Despite my drum machine post, this is absolutely true. And great drummers are worth their weight in diamonds!
The last band I gigged with did something fairly intelligent: we had three on-call drummers who were the best players we could find (guys I'd booked for studio sessions). We paid them separately, a good rate for a gig.
We never had trouble with anyone showing up, because they were (a) pros, and (b) we made sure the pay was a good incentive to play with us.
However, I recently went to a show where the keyboard guy had a couple of computers running drum machines. The band sounded killer, and I didn't even notice that there wasn't a drummer until halfway through the first set! I was flabbergasted, as this band had a singer, backup singers, and horns in addition to the usual band setup, and it did not sound like a drum machine. Whoever programmed it did a really great job. I'm not talking about the sounds of the drums, I mean the programming didn't have the usual stiffness. It sounded very naturally played (yes, I know it's possible to download MIDI files of session guys playing that aren't quantized, that's what they must have done).
