I'm 6' 5", weigh 250, & have a CC license. I take up as much space as I want.
I am 5’4”, weigh 140, and have a roll of tape. I take up as much space as I want. Drummer? Pffff... get yourself a zendrum and let me breathe.
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Stage Space?
- Thread starter ColonelZulu
- Start date
I am 5’4”, weigh 140, and have a roll of tape. I take up as much space as I want. Drummer? Pffff... get yourself a zendrum and let me breathe.
How about being stationed behind a horn section with bandstands in front of them and hardly being seen?! That's the story of my life!
It really depends on the stage. I don't use a traditional amp so all I need space for is my mic stand, pedalboard and FRFR. I like to move & dance when I play and I will roam the stage if there's enough room. Having no amp gives me more space to do my thing.
My biggest concern is that my headstock is not being bumped.
My singer has a habit of whacking my bass and putting it out of tune.
So my preferred space is to her (and the drummer's) left.
My singer has a habit of whacking my bass and putting it out of tune.
So my preferred space is to her (and the drummer's) left.
A couple of bands ago, we had 6 members. The drummer and keyboardist took up 98% of any floor space. I didnt sing in that band, so I was relegated to just about behind the cymbals. Me and guitarists had to stack our amps on top of each other just to fit them on stage (if you can call those stages...usually just the floor in a corner somewhere). These days i play bass, keys and sing backup (plus we only have 4 members) so I usually have much more real estate.
I played one show next to the drummer. Didnt like it all. Been upfront ever since. I guess it's more of a mental game, plus respect. Could say that I'm the most entertaining alongside with our vocalist. Been told so by quite a lot of people. Cheers!
Every time I read threads like this I'm once again thankful that I've generally played with reasonable people my whole career.
I do play once club where I have to tell the drummer to move over every time we play there, but he does it without complaint. I'm not sure whether he thinks he being funny or is really that clueless, but there's no drama, I ask him to move over and he does.
I play in a band with a lead-singing drummer. With drums at stage front plenty of venues that would normally be spacious for a traditional stage layout become tight across the front. I've played places where I can't even physically access my rig after setup. I don't care, they can put me in the carpark as long as the invoices get paid.
Dude, get those speakers out from in front of the stage. Move the subs off to the side and put the mons on the stage.
Equal, but I do rail against the assumption that the bass player has to stand in the back behind everyone else.
My group has horn players who play about 60% of the time and just stand there the other 40%, plus they refuse to wean off of their iPads. Those guys can stand behind me.
The guitarist is very good but a bit of a shoegazer. He can stand off to the side.
I'm no ham, but I like to interact with the people in the audience and I behave like an entertainer. Me being in the back behind two layers of other people and stuffed beneath a cymbal removes value from the product.
There, I said it.
My group has horn players who play about 60% of the time and just stand there the other 40%, plus they refuse to wean off of their iPads. Those guys can stand behind me.
The guitarist is very good but a bit of a shoegazer. He can stand off to the side.
I'm no ham, but I like to interact with the people in the audience and I behave like an entertainer. Me being in the back behind two layers of other people and stuffed beneath a cymbal removes value from the product.
There, I said it.
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Agreed, arriving early is a 99% solution for this problem. You walk in 15 minutes before the downbeat and you get whatever space is left. I play with guys north of 50 who still haven't figured that out.
If I have a 2 square foot area, i just Entwistle in place. If i have more room, I boing around and put on a better show. Do what you gotta do. We had one gig where the stage was so small we made a combo amp totem pole: bass amp-> guitar amp-> guitar amp-> single powered main all in one stack.
I totally understand wanting space.
I will never outright request a certain amount of space... if i don't fit, i dont fit, and we need to adjust.
After all the playing and studying i've done, i do sort of feel like having a ride cymbal centimeters away from me or my instrument may be in my past... but it's probably not.
the only time i'll fuss over it is if i'm playing upright and i've got one of my good basses with me... they're too valuable to risk over nonsense like not fitting on stage. but, thats why god created electric basses isint it?
I will never outright request a certain amount of space... if i don't fit, i dont fit, and we need to adjust.
After all the playing and studying i've done, i do sort of feel like having a ride cymbal centimeters away from me or my instrument may be in my past... but it's probably not.
the only time i'll fuss over it is if i'm playing upright and i've got one of my good basses with me... they're too valuable to risk over nonsense like not fitting on stage. but, thats why god created electric basses isint it?
This weekend I'm on the smallest stage I play. There's a big screen in the center of the stage - when we're done, the message (aka sermon) is on that, and it's about 15 feet wide. My "space" is a little over half half that wide - 8 feet or so, and I've got about that much depth as well. The biggest stage I play is....it's huge. I don't have enough cord to reach most of the folks on stage if I want to talk with them. Having played in little bars, decent sized churches are (at least square footage wise) a dream.
Ive played stages that couldnt fit all 3 of my band on it so i set up my amp on stage and stood out in front of the stage. The worst part is that i had to turn my mic around to face the pa speakers when doing vocals because it kept feeding back. It was a weird situation watching the band from the audience while being in the band amd doing vocals.
It is the drummer's PA, he just runs bass drum in subs. He makes the speaker location decisions. Most of our gigs are not loud shows, we often don't use the subs.
Perhaps he’s heard of the itchy trigger finger you have when it comes to the ignore button.
Most of our indoor gigs have limited stage space but typically not an issue for our trio. Sometimes outdoor stage wide-open-spaces syndrome can be just as disconcerting, even with the full band. Almost makes me think choreography (NOT!).
