Bryan Adams Records Acoustic Show at Pompeii

Pompeii, Italy (November 4, 2025)—Bryan Adams once sang “Everywhere I go, the kids wanna rock,” and 40 years later, that still holds true, even in places like the ancient amphitheater of Pompeii. As a result, the Canadian rocker recently set up in the UNESCO World Heritage Site with just his voice, an acoustic guitar, a piano and tunes.

The show was part of Bare Bones, an unconventional tour of curated one-offs, including Rome, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Scotland and Pompeii. Mixing that final show at front of house was engineer Stefan Holtz on a locally rented digital console; eschewing analog gear or complex processing racks, his focus was on keeping the mix clean and simple in order to let the simplicity of the moment shine.

“People want to feel as if Bryan were standing right in front of them without a microphone,” explains Stefan, who’s been with Adams since 2023. “The moment they hear an engineer’s hand in it, the magic’s gone. The technology has to disappear.”

FOH Engineer Is Flying High With Polyphia—and His Console

With that in mind, he employed a Neumann KM 185 mic on the acoustic guitar, combining it with the built-in pickup to create a balance of immediacy and natural tone. Capturing the voice was a custom-modified KMS 104 Plus. “We tried it, and Bryan, monitors, and FOH all agreed immediately: this is a real step forward,” said Holtz. “The windscreen’s more effective, we get fewer pops, and its voicing fits Bryan’s voice perfectly. Bryan is one with this mic; he knows the cardioid pattern by heart, instinctively knows how far to pull back, when to turn his head. It’s truly become his instrument.”

Discover more great stories—get a free Mix SmartBrief subscription!

Playing an ancient amphitheater is truly old-school, but the monitoring for the show was slightly newer old-school too, as the production opted to use wedges instead of in-ears. “It’s not always easy in these acoustically precious venues that equally respond to the wedges,” said Holtz.

Capturing the moment for posterity was also on the agenda that evening, so to record, Holtz chose pairs of KMR 81 shotgun microphones and KM 185s at both sides of the stage, and a KU 100 dummy head in front of the stage captured the binaural experience. Looking at the arrangement before the show, Holtz joked, “Playing Pompeii and not recording it should be illegal!”