Northern National – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the rock band, Northern National, share what they do before every show. You can check out their rituals, after the break.

When you’re in a rock band with five outgoing, extroverted guys… your pre-show rituals tend to be a little sporadic! Typically on show days, we are all over the place before a show. Anthony, Dylan, & Supulski are practicing, Rossi is doing vocal warm-ups, and Kanne is mingling, promoting, and connecting. We all have our personal routines that make us feel comfortable, but as a band, the routine usually starts during load in.

During load-in, we all help each other unload and set up our gear. From there we talk through our set and then relax. Relax entails having something light to snack on, watching ESPN, Netflix, or random YouTube clips, and sometimes even listening to whatever Spotify playlist we’ve prepped before hand. Pretty much anything we can do to get our minds off of the show for a minute is a nice distraction before we have to focus on the set. About thirty minutes to show time we start to get prepped for the show. Change into what we are wearing, run through songs, start pumping each other up and for Rossi – doing last minute vocal warm-ups. Finally, it’s five minutes until show time. This is where our pre-show routine all comes together.

It’s five minutes until show time and we’ve just finished talking through our set and checking our gear. We huddle up – photographer, tour manager, sound engineer, anyone on our team – and give a quick prayer. We ask for good vibes on stage, talk about how we are lucky to be doing music and having anyone watching us, and finalize the huddle with a “now, let’s kick ass.” It’s a routine we started in the early days of the band and something that we will never leave. This is our punctuation on our pre-show ritual and it’s something that we will continue to lean on during every crowd, every stage, and every show we play.

Although our individual routines are all different, our band ritual always stays the same. Help each other load in and sound check, distract and have fun until thirty minutes before, and then pre-show huddle directly before we rock the stage. We are five guys who love making music, performing music and living in the moment together. Northern National is a family and our rituals help us focus that thought. Now, let’s kick ass.

Keep up with the band on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!