Death No Longer A Problem For Performers [VIDEO]

In a week where we've seen the deaths of musicians Levon Helm [Sir Elton John noted that his music was strongly affected by Helm's legendary group The Band, and used his first name in the EJ classic Levon], Greg Ham of the 80's group Men At Work [he played sax on Who Can It Be Now? and flute on Down Under], Johnathan Frid [he helped create the modern image of vampires on 60's soap opera Dark Shadows; if you're too young ask your mom. She probably swooned over his character "Barnabas Collins"], in addition to Dick Clark, it's nice to know that none of their careers need be over.Tuesday night, rapper Tupac Shakur took the stage for the first time since his 1996 shooting death, "performing" with fellow rappers Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg [above]. Of course, his voice was taken from a previous peformance, but his on-stage image was not. The company that did the digital deed used performance videos to help create the image, but were able to control the psuedo-Tupac to work with the live performers [the projection is being called a "hologram", but actually the basic technique dates back to the 1500's, and a magic illusion called "Pepper's Ghost"].

Humans interacting with projected images, as you can see, is not new. Six years ago, Madonna took the stage with the British animated group Gorillaz to start the 2006 Grammys:
[MRJk8/YouTube]

Do you think a performer's career should end with his or her death, or should they just be kept "on the road"? Please give us your thoughts, either here or on our Facebook page.

[Yahoo! News]