sing a transatlantic duet during Live Aid, until the engineers explained... why this was a bad notion.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:12 PM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

I've said it before: 2020 has become the year of the video editor - so much great "at home" content being spliced and diced and produced by so many unsung editors.
posted by jazon at 3:14 PM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm also loving that people are referring to 60 year olds as "middle aged".

I recently watched an episode of The Golden Girls for the first time, so it occurred to me that the Go-Go's are the same age as the characters in that. It wouldn't surprise me if a writer somewhere with covid time on their hands is polishing a "Golden Girls but a band" elevator pitch.
posted by betweenthebars at 3:15 PM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

I just realized I didn't include a link for 'This Town,' my favorite Go-Go's song, in my comment way upthread.

Here's a good one: Palos Verdes High School, 1981. Comparing this 1981 show to 'We Got the Beat' from 1980 (shared above) is an interesting exercise.
posted by box at 3:31 PM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

it occurred to me that the Go-Go's are the same age as the characters in that.

The actresses who played the Golden Girls ranged from 51 to 63 when the show began; the Go-Gos currently are anywhere from 61 to 67.

As I have said before, people don't age the way they used to. Those were written about actors, bit if we think about music, legendarily over-the hill old fogies band The Traveling Wilburys covered a span from baby Tom Petty (37 when the first album was released) to old man Roy Orbison (52). Today Nikki Minaj is 37 and Kylie Minogue is 52.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:35 PM on October 23, 2020 [6 favorites]

Speaking as someone who is a contemporary of these women, I would like to echo what someone wrote in the YouTube comments: they may have gotten older, but they have not gotten old.

They are wonderful, and I am glad you posted this.
posted by AMyNameIs at 4:03 PM on October 23, 2020 [8 favorites]

Just glad they all stopped suing each other. Nice to see.

And Yes, Jane Wiedlen is a hero...
posted by Windopaene at 4:30 PM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

I've said it before: 2020 has become the year of the video editor - so much great "at home" content being spliced and diced and produced by so many unsung editors.

When they hold the Pandemic Awards For Shit Made At Home in 2020, Two Minutes To Late Night's Bedroom Covers series had better be a damn nominee.
posted by Sauce Trough at 6:43 PM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Still got the beat, still lookin’ foxy as hell.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:09 AM on October 24, 2020 [1 favorite]