Disturbed Spread The Sickness on 25th Anniversary Tour with Cohesion PA in Support

	Disturbed guitarist, Dan Donegan. Photo: Britt Bowman

In 2025, heavy metal band Disturbed took to the road for The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour, celebrating their career with sold-out arenas in US and Europe. Their two sets, one of their 5x-platinum album The Sickness plus a set of their greatest hits, were supported each night by a Cohesion PA.

The heavy metal quartet, known for chart-topping hits such as "Down with the Sickness," "Stupify," "I Will Not Break," and "Bad Man," Disturbed wanted their fans to experience shows with clear, impactful sound in each market -- and in each seat. The chosen Cohesion PA provided a powerful and consistent sonic experience, as front-of-house engineer Brad Divens attests.

"The arenas all sounded different, but I knew that the PA was going to deliver no matter what," he says. "My mix was dialed in, but the test was working with the PA in different environments. I had everything I needed around me to deliver a great-sounding rock show."

Clair Global deployed the audio system, which consisted of 16 Cohesion CO12 per side on the main hangs and fourteen Cohesion CO10 on each side hang, as well as six Cohesion CP218 II+ subwoofers flown and three ground-stacked per side.

Eight Cohesion CF28 were deployed on stage as "super-versatile point and shoot" fill, as described by system engineer Scott Jarecki. "By far, they're my favorite speaker Cohesion has made. They sounded incredible with a small footprint. I'm a nuts-and-bolts SE, and with how similarly voiced the CF28 is to the CO12, I knew they'd mix exactly. That gave me peace of mind, and my engineer knew it would sound the same in the front rows as 120 feet away. The CF28 ripped."

"You have to make sure the audience down front hears every bit of the mix. That's the problem with the expensive seats: no one pays attention to the job of the front fill," adds Divens. "With these CF28, the voicing was identical to what I was hearing in the air. I agree with Scott 100%. I went from in front of the hangs and walked into the front fill, and the voicing never changed. It was incredible -- it sounded just like the CO12."

Jarecki said Sickness was his first tour with Cohesion. "From show to show, it was a very consistent PA. I lined up Brad's traces, and they looked like one line. Another thing I appreciated: I could tilt Cohesion back more than any other PA out there. Some of these upper bowls, I reached them with the CO10 outfill better than with competitors, and they sounded really consistent."

Disturbed's post-intermission set each night comprised a collection of their most popular songs from a career spanning three decades, including Billboard #1 covers of "Land of Confusion" and "The Sound of Silence," a crowd favorite.

"There was this moment during 'The Sound of Silence' where Brad dropped the PA down and brought in the whole crowd," says Jarecki. "I brought up the front fills, and the CF28 handled it just right. They didn't even sweat."

"It was just the piano and [frontman] David [Draiman] singing, and it was sitting around 83dB. Everyone leaned in to listen, and the crowd started to sing along, so I pushed it a little bit," explains Divens. "Mixing a live show is about dynamics. How could you ever mix 'The Sound of Silence' at 100dB?"

Divens describes how the Cohesion PA allowed the show to be clear and spectrally consistent, even at low volume. "I made those dynamic range changes because I could turn my mix down where the PA was barely on, and yet I can hear every bit of my mix at my level. That's a byproduct of the efficiency and clarity of Cohesion."

The team also appreciated Cohesion's rigging capabilities. "I liked the way it went together quickly each day," says crew chief and monitor tech Liam Tucker, who helped fly the stage left PA. "We could get it up and to trim within an hour, and it packed in one truck nicely."

"Cohesion's three-point style was very easy to rig," says Jarecki. "The physical deployment was fast."

Disturbed's fans poured their passion into each show on the 34-date American run of Sickness. "There were mosh pits, circle pits, walls of death. Everyone was up and singing, all the way to the 300 levels," summarizes Tucker. "Fans were going home smiling!"

After that spring tour across the US, Disturbed returned to Europe on a 30-day, 17-date run, which was also supported by Cohesion.

"My philosophy is that I'll get the mix as close to the record as I can, but I keep the power and impact of live sound," Divens says. "It's about the cohesiveness of the mix in relation to the level I'm mixing at. Loud is just loud; it doesn't make it better. I could mix this show at 98dB, and I got the perceived loudness. I mixed 98-100, and the crowd got to 108-110. In San Antonio, it was 112. You have to let that crowd erupt! The 18,000 in the arena deserved a great show. I was excited to come and mix every night because the band gave 100%, I gave 100%, and the PA was firing at 100%."