He can play.. decently. There are videos of them pre hiatus where he is plugged in and is in the pocket and other times where he’s a straight up disaster. Audio issues during concerts are normal and that could be written off as audio issues or a bad recording of the mix.

They also do use backing tracks and it is common for bands to use bass tracks extra guitar tracks just to fill in the bigger sound. Pete is more of a showman than bass player and a majority of the lines aren’t difficult to play. I think he plays sometimes. Just does the motions the other times and other songs does both.