Page 54 of Accidental Fire
The crowd went insane as I played the intro to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,”and then the stage lights came on, and we slid right into our metal version of “Chasing You,” which was also in E major.
You… you think I’ll keep chasing you
That I can’t live without you
You think that I love you
I… I know what you want from me
That you’ve got the best of me
And you want the rest of me
My… my head can’t take anymore
Please don’t knock on my door
I can’t get off the floor
It can’t go down like before
There’s one thing I gotta do
After all you’ve put me through
All the times you’ve been untrue
I’m over chasing you…
As the last chord hung in the air, the crowd went wild. My nerves were gone, and as I looked to my left and saw Kit singing along, there was absolutely nothing that could’ve been better.
When I changed guitars, my shirt rubbed against my sore nipples, and I laughed. The appointment Kit had made was to get my nipples pierced and for him to get a tattoo.
The tattoo was the opening chords of “Three Words” written on staff paper. I’d only played the song for Kit, not ready to share it with the world. He knew I’d written it for him, and he’d wanted it permanently inked on his left arm to always remember that moment when we declared our love for each other.
It was my guy’s first tattoo, and I’d had to hold his hand because he hated needles. I loved it and the memory it represented, and I’d never forget that time for the rest of my life.
We played all our songs, and for the encore, we decided to go with the acoustic version of “Bury Me” from the movie that had been released at the beginning of September. We had to give Goldie’s voice a chance to recover for the performance the next night, plus I loved the song and was happy to sing it.
Returning to the stage, we all waved to the crowd and moved the mic stands as the guys came out with stools and our acoustic guitars. Goldie was playing a wooden cabasa shaker, and Hardy had a djembe drum instead of the drum kit. We’d played with the song so it didn’t sound too much like the one in the movie, but folks could still figure out it was the old song.
“We’re going to slow it down a little so Goldie has a chance to catch his breath. You might not know this, but Regal Ashe, the drummer for From the Ashes, is my father and Arlo’s. We came together as a band by accident while From the Ashes was working on revamping this song for Harmon Studios. The movie,Hurricane Alley,came out this summer, and it’s been a huge success. Since the song was in the family, we want to play our version of it for you tonight.”
I turned to the wings to see Olive standing next to Kit, holding up a poster of the cover for our first album. “Hey, bring that out. Let’s show them,” I said.
Olive stepped out from behind the curtain and handed me the poster. “This is the cover of our first full-length double album,Fan the Flames, Live. We hope you’ll pick it up when it comes out on streaming and on vinyl on October ninth.”
I nodded to Hardy, who quietly counted us in, and we sang the song the way Skyler wrote it. The way it should have been sung for the movie.
The audience was singing along and waving cellphone flashlights in the air. I glanced to my left to see Kit studying me as I sang the lead. His smile was beautiful.
“Bury Me”
You say I’m cold
you think I’m mean
You claim when I’m with you,
