Page 120 of All Right No
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14thFebruary, Vienna Stadthalle, Austria.
“What in the hell is all the noise about?” Ash stumbled into the dressing room, clutching his head expecting the rest of the band to be present. They weren’t. There was only Rock Giant hunched over a laptop screen. “Hey, is there something going on out front?”
The big guy swore, and beat a few keys. “Dumb bloody wanking game.” He slammed the laptop lid closed and finally looked up at Ash. “Kinda sounds like there is. Shall we go look?”
“What?” Ash backed up, while spluttering cola over himself. “Go outside? For realz?” Every artist worth their salt knew crowds weren’t something you wandered out into. They could be dangerous. “Maybe we could just look out of a window.”
Paul made a show of turning so that he observed every part of the pokey dressing room. There weren’t any windows, although the modern concrete and glass concert hall had plenty of them at the front of the building. “I doubt we’d get a decent view of the commotion anyway, and whatever it is, sounds like something I might want to take a good gander at.”
How Paul could surmise that from what little information they had, confounded Ash. All he was hearing were an awful lot of screams.
Ash watched his friend slot his big feet into a pair of boots and lace them. “Why take such a pointless risk?” He probably ought to go and find the rest of the guys and alert them that Rock Giant was about to feed himself to the piranhas. “Think about this, man. What if it’s an attack?”
Scary shit had happened at more than a few gigs in recent times. Nothing at any of theirs, thankfully, but still… It paid to be cautious.
Rock Giant clapped a hand on top of Ash’s head and ruffled his hair. “Are you hearing that, dimwit? Those are very clearly happy screams, not blood curdling ones. There’s summat seriously wrong with your hearing if you can’t tell the difference.”
He could hear just fine, and yes, he could tell the difference.
“Tell you what, if you’re so concerned for my well-being, why don’t you come with me? Then you can keep an eye on me.”
“Only a dumb schmuck would fall for that. I’m not going out there.”
Liam barged into the room, looking all wild eyed. He was followed by a couple of the other roadies. “Ash, are you hearing this, man? They’re baying for you.”
What? Were they? All he could hear were screams, not any particular enunciations. Although, with the door into the corridor open, and if he listened really hard, it did kind of sound like they might be calling his name.
Rock Giant barged him out of the room and shoved him along the corridor. “You’re gonna have to find out what they want.”
“I’m not going out there.” Ash repeated to himself. No one else was listening, and even if they were, they wouldn’t have heard him.
“That’s one hell of a din.” Spook fell into step beside them having come from the direction of the stage. “Want to clue us in on why they’re all so desperate to see you?”
Ash raised his hands. “I haven’t a clue.” In some sense though, it was curiously satisfying listening to so many people yelling his name, and not the names of any of the rest of the band.
Xane arrived too, along with Luthor and Cave Troll. Dani followed a moment later. “Why are you all in here and not out there?” she asked.
“We don’t want to start a riot,” Ash replied. Leastways, he didn’t.
“Well, I think you should go out and see what they want. Don’t you agree, Xane?”
Xane neither agreed nor disagreed. Instead, his gaze fastened upon her and a smile lit up his face. Luthor too looked massively relieved. “You’re back… It’s been the ten longest days ever.”
Dani had been somewhere? Ash guessed he hadn’t seen her for a bit, but he’d just figured she was around somewhere. He’d been avoiding people in general.
“Is everything cool?” Luthor asked.
“I’ll let you know in a bit.” Dani kissed him and then Xane. “Get your dumb arse mate to go outside, eh?”
The two guys squared up on either side of Ash, and somehow managed to wrestle him into hold. “We live to obey the lady. Let’s go and see what all this fuss is about.”
***
Despite there still being another hour until the doors opened for the gig, the queue outside already filled the plaza. The baying audience grew wilder the moment the band stepped outside. Ash wriggled free of Xane and Luthor’s hold by shedding his leather jacket. He’d have been straight back inside the building—it wasn’t that he objected to meeting their fans, he just preferred not to meet quite so many at once without the men in suits around—if not for the glimpse of the canary yellow dream machine he spied out of the corner of his eye, and most of their road crew lurking in the vicinity with their tongues hanging out of their mouths.
“Is this a Sally special?” he remarked. Their PR manager was notorious for booking ‘happenings’ that made the collective members of Black Halo want to smash their heads against some rocks. “I didn’t realise we were channelling Motley Cr—” His words petered out as his brain took stock of what he was actually seeing.
