Christmas Isn't Christmas

I think Jon is realistic enough that the people who will buy the album know the shit state his voice is in. Anyone new isn't getting past the lead single regardless.

We don't know either way yet. I don't see how Jon can in his condition. So if he does, the only what that he can do it (in my opinion) is to mime a good part of the show, again hiding the full extent of his vocal issues. What I am sure of is that the negative response from the last tour would have dented Jon's ego and he won't want that to happen again. They had a full vocal track for Prayer lined up and ready to go at a moments notice on the last tour, so we know that they went out on the road knowing that Jon may have to mime at some point. What we don't know is how many songs that they had a vocal track for. They could already have the whole show on tape to cover for Jon of needs be. I wouldn't rule out them going out with vocal track for most of the show, BUT I think Jon would hate having to do that. If he wants to tour he may not have a choice. So let's wait and see...

How do you know this? I'm sure they could gear up any song in less than 24 hours so maybe it was a last minute decision?

Because his voice literally blew out the song before (Have A Nice Day) and he went back to say into their "crew microphone" they needed the backing track that moment. It was not used or needed on prior shows, but ready within like 2 minutes at best.
So they had it prepared before hand knowing he might need it on that tour. They didn't have these backups on prior tours, otherwise it would've been used at shows like Sofia 2013 where Jon swallowed a pollen and couldn't keep it going anymore.

Spot on! You can't just create these things on the spot. It had to have been prepared beforehand, and have it ready to mix in with the live band.

Plus this was the first tour where everything was tuned down a FULL step instead of the usual half step. That would have meant it was prepped for this specific tour.

Maybe you're both missing my point. Thinny was speaking factually that the LOP track was ready to go the entire tour... I was just challenging the fact that it could have been done a day or two prior. There is no evidence to support that it was there the entire time.

That's not really how tours work, in general. Backing tracks need to be prepared with the whole band and everyone needs to know the cues and Jon will need to rehearse with the backing track so they he gets his own cues right (messing up the mime is the singers worst nightmare). Obviously I don't know for sure, It's possible that it would have been done the day before, but it's so very highly unlikley. It's not as if they didn't know Jon had issues before the tour started, it would have been blatently obvious in rehersals that the tour was going to be a struggle for Jon. In reality the decison to have backing tracks on hand was probably made even before the rehearsals.

Most of the times you are just arguing for the sake of arguing, aren't you? It's common knowledge that none of us here has insights into the band so of course all of that is purely based on experience (Thinny) or guesses (probably most of the rest).

The damn ENTIRE TOUR took place over a single month and his voice fell apart. A 16 date tour. Dude can't possibly mount a worldwide tour the way things are.

I firmly believe they had pre-taped songs ready in the can for the ones most likely to give him trouble that he can't do without leaving the building.