This is one of those short, simple, yet catastrophic stories I bet many of you can relate to. I was on a gig one time where soundcheck went smoothly, rehearsal went great…then the unthinkable happened just before showtime. The "psychological trauma" (spoken mostly in jest!) reminded me of something really important we always need to remember as drummers.

I was playing this particular night with some folks I always enjoyed playing with. We were set up in a fairly large venue on a big stage, and we were all using in-ear monitors. The front of the drum set was covered by the typical clear, heavy drum shield that prevents cymbal bleed into vocal mics. We were fairly spread out across the stage, and guitar amps were in iso-boxes offstage on either wing. Bass was running direct to the house, as were keys and all vocals. Maybe you can guess why I’m telling you all of this…

Rehearsal was a blast, and we played through all the songs for the night. We even...