Page 79 of Shame Me
The lights onstage dimmed and I picked up both sets of drumsticks, not sure if I could trust the roadies to properly do their jobs. As we were exiting, Bleak Viper’s road crew was standing in the wings, waiting for our roadies to get our stuff offstage so they could set everything up for their band. The biggest guy there made sure we were passing by when he said, “This kid band is taking too goddamn long to get their shit off the stage.”
I stopped in my tracks. Zack was behind me, Braden and Cy in front, and I wasn’t sure how much they’d heard…oh, but I had. It was bad enough being underestimated because I was female, but now I was akidtoo?
“Listen, asshole,” I said, pointing my finger at the jerk. He was a tall, beefy guy with straggly brown hair and an equally straggly beard and looked like the leader of them all—and I was ready to give him what I thought with both barrels.
But Zack touched my arm, encouraging me to keep walking. When I didn’t, he nudged harder—and the last thing I wanted to do was get into it withhimaround these jerks. So I just said “Keep your opinions to yourself” as we walked through the doorway.
It wasn’t until we were in the hallway by our dressing rooms that I hissed at Zack. “What the hell was that for?”
“You’re right, Dani—that guy was being a complete asshole, but you’re not gonna win us points by chewing their asses on the first night of the show. Just ignore them. If our roadies have problems with them, let Mick handle it.”
“And let them see us as wimps who can’t handle our own conflicts?”
Cy said, “Zack’s right, Dani—that guy wasn’t bitching about us. He was bitching about our road crew. He didn’t say anything about us taking too long or—”
“He called us akid band.”
Braden said, “Technically, we are. We’re barely out of high school. And I think we should be proud of that. We have—”
“You guys are impossible.” And, with that, I went into my dressing room and slammed the door. I calmed myself by checking out some of our socials, excited that people were already posting pictures of tonight’s concert. By the time I heard Bleak Viper playing, I had calmed down. Maybe Iwasblowing it all out of proportion.
And I made myself feel lots better by telling myself that Bleak Viper’s roadies were probably jealous of our success—so they had to make themselves feel superior by cutting us down.
I could live with that.
But I wanted to watch Bleak Viper play. Zack and I had loved exchanging some of their videos back when we were cutting our teeth to old rock and metal, and I loved a bunch of their songs. Their roadies might have been assholes, but that didn’t change the fact that we were touring with the legendary Bleak Viper.
I also tried to put out of my mind that they were also a band who’d had a few videos back in the day that denigrated women.
Feeling relief that none of their road crew was onstage, I pushed earplugs into my ears to protect them from the intensity of sound blaring from their amps, leaned against the wall, andjust watched. At first, I was jamming a little bit…but that didn’t last long.
These guyssucked.
The lead singer, Don Horton, could barely sing. Every single time he should have been singing the chorus, he was holding the mic out to the crowd, havingthemsing while he stood there. Was he catching his breath? And, half the time, I could barely hear him, even with the amps.
Still, the crowd was cheering for them. Now I wondered about the audience’s taste in music, and the high I’d felt earlier from their reaction to our set faded into nothing.
I wished the guys were here.
But that wasn’t all. The bassist seemed to play just two out of the four strings on his instrument. Meanwhile, the guitarist was sloppy as shit and didn’t seem to care if he could play the right notes.
After the third song, while the audience was cheering, the drummer stood up, holding his drumsticks in front of his crotch as if they were his dick. And then he started stroking them, acting like he came, and finished by “throwing” out his invisible cum toward the audience.
Gross.
I’d seen more than enough. Was this some of the shit they’d done during their concerts back in the day? And why did these old geezers think anyone wanted to see that today?
Not to mention they’d played like shit.
Now I was embarrassed to be on tour with them—and I wanted the guys to know.
When I went backstage, I found them in the green room. There were several couches and comfy chairs, and all three guys were lounging as if they’d just worked out. Braden was drinking from a bottle of Fiji water while Cy munched on an apple. Zack, of course, had a bottle of some kind of beer I’d never heard of,but it had the wordIPAin big letters on the front. I’d never been a fan of beer, but Zack had never met any kind of alcohol he didn’t like.
I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and sat among them, but I leaned over, hoping to keep my voice low in case someone walked by. The last thing I needed was to give their road crew another reason to hate me. “Have you guys been listening to their set?” I all but whispered. In the green room, their music was barely audible.
“Not really.”
“I was backstage. The audience loves them, but theysuck.”
