Comments by "Scott Charney" (@scottcharney1091) on "Rick Beato" channel.

That's similar to some of Moby's tours, where he has people who sing the vocal samples that he used in the studio. Beck has had a large backing band to play the samples. Also, if we're just talking about recreating intricate sounds, The Smashing Pumpkins added Mike Garson on piano, along with a pair of percussionists. They were going to add Lisa Germano on violin, but that fell through.
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@markconner5341 True; those are major-label examples. The point is that "live means live." It's possible now to at least trigger the samples in real-time. They're still being "played," so to speak. Rush might have pioneered that, precisely because they didn't want to bring along a keyboardist/backing vocalist, and they refused to use a backing track.
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@markconner5341 There's also the lower-budget option of having a friend or two accompany the band at whatever the "going rate" is. R.E.M weren't wealthy when Mitch Easter was their second guitarist. The Smiths did the same thing a few years later with Craig Gannon. Hell, see Trent Reznor's first couple of years as Nine Inch Nails. Of course, I realize that those cases were decades ago, but isn't it still pretty common?
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Dio's keyboardist would sometimes be onstage with him. In fact, I think that he was visible more often than not. You're probably thinking of Black Sabbath, who usually (not always!) had the keyboards offstage.
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He screwed over Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan.
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@eboethrasher DM's backing tracks are sparser than they used to be, in large part due to the drumming. Unfortunately, some of Fletch's parts are now in the tracks. I wanted them to just get someone to cover the parts. Daryl Bamonte (one of their techs) did the job on part of the long SOFAD tour, when Fletch had a serious breakdown. I had the idea of Alison Moyet stepping in, inasmuch as the keyboard parts are pretty simple, and she knew DM in childhood, but then again, Fletch had played most of those parts for years.
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@christheghostwriter Sabbath went through a few different keyboardists, but Geoff Nicholls was with them more than any other. He was visible on some tours/gigs.
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@JamesW225 They were at least triggering the samples. They didn't want to use a backing track, nor did they want to add someone on keyboards/backing vocals. Alex Lifeson only has a narrow vocal range, so he could help a little bit with the vocals, but the point is that they still were giving a live performance by triggering the sounds at the right time.
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