Originally Posted by jcmjmp

Its not just about playing at home, and really, playing with earplugs in sucks, especially at home.

When playing live, there's a balance that must be kept between all the instruments on stage. The drums are what drives stage volume. Then, there's the vocals: You need to make sure that you don't drown out the vocalist. If you do, the band will sound like crap and he'll lose his voice before the end of the first set.