That is me as well, and it's a big reason why I've seen only one concert in almost 20 years. At this point I'd much rather go see artist playing smaller joints, even acoustic sets, rather than some big production where nobody has any idea of whether they are hearing live or "memorex" (reference for you old people

) Some people see "live music" as entertainment and it doesn't matter. Hell you could replace artists with lookalikes in costumes and most people wouldn't care as long as they dance around and the crowd cheers. Fair enough. I mean, tribute bands make a ton more than cover bands that play a variety of music, which has always been odd to me as it's much harder to pull off a variety of stuff. You want to make money as a cover musician, go tribute if you can.
Our band's drummer plays occasionally in a big Pink Floyd tribute and he makes triple what he does with us. And--half the time he says they just play drum tracks to the audience (and/or guitar, and/or vocals) and he just bangs along on stage playing a part that only he can hear, and doing his part to "look live".
The artists are up against it, even little cover bands like mine. Truly live performances aren't going to sound like album tracks but more and more, people expect a full polished album sound. Sucks, but might as well rail against the waves coming in wrecking your sand castle. You can vote with your dollars and that's about it.
Hell I even strongly dislike those harmony pedals that people use to generate multi-part harmonies, but at least someone is singing one part with those
