Managing the Rock Band Sound

Whenever clients hire rock bands for corporate shows, we always add a drum shield onto the equipment list. These are almost never on riders and many bands hate them, but when the lead singer, production manager and most importantly the client hears how loud the percussion sounds in a corporate ballroom, the hate quickly goes away.

An Easy Fix

The percussion instruments can sometimes overwhelm the guitars and vocals on the typically smaller stages that are required in corporate ballrooms. A drum shield or acoustic shield creates separation between the drums and other musical instruments and can allow the audio lead to better control the sound.

There is a reason old rock and roll artists are hard of hearing. A drum shield is a great tool to make sure your audience doesn’t suffer the same fate.

The "Five Minute Drill" with Old Rock Bands

We have had the interesting experience with a couple of rock rands from the 60’s and 70’s who still think it is “cool” to make the audience wait in anticipation for their grand entrance on stage. 

At a recent corporate event, the stage manager for a “rock band” listened to the rehearsed band introduction by a corporate sponsor and then told the band to “go on in 5 minutes”.

When we work with rock bands at corporate shows we always have five minutes of music and simple lighting effects planned to fill the five minutes the band waits to go on stage. We call it "the five minute drill." Hopefully you will never have to use it, but the "five minute drill" is a good thing for a production team to have in their back pocket.