Page 83 of All Right No
-20-
Christmas Eve. England.
A few weeks later, Ash stood in the wings peeping out at the massive crowd assembled to hear them perform. The support act had certainly got them rocking, and the whole auditorium was brimming with goodwill and seasonal cheer.
“The place is packed, eh?” Spook stuck his head out to take a better look at their audience, was spotted and welcomed with an almighty cheer. The main auditorium was a sea of arms, and the two dress circles above them were doing their best to out-do them in terms of noise.
“We’re going to rock the shit out of you,” Ash promised them. He fully intended that every person here would still be beaming about the gig tomorrow as they tucked into their Christmas dinners.
“Must have seemed like you’d never get back here,” Spook observed.
Yeah, there’d been dark days over the last six months. Ash had given the ego-riser some distinctly woeful looks earlier, but the mechanical lift hadn’t been the root of his problems, that was down to his inability to see people for what they really were.
“Are you ready for this?”
As ready as he was ever going to be. “Super psyched for it.” Leastways mostly. There were some anxious butterflies flapping wildly in his insides.
“Yeah, well you’ll be needing this, unless you’re planning on entertaining them with your voice.” Xane approached, Ash’s black Les Paul clasped in his hands. Ash settled the strap around his shoulders, whereupon his two friends both gave him thumbs up approval.
“Now, you’ve taken your iron, and drank a gallon, haven’t you?”
“Yes, mam.” Ash muttered, throwing Xane some serious side-eye. The Black Halo front man gave him an unsettling grin in return. It may well have been that Xane intended it to be reassuring, but he was decked out in all his fiendish finery including yellow cat’s eye contacts and a heap of black kohl around his eyes and mouth, that made him resemble some sort of ghoulish prince.
“Remember, no theatrics, no overdoing it. We don’t want you crashing out on us again, and if there’s any problems with your fingers, just give me the nod and I’ll take over.” Xane, the man known for theatrics, was warning him to calm it down—ha! But sure, he knew. He remembered the plans. They’d spent the last week developing a series of signals they could use, so that Xane could take over whenever Ash needed to give his fingers a break. Not that Ash planned to utilise them, at least not tonight. This opening gig, he intended to get through without assistance. After that, sure, he’d rely on Xane if he needed to, but tonight had to be perfect.
Cave Troll pushed Elspeth’s replacement over to them. Poor Liam. Most people cut their teeth playing to a handful of mates in some seedy backroom at a working men’s club, then playing successively larger venues. They were feeding him to the sharks, expecting him to produce the goods at a sold out arena show.
“I belong back here, not out there,” he protested, shaking himself free of Cave Troll’s hold. He stared at them, while his feet shuffled exactly as if he was gearing up to bolt.
“You’re at the back, no one will notice you. Even Luthor’s positioned further forward than where you’ll be standing, so curb the freak out,” Xane said.
“You’re only shitting yourself now, but in the end you’ll be floating and desperate to do it all again,” Ash advised him.
Their former roadie shook his head. “I’ll never. Guys, you need to find someone else.”
“We don’t need to find anyone else,” the five of them all chorused together. “We have you.”
“I’m counting you in, guys. Get out there and rock these bastards,” Ulf said to them through their earpieces. “Let the Black Halo magic begin.”
It sounded corny, but Ash equated the thrill of being on stage with magic. There was definitely something inexplicably thrilling about it. How he’d managed to survive six months without the crowd’s adulation, he didn’t know. Ginny, he supposed. The guys had stood by him and tolerated all his shitty emo angst, but without Ginny, it was hard to believe he’d ever have managed to pick up a guitar again, let alone play for this cavern of screaming psychos. And just as soon as he’d finished entertaining them, he intended to say thank you to her in the best way he could think of.
The first set passed super quickly. Ash kept a tight rein on his emotions the whole time, as he endeavoured not to fluff a single note. Some of the triplets on the new stuff really did require his fingers to fly, but somehow, he nailed them. In any case, the crowd were behind them, and didn’t seem to give a damn about a few fluffed notes. They were screaming themselves hoarse between tracks and singing along with the lyrics of all their biggest hits. It made him glow like a beacon when they proved they knew every word toLockdownwhen it hadn’t even been officially released. Sally, or someone had slipped a bootleg into the wild, and the fan sites had been losing their shit over it for the last couple of days. Graham was now talking about bumping the official release forward to capture the zeitgeist. Weirdly, Ash didn’t even care that it was being illegally shared in a way that wouldn’t net him a bean of recompense. He just loved that they loved it. And besides, the pre-sales numbers for the new album were already at a record high.
By the second half, he’d relaxed enough to genuinely enjoy himself, and to realise that enjoying it was more important than mechanical perfection. Ergo, it was okay to cut himself a bit of slack.
Result—Xane attempted to smooch him during the intro toLillith Licked, and he and Spook fooled around competing with Luthor while he was performing one of his drum solos.
By the time they reached the penultimate song of the night, Xane looked slightly put out that he hadn’t had the chance to show off his talent for guitar. Despite the moaning he liked to do about being forced to play, they all knew he actually loved it. The guy was finger perfect on every Black Halo track ever written. In any case, he’d get his chance over the coming weeks. Ash wasn’t fooling himself. He might be flying at the moment, but his body was still healing. The iron tablets, much to his mortification, had actually helped a lot.
It still set his teeth on edge when he had to swallow the damn pills, but he accepted that sometimes you had to take things out of necessity, and at least they weren’t painkillers.
Also, he was pretty certain you couldn’t get hooked on iron tablets. He hadn’t found any reported incidences on the internet. The only major downside to them was black poop.
Cue many, many jokes from the guys about the gateway to hell, and Satan’s potty.
After two encores, they were still on the stage.
“A little quiet, please.” Xane raised his hand until he got the crowd to simmer down. They were all staring up, wondering if they were about to be treated to one last track, or if this was the official send off. “We realise you’re all dying to get home to your bed in anticipation of Santa coming—”
