Disturbed Spreads ‘The Sickness’ Once Again

New York, NY (May 8, 2025)—Disturbed exploded onto the scene in 2000 with The Sickness, an out-of-the- box smash that went five-times Platinum and instantly earmarked the band as one to watch. In the quarter-century since, the group has made good on that label, changing with the times but never afraid to inject melody into metal, whether in its own songs or while pulling off left-field covers of Tears For Fears, Sting, Genesis and Simon & Garfunkel. It’s also readily evident on the band’s current arena tour, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of The Sickness with a complete album playthrough, followed by a separate “Greatest Hits” set.

Overseeing the FOH position for the journey, much as he did for the previous tour cycle behind 2022’s Divisive, is veteran engineer Brad Divens, whose history with the band stretches all the way back to the original Sickness era: “I met these guys on an Ozzfest tour in 2001 because I was doing Linkin Park; I was friends with some of their crew guys, so we all ended up hanging out.”

A veteran musician himself, having played in Kix and Wrathchild America in the 1980s, Divens shifted into live mixing in the 1990s and has since manned the board for acts as disparate as Cyndi Lauper, Jane’s Addiction and Enrique Iglesias. “In the summer of 2022, I sent out three emails,” he recalled. “Enrique wasn’t doing anything and I figured I should see if anyone needed somebody to cover them on one-offs. Within five minutes, Greg Price emailed me back, saying, ‘Hey, I’m busy with Metallica. You want to cover Disturbed?’ I did some one-offs, and February of 2023, they said, ‘Do you want to do a tour now?’ Enrique wasn’t busy, so it worked out.”

The engineer transition was a good one, with Divens’ mix style fitting the band’s aesthetic well. “My approach is, obviously, I want to hear everything,” he said. “I listen to the record, listen to how it’s all put together, and then implement the mix in the same way, getting as close to the record as I can while maintaining a live element. There are elements in each song that the people are going to know from the record, and those are the things you want to make sure you get across. It also depends on the sounds that you’re given, because a record is one thing and live is another. It’s bass, drums, guitar and lead vocal, but everybody’s a real player in this band and David [Draiman] is a great singer.”

Those four musicians account for 96 inputs coming from the stage to the Avid S6L front-of-house desk that Divens inherited from Price’s time with the band. A substantial number of those inputs come from mics on the two drum kits, as drummer Mike Wengren has opted to use both the kit he played on the original Sickness tour on the album set, and a current-day kit on the hits set.

Adjacent to the Avid desk is a considerable amount of outboard gear, much of it from Rupert Neve Designs and Stam Audio. “It’s the go-to rack of analog goodness,” said Divens. “Plug-ins are good, but there’s something about running your signal through transformers and wire and tubes and everything else. When I took this gig, I thought, ‘What if I put a Rupert Neve Shelford Channel on David’s vocal, and the Rupert Neve [Portico II] Master Buss Processor on left and right, and see what happens?’ I put them on there, and I couldn’t unhear what it did! I did a few shows like that, and then when I had the opportunity to build the rig for the tour, I said, ‘Okay, I want to go with some more group processing.’ I’m really happy with the way everything has come together.”

Adding to the outboard accumulation at FOH is a 500 Series rack stuffed with Rupert Neve 542 Tape Emulators used on the guitar group; a pair of 535 Diode Bridge Compressors applied to the bass group; an SPL Big on left-right for a touch of stereo imaging; Empirical Labs Pump compressors, which aren’t being used (yet); and Maag EQ4s on Draiman’s vocal group.

“I have the summation of David, which is a stereo group and then the parallel, compressed stereo group which is getting a pair of Distressors,” said Divens, “so it’s the blend of that coming out of the output of the summing mixer that I’m applying a little bit EQ to, both of those groups together.”

Up at stageside, monitorworld is looked after by engineer Blair Bondy and crew chief/monitor tech Liam Tucker. Like Divens, Bondy oversees an S6L that was inherited from his predecessor, Ashton Parsons, and uses it to create mixes for the band’s JH Audio in-ear monitors; no wedges or sidefills are in play.

“They’re all on Roxannes except for David, who is on JH16 V1s,” said Bondy. “I wear JH13 V1s. I like the mid-range and the top end in the 13s and the 16s, so me and David are hearing a really similar sound. I have a pair of Roxannes if I need to dive into that world, and also I know what it’s supposed to sound like with my 13s.”

Miking onstage is straightforward with Draiman belting into a DPA d:facto 4018VL vocal mic, while the identically miked drum kits sport a combination of Shure Beta 91As on the kick; Earthworks DM20s on the toms; DPA 2012 cardioid mics on the snare; Neumann KM 184s on both high hats and ride cymbals; and AKG 414s used as overheads.

The show’s microphones are also an example of the synergy between the front-of-house and monitor mix positions, as Bondy shared: “We had problems with some microphones at one point, and I said selfishly, ‘What if we use these’—which were mics that I wanted. Brad was like, ‘Sure! I like those, too!’ It’s not every day where you’re working with somebody who’s open to anything and a really good hang, but also is one of the best engineers. He’s got one of the best mixes I’ve ever heard.”

The audience gets to hear those mixes via a sizable Cohesion P.A. system fielded by Clair Global for the tour. A typical hang consists of 16 CO12s for each main hang, flanked by 14 CO10s per side for outfills. Bolstering their impact are a half-dozen flown CP218 subs on each side, along with a trio of CP218 ground subs on the right and left sides each as well. Adorning the stage lip are 10 CF28s used as frontfills.

The Sound of ELO’s Final Tour

The show tends to hover around 98 dBA, which is just where Divens likes to keep it—unless he’s taking it even lower. After an evening of perceived loudness, he pointedly pumps the brakes, three songs before the end, for the band’s cover of “The Sound of Silence.” The shrewd move turns the thunderous show’s quietest moment into one of its biggest highlights.

“I take the whole mix down 5 dB at least,” he chuckled. “I pull everything back and make it very intimate, because David sings it really well and it’s a great song. My assistant, Scott [Jarecki, system tech], mentioned it the other night—‘It’s like the crowd’s leaning in to listen.’ You can almost hear a pin drop, because everybody’s just hushed. Then all of a sudden, way in the background, you’ll hear people start to sing the lyrics. It’s pretty cool!”