Opening couple of pages of Not Forgetting. Contains a couple of bad words. Would you read more?
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Some concerts just suck, and tonight’s is one of them. We got in from Dallas just as USA Today was arriving at unsuspecting hotel doors, and had to be up for a lunchtime meet-and-greet. The afternoon temperature hit three digits. The venue, home of a minor-league hockey team, smells of sweat from the locker rooms and overcooked broccoli from the convention center next door.
Oh, yeah, and the air conditioning? None. We got here for the pre-show events and found all the doors open and a little humid air drifting over the seats and settling over the stage like it was curling up for a nap. We seriously considered canceling. But the dude from county health assured us the open doors gave enough ventilation, so we went on with the show.
The audience seems to be doing fine, noisy and enthusiastic. We’re the ones dying. It must be a hundred and twenty on stage under the lights. Steve keeps stepping around puddles on the floor. Sweat flies off Gary’s arm every time he slams down on the hi-hat. My fingers keep slipping on the keys. Every time I pull out a stop, I leave sweat on the knob.
Ian looks cool, even in black leather. He doesn’t seem to notice that his hair sticks to his forehead. He doesn’t seem to care that the house sound buzzes every time he hits a high note, which is often. He’s spending a lot of time down at the far end of the stage, where there’s a fan.
Maybe I’ll suggest playing something off the first album next, so I can get up and move around with the second guitar. The Hammond generates too damn much heat.
He turns away from me, walking toward the audience, bending over the solo. No organ in this part. I wipe my hands on the soggy towel and admire the way the loose pirate shirt clings to Ian’s shoulders.
Something snaps, loudly. It whams in my ear like a physical blow. The lights go bright, then dim.
Then everything returns to normal.
Everything except Ian’s guitar. All of a sudden the only people who can hear it are Ian and me, the only two close enough to catch the small tinny sound of unamplified steel strings over a solid block of maple. The bass and drums are still pumping on.
We’re a jam band. We can cope. I drop the towel and pick up Ian’s solo on the Hammond. The song’s Yesterday’s Moon, off the third album, and I could play it in my sleep. The crowd screams. A bunch of people near the front chant, “Nick-EE! Nick-EE!” like they’ve been waiting all show for this.
Magnus’s voice in my headset says, “Dude, what gives?”
Ian replies, “I was going to ask you the same thing, love.” He’s unplugging and replugging his guitar and on the amp as he speaks. Some nights we’re cordless, but this place had too much interference for that.
He powers the amp off and then on again.
Magnus says, “Use the backup while Woody fixes it.”
Ian obediently picks up his second guitar, a pretty red Strat with white pinstriping.
Nothing.
Magnus swears in the headset.
I’ve been flashing on the Hammond for long enough. I nod to Steve. Steve steps forward for the bass solo. I drop into a barely-there rhythm pattern behind the bass and the drums. The crowd cheers me with more Nick-EE! even as they’re clapping to the new rhythm.
Ian steps back so Woody has room to work. In the headphone he says, “Should I plug into Steve’s?”
“No!” Magnus’s voice bangs against my ear. “You’ll sound like shit. We can get this straightened out. Just keep playing.”
Ian puts the guitar down. He steps to the side of the stage and folds his arms over his chest, like he’s listening to the rest of us. I can tell from how stiff his shoulders are and how wide he plants his feet that he’s really pissed.
We could take a break if we were more than ten minutes into the set. I suggest it anyway.
Ian says, “We could do the Toccata.”
My fingers slip on the keys. It’s probably sweat, not shock. Just because we haven’t done the Toccata for three years, because Ian gets snitty when I get too much of the spotlight…
Magnus says, “Good. We’ll have you back by then.”
Steve walks back to Gary. They communicate mouth to ear — Gary doesn’t wear a headset. Gary’s hearing is not going to last out the next year, but he says he can’t keep the beat if he can’t hear everything.
Gary nods. Ian puts the second guitar down and goes behind me to get my guitar. All of Silver Thunder’s songs feature Ian on the guitar, even when they feature Nicky on the Hammond.
Ian nods that he’s ready. Gary cues us out of Yesterday’s Moon. Steve modulates from E to A minor to G. I hit the opening bars. The crowd screams Nick-EE! again.
If I had known he was going to need it, I would have had Magnus set up the Frankie Moss custom instead. Somebody should use it, since I’m never going to touch the thing again. Not even if it does have my initials in mother of pearl on the corner of the fretboard, where Frankie puts his.
Fuck Frankie anyway.
Consider my interest grabbed.
Thanks Richard 🙂
Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth. It is clear that this is a band and there are some internal dynamics and some jealously happening. There has been a technical glitch which is stressful, but doesn’t seem to bother the audience much. I’m curious as to how many people have come to see this band as by the venue they appear to be perhaps an emerging group… is this their home community. Ian gets upset if Nicky gets too much attention, but my impression is that according to this crowd Nicky is the sole attraction. Does Ian usually get attention? Where is the story going?
Thanks, Leonie, those are good things for me to keep in mind. But it doesn’t answer the basic question — which is, were you interested?
Seem familiar :). I like the little details and the intensity, but I agree with Leonie that a better sense of the size would help. Even just a simple “300 voices start chanting” or something would give us the sense of size.
You’d probably catch this, but this bit reads as a POV slip:
“even when they feature Nicky on the Hammond.”
Well, it’s Nicky referring to himself in the third person, so it has to be that way, but I’ll try to make it clearer. And it’s easy enough to add a bit more about the audience, but I’m not sure why it matters so much at this point. Are you going to be more interested if they’re a major band than if they’re up and coming?
Ah, yeah, I didn’t read it that way so it stood out. BTW, I forgot to say that I still like it :). I told you that already, but it’s been a while.
On the band, it’s not a matter of interesting, it’s a matter of being able to picture the scene. It’s not written as though they’re looking out onto darkness and have no idea, so the band knows who’s out there, and we’re in that POV, but we don’t know. It’s like a POV slip in a very sideways way. Does that make sense, or is my cold talking?
Yes, it makes sense, and I see what you mean. I’ll have to look at that much more closely. One thing I can see immediately is that I haven’t made clear that Nicky is deducing some of this from being able to hear it. He can’t really see most of it except in the brief intervals when the lights are down.
Even better :). You can put in more sensory information then.
I like I like!
Thanks 🙂
It grabbed my interest. I like it. I’d read more.
Oh, and I got the third person reference.