Yeah, but I was talking about lead vocals. Maybe the term backing track isn't quite right for that, but you know what I mean ;-)

Even as far back as 93 the band had a huge bank of computers providing backing vocals.

So wait, does the band use tracks for their backing vocals?????????

Could anyone confirm this because that's DEFINITELY NOT obvious to anyone and is TOTALLY the subject of this thread; and DEFINITELY NOT the tracks for Jon's lead vocal parts... :rolleyes:

There is a mix of both live backing vocals and additional pre-recorded ones.

The part before the solo has for the most part have had a backing track; for 1987-2012 it was the one downtuned from the original song itself. For the SWW tour Jon screamed on top of it, then on the two succeeding tours he's wildly inconsistent (sometimes he'd sing, sometimes he'd just lip-sync the way out of it, hence the stink eye in Chile 1990 when the track failed to play).

TD onwards he'd sing the part, then the track was dropped from LH (when he changed the way that part is sung) until BWC. Then during the first night at Macau in 2015 they used a new track to lipsync to (after all, given the state of his voice, it's more believable to listen to a nasal backing track than, say, the original recording. Not to mention the latter is inconsistent with the way he's been singing it for the past 10 years). The Greenville soundboard shows the he still sings on top of it, which is why I'm puzzled at why he still continues to use it.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that NOTHING is removed from the "official recordings". I know the people who do the post on them and they do nothing but track them, tag them and send them out to be downloaded.

You know Obie? ;-) Or who does the post on those? They do a good job BTW, the band sounds real good on it. Jon so and so, mainly, because the vocal levels are varying way too much. And are too dry. Maybe add a little compression and reverb on them?

But back to the topic: maybe nothing is *removed*, but then the backing track isn't *added* like in the live show. We have audience and sound board versions of Prayer from one of the earlier shows and you can tell the difference on the line just before the solo. Other parts for example have been pitch-corrected (Saturday Night from one of the shows comes to mind). Just check it out and compare for yourself...

I'm afraid you just told him that Santa doesn't exist...

Whaaaaat??? Santa doesn't exist??? :rolleyes:

OK! Now I got it!

I didnt really hear properly on Sacramento CA Feb 28 2017 that the final vocal note before solo was indeed still playing when Jon closes his mouth.

This video shows it clearer:


It happens from 3:10 on and @ 3:16 we can see Jon's mistake. Being the professional he is, singing this song with playback some 30 years I guess he really should know how long to keep his mouth open....!

Thanks for this awesome tidbit, really didnt know!