Am I right in thinking that the couples do their training during the week to the 'original recorded' version of the song - and that the band version comes in at the dress rehearsal stage? This can't be fair, depending on who ends up on lead vocals.
Most of the time, I think the band is adequate - at best. Last night I thought their 'Club Tropicana' was ropey. Some vocalists are better than others...this was a bad rendition.

Subconsciously, does the way the band sounds and the mood they create influence the public vote? No matter how well (or not) Richard and Erin danced, the 'feel' of the song to me was poor.

I'd be interested to see which of the band vocalists had 'sent' the most celebrities home...

This could be a bumpy ride...

The main problem has to be the timing, if you practice and teach a non-dancer to one rendition, and then spring a live bands interpretation on them on a live show, it has to be, at the very least, disconcerting...... I find the band either too quick or too slow, and very rarely correct for the dance they are accompanying........ When they do get it right, esecially with the better participents, its usually brilliant!

I agree. If I had been used to dancing to the original and then had to dance to an abridged/cut and cover version of the same song, it would put me off no end! It makes me laugh sometimes when a judge says (usually Bruno) to a contestant that they must listen to the music. If they listened to the music they'd probably dance something different altogether! Shoe horning certain songs into certain dance styles doesn't help much either, but I digress!

I wish I could remember the series and the song - but they once commented that they'd changed the timing of a song from 4:4 to a 3:4 so they could do a waltz to it on the show. Weird.

Makes you wonder what they practiced during the week?