So not only did Beyoncé lip sync her performance, but she essentially forced the Marine Corps band to pretend to be playing their instruments.
Kristin DuBois, a spokesperson for the band, said "the Marine Band did perform live throughout the ceremony but we received last-minute word that Beyoncé wanted to use the recording.”
Jessica Chasmar of the Washington Times writes:
The Marine Corps Band has confirmed that it, along with Beyonce Knowles, faked Monday’s national anthem at President Obama’s second Inaugural. Band director Colonel Michael J. Colburn conducted the Star-Spangled Banner energetically, but the band members were actually mimicking blowing into their instruments.
Air guitars anyone? Nothing like a bunch of U.S. Marines pantomiming the country's anthem at the president's inauguration. (Though, interestingly, some would argue that The President's Own are just a bunch lip syncers themselves — they don't go to boot camp, don't deploy, but they still wear the uniform rather smartly.)
The New York Times reports that Beyoncé recorded the song in a studio at the Marine Barracks Annex on Sunday night, using tracks already laid down by the Marine Band.
Except for this brief departure into a pre-recorded track, Dubois insists that the rest of the performance was live.
Yet the faux music was the cherry on top of an otherwise hollow performance all around. The president's own inauguration was, in effect, a 'lip sync,' since he was officially inaugurated in front of Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts days earlier.
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