Is Performing With A Backing Track Cheating? My Opinion...

I am reminded of Led Zeppelin. The albums had many layered guitar parts as well as keyboards, bass, mandolin, and guitar played by John Paul Jones. When they played live and were considered then one of the very best live shows, they played live...with no backing tracks. The shows were rawer and more unpolished, but they were amazing examples of improvisation and live talent. No one was expecting to hear Jimmy Page layering backing tracks to sound like the albums.

Hearing bands play different versions of songs or making changes to suit the vibe is such a big part of the magic of live shows. Not to mention watching musicians having fun vs. just grinding out a performance.

I'm an old-school multi-instrumentalist and prefer live music without backing tracks. For me, it's all about the talent and chemistry between real people playing instruments on stage, creating sounds together and sharing that energy with the audience. That's the essence of music for me.

In the late seventies during a Jethro Tull show, I saw what I consider one of the coolest uses of a backing track. Prior to performing the song, "Songs From the Wood", which begins with a 4 part chorus singing the 1st verse a cappella with Ian Anderson, he came out on stage with the spot light on him and a small table holding a Teac reel to reel recorder. Ian smiled at the audience, held up one finger and pressed play on the recorder to begin the song with the rest of the band joining in at the 2nd verse. Instead of hiding the fact that he was using a backing track for all the voices he didn't have on stage, he made it part of the show.

As a musician from Bangladesh, because of our 'low tech' everything, I and my fellow musicians still play everything live. Guitarist can still play everything sounding like that of the records they did. We still have stage monitors that most of the times probably doesn't work properly. We just go with the flow, and play our gigs. The crowd enjoys and so do we. I believe we are blessed by low tech in this instance!☺️

I used to play with backings with my Band, and eventually we decided to scrap the laptop, mainly because we didnt want to deal with the stress of our performance literally hanging on a usb-cable. Also we became a much tighter Band as we had to listen to each other instead of clicktracks.

Tracks are cool and have their use, but nothing beats a raw live performance from talented individuals playing in harmony with each other.

This is why Pearl Jam are so great live. You could argue that they're significantly better live than on their studio albums.

Backing Track never bother me but still a big bummer when band cancels show because of missing laptop. It's pretty scary if your entire live performance depends on a laptop.

For me playing live creates the opportunity of things going constructively wrong, and the great satisfaction of reacting to it in a manner that makes the audience think you meant it. I once played a gig during which a song we'd played hundreds of times, "Already Gone by The Eagles, found us reach the chorus and all four of us stopped playing exactly together - we don't know why to this day, but instead of collapsing we just sang the chorus a capella with spontaneous harmonies, and came back in exactly together to finish the song conventionally. My best friend who watched us a lot wouldn't believe that we hadn't practiced the effect for weeks and weeks. You need to know and trust each other well to be able to do that of course, but for me, those are the moments you play for.

Supertramp crime of the century tour. 5 people on stage absolutely recreate the recording from start to finish. Most amazing live show I have ever seen

I think Nine Inch Nails is a good example of this. There is SO much going on with their songs and if it’s programmed into synths or backing tracks, they still sound like a beautiful live band. You still feel like you are getting a raw, live performance, but you also know it is all planned out meticulously

As long as each person on stage plays their instruments live and the singer acutally sings I don't care if there are tracks to complete the sound. I rather enjoy a full sound than a romantic minimalistic appoach.

"All this machinery making modern music, can still be open hearted. Not so fully charted, its really just a question of your honesty, yeah your honesty." - RIP Neil Peart.

I grew up listening to Depeche Mode, who were always open about using backing tracks. They used to put the tape player on the stage (early 80s) and eventually just moved it off stage for logistical reasons.

Got to see a two piece band in high school, they were a drummer and a guitarist. Guitarist was controlling every other track from his laptop. They had a tower of pc monitors in front of the stage where they were playing the video of the female singer singing her part. They were performing so well and playing their parts amazing, blending every other track so smooth, a lot of rehearsal for sure. I do not mind at all when the performance is extremely creative like that.

Queen played a tape for Bohemian Rhapsody live for the Operatic section and they’d walk off stage to show they weren’t playing it live. In the early days they’d simply add a medley of other songs where the operatic section would normally be. However they adapted their live set to account for the necessary changes needed for playing live. They were often considered two bands. The studio songs and the live songs.

There are a lot of exceptions to the “bands are locked into a click track” part of this discussion (as I’m sure Rick is aware, he just didn’t break it down.) The artist I was working for for years up until the pandemic had bridges and other parts of songs where the click/tracks/programming would stop, allowing for off the cuff solos, band intros, talking without the crowd, and whatever else. And when they wanted to kick back into the actual song, the drummer (or playback tech) would cue a count off for the band to hear, and the tracks/programming would start again in that next part. It can be done, but it has to be precise and most often requires a drummer with great timing.

Thank You! Thank You! The questions you addressed in this episode have always concerned me and made me wonder about the authenticity of a live act. As long as the recorded addition tracts are for background support, then I have no problem with them. I really like to hear my favorite bands play my favorite songs like they sound when I sing along. You did an awesome job explaining how and why they are used.

I saw Twentyonepilots a few years ago. Here is a band with two members but had a huge full production sound when playing 'live'. Much of what I was hearing was pre recorded music done to an amazing light show, makes for a very non organic concert. When I did band pyro work in the 90's maybe the only artist who was playing a real show was Prince. Just about every big live show heavily relied on a tightly pre scripted lighting show that was synced with the music, of course the pyro cues could be in sync as well. In the end the pyro becomes a 'no fire' instruction if the 'show' was running the cues. I certainly witnessed Bon Jovi, Bobby Brown, Motley Crue and lots of others rely heavily on parts of the show that were pre recorded. As Rick says here this has been in the live music scene for a very long time, it's sad it's now becoming so heavily relied on to a point where a live show is basically a complete lip sync performance. And when thinking of this in the extreme look at Paul Stanley of Kiss. Pauls been caught out several times well away from a microphone yet he's singing very loudly in a song. I'm certainly not paying $500 to see this style of live show no matter how final the tour is. If they cant play live a band needs to retire when it can no longer sings it's own songs. Yep, playing with backing tracks is ripping off fans unless it's clearly disclosed in the ticket sales.