If you breathe into a microphone it will amplify your breath, obviously. You shouldn't really be breathing directly into the microphone. The issue is not a technical one with the technology or amplifying equipment. It's that his singing is extremely breathy. It's just not good vocal technique.
To be sure, there was indeed a technical problem, that night. But it wasn't with the set up or equipment.
Even when he's been breathy in the past, it wasn't that bad. If you want to call it bad vocal technique, that's fine, but the problem was amplified by the equipment. I believe someone already mentioned that it was most likely the overcompression that made it so problematic.
It's not about what I (personally) want to call it. It's what it is.
I agree the microphone amplified it. That's what a microphone does: amplifies whatever you put into it. It's pretty clear the softer dynamics of these songs are making him uncomfortable. The breathy vocal on the Blu-ray is a symptom of that. Another issue is that he is hanging on consonants entirely too long. As a vocalist you should not be sustaining consonants-- you sustains the
vowels. Yet, when I listen to the Silent Man every consonant, is being sustained. "
ppppprrrraaay they wont last" or "behind the stained gla
sssssss"
That is singing 101. If you took any basic chorus class or vocal lesson, and you sang like that, you would get corrected immediately.
The effect of the compression was minimal, if anything. The microphone didn't create anything that wasn't there. It just brought to the forefront a number of problems that were going to give you this end product no matter what.