Was it my ears or did James start off very flat and off key tonight. He seemed to be struggling with the song, and even when Nellie joined him it was not brill. Is it a case of 'The curse of SCD Live on Saturday' that's the case. Not many pros do well when they star.

He started very flat didn't he? Very surprised they used that "take" as the musical inserts (James, Nellie and Riverdance) were all separately recorded on Friday afternoon (with a different audience), and it would have been possible to re-record it. Maybe it was the best of a bad bunch?

Blimey, how naive am I at times thinking it's all live. You are quite right why didn't they record it again until it was up to his usual standards

Just shows that very few of today's singers can sing live. Will Young being an exception! (Sorry, I know that's off topic)

I saw him at Take That's Circus tour in June and he was fantastic - this was a real let down and didn't come anywhere close to what I expected .

This years guest spots have been a big let down, with only dame SB saving the day, the rest have been very forgetable.

He looked quite nervous , especially at the start.

I thought his performance was awful. There were better performances on the X Factor.

I thought he sounded awful and dreadfully off key for the first part of the song..

He started very shakily - I'm not sure he has the voice control for low slow notes. Nellie was also very flat to start with, with the result that the first half of the song was terrible. Once they got into their stride, they began to hit the pitch and the second part of the song was much better.
Maybe it shows that we shouldn't be so critical of the session singers on the show!

Riverdance weren't bad, but I've seen them perform better, too.

I saw him at TT concert also. I wasn't a fan before but I bought his albums on the strength on that performance. Was very disappointed last night. The key seemed very low at the beginning and he was stuggling, he also looked extremely anxious. What a shame

I was very surprised at his performance last night too because I went to see him at Wembley Arena that night and he and Nelly totally blew the house down with that song, everyone went wild when she came on stage and it was the highlight of the night.

I was expecting to see the same on SCD but unfortunately it was not good, with regards to performing it again I am assuming that because they had to get over to Wembley for his concert maybe they didn't have time to do it again, its a shame cos if thats the first time people had seen him sing live it wouldn't be a very good indication of how well he can sing live.

Nelly furtado has made a career out of singing down her nose.

I've never liked Nelly's voice and I'd never heard of this dude but wasn't impressed

the only guest spots worth listening to this series have been SB and SB......

Disappointingly, he was the same on This Morning the other day.

I have no idea who those two were but they were DIRE, DIRE, DIRE. They were both so flat it was embarrassing to listen to.

I had to mute the sound towards the end as I couldn't stand it any more.

Don't invite them back SCD Gods please, and my advice to them would be...retire!

He was very flat at the beginning, despite the earpiece which would have helped him keep in key. But once the band got going he was fine, maybe it was nerves.
Nellie sang a bit off key on a few notes throughout her performance.

It's a fact that few artists these days, can replicate their studio recordings in a live performance. Some now I doubt ever perform live through a complete tune.

I think nearly every artist uses "deaf aids"

Of course they do, I was pointing out that for him, it didn't seem to be of any help.

I'm surprised, he sounded brilliant on the Comic Relief TOTP segment when he sang live.

Depends how many takes they used, this could have been a 1 take gig

I've heard him sing it other times brilliantly too, I love the song. I think it sounds better without the audience clapping in time? though. And I thought the dancing with Darren and Lilia was terrible. Have they even heard the song and the lyrics, it really didn't suit their cheesy grins at all.
Someone else could have done a much better, fitting dance to it. I wish they had.

yeh i did too and he was really good live!!! was sprirsed last night cos as i said in June he was very good live and that was playing to a packed staduim!

Darren and Lilia completely distracted .. they should have been an accompanyment but they weren't. I've heard other singers say it is distracting for them and it's totally un-necessary.
James didn't start well but I thought it got a lot better when Nelly joined him and would have been better still if they hadn't looked a bit bemused at what was going on in front of them and the fact that the crowd were reacting to the dancers.

Both of these singers are brilliant live .. but to put them on there with Darren and Lilia cavorting about and then having to sing an extremely abridged version of their song (I was constantly caught out trying to sing along) .. I'm not surprised they struggled.

The guest singers are accompanied EVERY week by dancers - so to use distraction as an excuse for poor singing is ridiculous.

James started off out of tune and really didn't recover. Nelly certainly saved the performance that's for sure.