I like the Bee Gees but I must admit I thought they were miming as soon as they started.

Barry seemed out of sync to me.

I loved the Bee Gees back in the 70s

Last night was cringingly awful - definitely miming as it was out of sync.

Harry Connick Jnr certainly has topped the celeb performances on SCD

Barry should get something done with his hair it was very distracting. Other than that I enjoyed it - it was good to see them again and I really thought they were singing live - but what do I know?

I didn't like the Bee Gees performance. Their voices only sound good on record...they just sound odd live.

I wonder why someone doesn't just tell these old acts to give it up. Bee Gees were embarrassing as was Andy Williams a few weeks back. They were good in their time but they gotta know when to stop. Like tired old boxers who go too long.

They made Andy Williams look and sound young!

Is there a room in the BBC that houses all the down and out acts? I reckon the producers just go in and hook one out each week at random.

Listen and be overawed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-gZKRKNy4w

Funny you should say that, my cat left the room when the "singing" started.

Most of the singers are far too old! One of my sister's friends sang at the wedding of one of the BeeGees. From this fact I would estimate that they are about 70.

Look, Bruce Forsyth is an outstanding young talent (a/c to the BBC) so the BeeGees are but novices in the land of the Bush of Shepherds.

As long as they don't actually exhume anybody (think Sinatra or Elvis) we're OK.

Though I think maybe those two might not be SOOOO bad.

LOL , Barry Gibb is 64 and Robin 60 , not quite ancient yet ,
Having said that last night was utter crap

I was embarrassed, they were dreadful. Why didn't they give up when they were at the top?

I suspect they recorded a performance during rehearsals and mimed to that in order to overcome the problems of setting the stage up in too short a time. It still sounded like a cat being sodomised by a vacuum cleaner, but it was an understandable technical compromise to do it via a track.

Following the death of Maurice Gibb in 2003, they decided to rest the Bee Gees. The two brothers' relationship deteriorated quickly and they lived completely separate lives (Barry in Miami and Robin in Oxfordshire).

This New York Times article is a good record of Barry's side of the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/bu...-the-bank.html

Or for a potted history of the relationship breakdown, and their generally wild life (it is amazing that they are still here to tell the tale!), read last week's Daily Express: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/136241

In the years since Maurice's death in 2003, Barry wrote and produced a hugely successful album for Barbra Streisand and wrote various tracks for other artists. Robin released three solo albums with varied success and toured solo. About a month ago they announced (and it was in all the papers) that they were getting back together again as they had started to come to terms with the situation and begun to get hungry to perform and write music together.

And it certainly ain't for the money. If you look at the Times Rich List, you will see they they are one of the wealthiest rockers, in part due to the length of their career (50 years) and their songwriting for other artists. When Maurice was around, their wealth was estimated at about £165m. Barry and Robin have around £110-120m.

It is a brave person that writes off the Bee Gees. It has been tried before, pretty much every decade since the 1960s, but they just keep on coming back and having massive success. It is their songwriting talent, you see. I think they still have a lot to offer.

What is getting into the SCD producers?I thought they wanted to appeal to younger crowd, but they used to get much more current performers than this.

It was Halloween.
So thanks to SCD for giving me the Heebeegeebees!

There are loads of artists successfully continuing who are older than the Bee Gees. Elton John, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, etc, etc.

Why is it than in almost every career age is no big deal, but in music it is? It seems that, once you are over 40, continuing as a recording artist is a joke. The Bee Gees were a bit of a shock because they had taken a 8 year break. Once they become part of the furniture again, it will be fine. I for one am glad they are back.

I have checked with a friend. The Bee Gees were forced to record the vocals of their performance live earlier that day because there was not long enough to set up and do a sound check to get all the levels right when the show was being broadcast. So they reluctantly had to mime a performance from a few hours earlier. This apparently is very rare for them. (It would have been much easier to mime to a record than a live performance from a few hours earlier for obvious reasons).

You would have thought by now that technology would have moved on sufficiently to enable a quick set up.

It ain't about technology, it's about physically setting up the equipment. They would want to use their own equipment and they would normally have their own "sound man."

Several connections of leads to be made to; microphones, monitors and amplifiers.

So as I said earlier, they got "set up" to quickly for it to be live.

OK, so it isn't the "socially unacceptable" type of miming (i.e. that used by talentless artists who can't actually sing live), but a "needs must" type (i.e. not long enough to plug in the various leads, and in any event live a few hours earlier).

Whatever the explanation it was awful. Surely they must have known this was the case before they agreed to do the show?

I think I would rather just have the BBC band/singers and the pros do their stuff rather than any more guests, I don't think I can take it any more

I've always assumed the musical guest performances are pre-recorded and then edited in to the live show.

It's been very obvious on many occasions, such as when the performance has finished and the camera goes to Bruce who's usually standing right in front of the audience front row, the whole studio is bathed in a different coloured lighting from what was just used for the musical guest slot.

I must wade in again and defend the Spandau boys against your attack, pierre_gustave. They were not that bad as as others have pointed out, Tony Hadley did sing live. Not even Cheryl Tweedy managed that.

I agree, the guest stars in general, this series, have been very disappointing.
The BBC should try to persuade Dame Shirley Bassey to guest on SCD and perform a medley of her most famous hits … she was absolutely sensational on the recent BBC Electric Proms … and she does not mime … at 72, Dame Shirley is still on incredible form … she would be the perfect guest star for the final.

Has anyone considered why the X-Factor gets bigger names (even if they do sometimes poop their act like Robbie & Whitney)?

- ITV still have a 24-hour phone-in with a percentage of those fees going to them.
- the huge audiences means they can sell the advert slots at top prices, just like in their Good Old Days.
- on the other hand, the BBC are currently having to save so hard that they're even cutting their top bosses' pay. Just like the banks - NOT.

It' all about money, innit? SCD gets the acts it can afford and if you don't like them, at least show some understanding.