Synching Ableton LIve 8 with drum trigger

[Outwest 2008]

I'm in a band that limited to a drummer, a lead guitar player, a harmonica player, and a bass player. I would like to use Ableton Live 8 to add some horns and/or keyboards. My harmonica player is totally against playing to a sync track. He wants the "live" sound. It's my understanding that you can set up a drum trigger to control the tempo of Ableton Live 8 while playing to a live audience. It's also my understanding that just in case the lead solos are rocking and you want to continue playing solos before the sequenced parts come in, you can mute them temporarily until you're ready to hear them.

If all of this is true, how do I get the drum trigger from the bass drum to command the Ableton Live 8 program to keep to the time (or tempo) of the drummer?

Thank you for your time in this matter. I'm new to all of this and want to invest wisely into Ableton Live 8 for the latter purposes.

Tony

[Kearley]

You could attach a MIDI note to the tap tempo.. but I don't think it would work well.

You might try wearing headphones during the set... and tapping the tempo yourself... you can probably get it pretty damn close..
(and use the NUDGE buttons as well)

...then you can just trigger the sections yourself. It might work.