The live aspect still gets me. They needed a live guitarrist. Even if Colin had played guitar for a while, that would've led to a even bigger problem, because they'd need a live drummer (way more critical)
Great point about the techs playing Brad's parts.
For me it's still wild to think that LP prepared their triumphant return for months, allegedly rehearsing far more than any other time in their career, only to play with their new lead guitarrist a couple of days before the launch show watched by millions of people lol