A thought about lead and backing vocals

Picking up the backing track issue of In These Arms again. This is not something they only did in 2013 - it was done in 1993 already. Just watched this performance of ITA from Dortmund. Jon does some ad-libs and wants to skip the "baaaby" part, yet you can hear his original voice coming over the PA. Maybe it was a new addendum at that point or he had just forgotten that it was about to come in the heat of the moment:
https://youtu.be/RdR6QkM-XSE?t=7007

Aren't there 2 Jons singing "baaaabyyyy" at 4:38?

Now back on the main subject. I don't think there's much they can do..they are ****ed. You can use every trick but when your range is totally gone there is nothing you can do to mask it. I almost forgot how bad he sounded during the 2015 mini tour until I saw a video posted here with him singing Bad Name, man...I can't believe how hard he was struggling.

He sounded better at the 2015 Christmas shows so there is a little bit of hope. Eventually I think I would get used to his voice even in this state, just like I got used to his 2003-2011 voice. Hahaha, I remember when I became a fan for the first time I watched the live show from 2011 Bucharest and I thought to myself "Man this guy has such a great voice, he sings just like on the album versions", but after a while I listened to album and live 80-90 versions of the songs only, for a pretty long time. Then one day I remember watching the 2008 MSG show and I after I listened to him singing the old songs I imediately pressed pause...I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It didn't even sound like the same guy from 90s or 80s, it was like someone else took Jon's place.

I was at the Sofia show and must admit that I never even noticed any backing tracks during David's rendition of In These Arms. It all sounded as real as it could get. At first, I thought it was a PLANNED surprise for us fans, and I fully enjoyed it. It was not until Jon came back on stage for Prayer that I realized something was off as it was WAY TOO EARLY for that song. Then my hopes for a 3-hour show vanished into thin air.

I don't know why he'd use a backing track back then because he sure didn't need it.

God his voice was gorgeous.

Well, his voice was much better compared to nowadays.
But especially during the second part of the KTF tour his voice was far from gorgeous. So I can understand why he used a backing track to cover some notes up.