It had just been one of those weeks, nothing had gone right, work was awful, the car had needed a new exhaust after some kind soul left a boulder right on the entrance to my driveway and, to top it all off, my girlfriend had split up with me on the Friday night. Well, decided is probably too polite a description, a far more accurate one would have been decided to go out with one of my work mates for the last two weeks and finally get round to telling me it was over when I saw them in a rather passionate embrace in the local McDonalds.
It was mid afternoon on the Saturday and I was sitting around trying to figure out exactly what I’d done to deserve this when the phone rang. It was a call from a friend of mine asking for a favour on behalf of one of her friends, you know how these things go, right? A few months back I’d spent some time with Carly and her mates while they were trying to put a band together. As they’d been lacking a singer at the time, I’d volunteered to help out when they were practicing so they’d at least have something to use for timing purposes. They’d decided to go for a mix of old rock songs for their set list, mainly Queen songs and for the most part they were ideally suited to my voice. I had to drop a couple of songs down a bit to be able to sing them without blowing my voice out, but for the most part it had gone okay and, much to my surprise, I’d ended up rather enjoying it. Since then they’d put in a lot of time and had gotten a couple of gigs at local pubs and seemed to be having a good time performing.
I hadn’t really stayed in touch with them, only at the ‘still performing and enjoying it’ level, although I rather wish I had. Their singer had gone done with some sort of throat infection and they were scheduled to play that night. I’m sure you can guess where this is going, and to cut a long story short I agreed to fill in. It had been almost twelve years since I’d done any sort of stage work, and I somehow doubted true musicians included school plays on their resumes. Still, it might be fun, and whatever happened I couldn’t get any more depressed than I was already.
The drive down took me a couple of hours, mainly because I was being very careful of the guitar and amp stored in the boot. The Burns Brian May replica was the pride and joy of my (admittedly small) collection of guitars, I’d gone without a car for a year to drum up the money and I had no intention of bouncing it off the sides of the boot. I turned up at Carly’s house to meet up with everyone and get reacquainted to the guys I’d be helping out. And that’s where the problem started.
Turns out that in the last three months there’d been a bit of a change of heart regarding the bands ‘musical direction’. Which is the polite way of saying that instead of doing light pop rock, they were now a heavy metal act. Now this in and of itself wasn’t a bad thing, I’m a metal head myself and my auto changer is regularly packed with Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More and so on. The thing was, as much as I may love the heavy side my voice just isn’t suited to it. My normal pitch is too high and is a bit thin to really get a snap into the lyrics. I tried to point this out, but it didn’t make any difference, I really was their last chance and they had already spent the money from the gig on new amps. Which only really left me one choice. I can drop my voice down low enough to get away with doing metal, but it will wreck my throat for at least a week afterwards. The only other time I’d done it I’d ended up coughing blood for a few days after the event and didn’t really want to repeat the experience, but I couldn’t just leave them in the lurch.
We ran through a set list, trying to pick songs that I could hopefully get the audience to do a back and forth duet and thus save my voice a bit, but the fact of the matter was they were there to play loud, fast, heavy music and so we were a little limited. The venue was the back room of the local pub, packed to bursting with about a hundred people, most of whom knew not only each other but most of the acts performing that night. It was kind of a cross between a talent show and a ‘breakout performance’ night, and those that did well would probably end up with quite a lot of work as a result. We were on last, and by the time we hit the stage it was gone midnight and the crowd had gotten through a fair bit of alcohol, enough so they were really starting to loosen up.
The stage itself was barely a foot off the ground and just about big enough to take five people and their kit before meeting the audience. It was the most nerve wracking experience of my life, doing a very fast sound check in with a sweaty, head banging crowd only inches away from me, knowing that the chances of actually delivering anything that they’d like weren’t that good. It was at that moment, standing in front of the mike as I listened to the rest of the band tune up I made a vital decision. “The hell with it, if you’re going to do this, do it right and deal with the results later.”
The drummer counted us in, and with only a slight moment of confusion we were off, surging into a set that was largely dominated by Metallica covers. The plan was simple, play loud, play fast and hope everyone was too drunk to notice the cock-ups. Opening with Hit The Lights and on into Trapped Under Ice gave me a chance to get my voice in roughly the right range before heading on into the low pitched chug of Sad But True and Harvester Of Sorrow. Much to my surprise the audience actually started getting into the set, not only moshing their hearts out but also singing along. With that came the realisation that this wasn’t going to be the public humiliation I’d feared and I finally started to relax into things.
A brief pause followed as the lead guitarist did some show off solo work (also the only show off solo work he could do, but the crowd didn’t know that) giving me a moment to down some water and grab a loaned guitar from Carly who was acting as our roadie for the evening. While I had the Red Special at the back of the small stage, it just wasn’t suited to this sort of music. Pausing for a second to make sure everyone was together we took a big gamble and started St Anger. The song had only been out a few weeks and official guitar tabs weren’t available yet, but we managed something close enough to pass muster in the closed in environment of the club and I had to admit it felt good to be not only singing but playing in front of a crowd for the first time in months.
About then was when things started to get a little odd. A rather clumsy and heavy-handed surge got us from the newest album to the oldest as we started Seek and Destroy. For those that don’t know, this is the perfect song for an audience to that’s already interacting with you, as the chorus is real simple and practically built for a bit and back and forth. The initial reaction surprised me as what felt like the entire audience followed up my (slightly strangled I admit) “Search and…” with a full bloodied “Seek And Destroy!”. What was weird though was I’d have sworn I heard the tail end of a single, high-pitched laugh as the roar died away. Another three repeats of the line, and every time the same thing, a massive reaction with that giggle on the end.
It wasn’t the sort of laugh I’d have expected under the circumstances, nothing derisory or sarcastic about it, just a high, musical giggle that was intriguing me every tie I heard it. Ripping through the next verse I signalled for the bass player to take the next chorus and as he growled out the “Seek and…” part I kept a close eye on the crowd, trying to pick up on where the laughter was coming from. It took three of the four repeats before I spotted it. A young woman, looked to be in her early twenties was about three rows back in the crowd, flanked, no, surrounded by five guys, one either side, three behind her. Four of them were pretty big, six foot plus and with the sort of build that screams professional athlete. The fifth though was about as different as you could get. Five seven or so, scrawny with hair like a brillo pad, he really looked out of place in this sort of crowd as he stood behind the lady. She was, well to be honest, if I was asked to describe the ideal rocker I’d have come up with someone much like her.
Long black hair cascaded down her back, framing a pale face, sharp cheekbones and bright blue eyes giving her an almost classical beauty. She wore faded black jeans, a close cut and frayed Motorhead t-shirt and what looked, in the brief glimpse I caught between the bouncing crowd in front of her, like black combat boots. She was stunning, and unlike the guy standing behind her she looked totally at home here. As the final “Search and….” was blasted out by our bass player I caught the motion that had attracted me earlier. As the crowd started the “Seek And Destroy!” reply, the five men around her would lean in and tickle her, hands descending on her ribs, armpits, shoulders and, from the shorter of the men, her waist, hips and belly. It would only last a second, timed perfectly with the crowd, only that last lingering remnant of her shriek hovering to catch my attention.
Unfortunately, for her at least, I couldn’t resist having a little fun with the situation. We blasted through the fast guitar break part of the song, then the third verse and chorus. Then we dropped the guitar riff completely, leaving the bass player and drummer with a chance to play around. After their own show off moment they hit a nice steady beat and, microphone in hand, I started to play around with the crowd. Picking on someone in the first couple of rows for a quick duet I’d do the first part of the chorus, they’d finish it through the mic. It was a great couple of minutes, and I made sure to keep an eye on the unfortunate woman as she got tickled over and over again each time we hit the lyric. The sight of this dark angel wriggling and writhing against so many hands, even if only for the second or two the lyric lasted for, was intoxicating and I made another pass of the crowd, not giving them the cue this time, just letting them sing to the beat as I raised a hand on the ‘Seek’ part of the lyric. All the time the poor lass was getting tickled harder and harder, her eyes wide and body shaking as she stood, waiting for the next cue.
Pulling back up to centre stage (not that great a feat as the right and left of the stage could be covered in just a few strides) I started to work the crowd back into the song as we started to rebuild the riff. It took four tries to get everyone singing again, and another six to raise the volume to a level that seemed to shake the rood before we ended up ripping through the tail end of the song. Finishing up with Whiplash, played at a speed that presented serious danger to fingers when used with steel guitar strings it had the feeling of a seriously good set and as we started to leave the stage it happened.
“We want more! We want more!” It started off as a small chant, then was quickly taken up by the rest of the crowd. As we reached the door to the small function room that was acting as a dressing room the entire crowd was chanting it and we looked each other in disbelief. I shrugged, grabbed and gulped a bottle of water in two second flat and turned round. If this was the only time in our lives we’d get this sort of reaction, it seemed silly not to make the most of it. Heading back through the crowd to get to the stage was an incredible experience as cheers rose to greet us, people were slapping us on the back, moving aside as best they could to let us through, and it was just the greatest felling.
“So, you guys want some more, huh?” I asked, trying (and failing) to look cool, like I didn’t care if they did or not, though the grin on my face kind of gave the game away. “You don’t mind if we do something a little different do ya?” The roar that greeted that statement proved they didn’t and I turned to pick up my own guitar. When I turned back a wave of clapping started up which I just couldn’t understand at the time. The next day I was told that some of our recordings of the practice sessions I’d done with the group previously had made their way out to the people in the crowd that night, and that the few guitar tracks I’d done with them had earned a small but noticeable fan base in the area. Of course, I didn’t know that when the applause started up, but that wasn’t the time to question it.
A couple of quick sound checks, simple cords more than anything, and with a quick glance around I hit the riff for Stone Cold Crazy, although I just about had the presence of mind not to try the siren-like feedback that should be at the start of that song. I swapped vocal duties with one of the two guitar players and just concentrated on what I was doing, fingers flying as I found myself playing better than I’d ever done before, every note seeming to be perfect, at least to my slightly-defended ears. Surging from that into Tie Your Mother Down went surprisingly well, and I was flying in my heart, enjoying the moment more than anything else I could remember in my life. If anyone ever tells you the singer in a band has it easy, they’re lying; it’s the guitarist that gets to have the fun. As I tried not to completely disgrace the original solo I head around the edge of the crowd, eyes travelling over as many faces as I could see, head moving right along with theirs on the drum beat. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the mysterious ticklee.
The four guys I’d seen earlier had vanished, just the other, shorter man left beside her and he clearly wasn’t enjoying himself. Dressed in a short leather jacket, black jeans and, oh dear, an Fcuk white t-shirt, he looked like he’d come to the wrong party or something, his eyes travelling slowly around the room, trying to find something to keep his interest. The woman on the other hand was soaked from head to foot, her hair matted as her head flew forward with more enthusiasm than anyone else I’d seen that night. She looked up in surprise as the edge of the guitar entered her vision, and just for a moment our eyes locked. It really was only for a moment, and then I had to move on so as not to appear suspicious. The reason for avoiding that suspicion was simple, as she’d mouthed a request to me in a way that seemed calculated to escape the notice of what I presumed was her date.
Finishing up the song with a flourish I didn’t know I had in me we stopped for a moment to make a couple of changes to the equipment and grab a drink. We’d been on stage for over an hour and I for one was feeling it, only the adrenaline of performing in front of such an enthusiastic audience keeping me on my feet.
“So you guys are tired, huh?” I asked, pulling my lines straight from a Metallica concert. Hey if you’re going to steal material, steal from the best, right? “We’re just getting warmed up here and you guys are tired, you’re ready to go home!” The reaction to that was just what I hoped for an angry denial. Perfect.
“I tell you what, we’re going to give you a little test here, I start it, you finish it and we’ll find out what you’ve got left. Oh Yeah!” My heart stopped, wondering if such a blatant bit of manipulation would work. I shouldn’t have worried. “Oh Yeah!” came back, loud enough to wake the dead.
“Hmm, I hope that ain’t it. Oh YEAH!” I tried again, determined that, if we were going to this, we’d do it right. This time the reaction was loud enough to shake the walls. I paused, hitting a single note on the guitar, letting it fade gradually, then stepped away from the mic and settled for yelling “Hammer To Fall!”
The crowd went nuts, all except for the guy in the white t-shirt. Suddenly he was looking panicked and I’d deliberately set myself over on that side of the stage to watch his reaction. Quickly, but subtly, the people around him moved away and were replaced by four women, all about the six foot mark, all dressed in black (big surprise I this company I know) and all with a single red streak down the middle of their hair.
It was a mirror of Seek And Destroy, only this time it was the guy getting the hell tickled out of him, and worse, they seemed to be keyed to the riff rather than the lyrics. Doing my best to hide the grin I moved down the front of the crowd during the solo, dragging the riff out as long as I could, messing about with the other guys, even doing a Status Quo-like routine with the bass player swinging his instrument around on the beat as I ducked under it. Finally I made it back over to where I’d started and had to work very hard not to laugh out loud.
The man was hunched over, arms wrapped around his sides, sweating now when he hadn’t been previously, his body trembling as the girls poked and prodded the areas he couldn’t cover. Finally I stepped up to the mic to finish the song, dragging out the last note of the riff, holding it as the crowd bunched up and the girls posed their fingers delicately over the most ticklish spots on the guy’s body, waiting for their cue. I looked right, left then lent forward into the microphone “Give it to me one more time…” and hit the last notes in near perfect time with everyone else, immediately killing the sound. The guy couldn’t stop laughing in time, his ticklish howl echoing around the room as the women grinned triumphantly and glanced up towards Carly who was now sitting on an equipment case at the side of the stage, clearly enthralled by the proceedings. She paused then nodded and the man was swiftly marched away by the women, leaving the gorgeous woman alone with a big grin on her face. As I watched her she looked straight at me and mouthed the words “thank you” followed by a wink. I had no idea what I’d actually done for her, but I decided that it didn’t really matter.
It was mid afternoon on the Saturday and I was sitting around trying to figure out exactly what I’d done to deserve this when the phone rang. It was a call from a friend of mine asking for a favour on behalf of one of her friends, you know how these things go, right? A few months back I’d spent some time with Carly and her mates while they were trying to put a band together. As they’d been lacking a singer at the time, I’d volunteered to help out when they were practicing so they’d at least have something to use for timing purposes. They’d decided to go for a mix of old rock songs for their set list, mainly Queen songs and for the most part they were ideally suited to my voice. I had to drop a couple of songs down a bit to be able to sing them without blowing my voice out, but for the most part it had gone okay and, much to my surprise, I’d ended up rather enjoying it. Since then they’d put in a lot of time and had gotten a couple of gigs at local pubs and seemed to be having a good time performing.
I hadn’t really stayed in touch with them, only at the ‘still performing and enjoying it’ level, although I rather wish I had. Their singer had gone done with some sort of throat infection and they were scheduled to play that night. I’m sure you can guess where this is going, and to cut a long story short I agreed to fill in. It had been almost twelve years since I’d done any sort of stage work, and I somehow doubted true musicians included school plays on their resumes. Still, it might be fun, and whatever happened I couldn’t get any more depressed than I was already.
The drive down took me a couple of hours, mainly because I was being very careful of the guitar and amp stored in the boot. The Burns Brian May replica was the pride and joy of my (admittedly small) collection of guitars, I’d gone without a car for a year to drum up the money and I had no intention of bouncing it off the sides of the boot. I turned up at Carly’s house to meet up with everyone and get reacquainted to the guys I’d be helping out. And that’s where the problem started.
Turns out that in the last three months there’d been a bit of a change of heart regarding the bands ‘musical direction’. Which is the polite way of saying that instead of doing light pop rock, they were now a heavy metal act. Now this in and of itself wasn’t a bad thing, I’m a metal head myself and my auto changer is regularly packed with Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More and so on. The thing was, as much as I may love the heavy side my voice just isn’t suited to it. My normal pitch is too high and is a bit thin to really get a snap into the lyrics. I tried to point this out, but it didn’t make any difference, I really was their last chance and they had already spent the money from the gig on new amps. Which only really left me one choice. I can drop my voice down low enough to get away with doing metal, but it will wreck my throat for at least a week afterwards. The only other time I’d done it I’d ended up coughing blood for a few days after the event and didn’t really want to repeat the experience, but I couldn’t just leave them in the lurch.
We ran through a set list, trying to pick songs that I could hopefully get the audience to do a back and forth duet and thus save my voice a bit, but the fact of the matter was they were there to play loud, fast, heavy music and so we were a little limited. The venue was the back room of the local pub, packed to bursting with about a hundred people, most of whom knew not only each other but most of the acts performing that night. It was kind of a cross between a talent show and a ‘breakout performance’ night, and those that did well would probably end up with quite a lot of work as a result. We were on last, and by the time we hit the stage it was gone midnight and the crowd had gotten through a fair bit of alcohol, enough so they were really starting to loosen up.
The stage itself was barely a foot off the ground and just about big enough to take five people and their kit before meeting the audience. It was the most nerve wracking experience of my life, doing a very fast sound check in with a sweaty, head banging crowd only inches away from me, knowing that the chances of actually delivering anything that they’d like weren’t that good. It was at that moment, standing in front of the mike as I listened to the rest of the band tune up I made a vital decision. “The hell with it, if you’re going to do this, do it right and deal with the results later.”
The drummer counted us in, and with only a slight moment of confusion we were off, surging into a set that was largely dominated by Metallica covers. The plan was simple, play loud, play fast and hope everyone was too drunk to notice the cock-ups. Opening with Hit The Lights and on into Trapped Under Ice gave me a chance to get my voice in roughly the right range before heading on into the low pitched chug of Sad But True and Harvester Of Sorrow. Much to my surprise the audience actually started getting into the set, not only moshing their hearts out but also singing along. With that came the realisation that this wasn’t going to be the public humiliation I’d feared and I finally started to relax into things.
A brief pause followed as the lead guitarist did some show off solo work (also the only show off solo work he could do, but the crowd didn’t know that) giving me a moment to down some water and grab a loaned guitar from Carly who was acting as our roadie for the evening. While I had the Red Special at the back of the small stage, it just wasn’t suited to this sort of music. Pausing for a second to make sure everyone was together we took a big gamble and started St Anger. The song had only been out a few weeks and official guitar tabs weren’t available yet, but we managed something close enough to pass muster in the closed in environment of the club and I had to admit it felt good to be not only singing but playing in front of a crowd for the first time in months.
About then was when things started to get a little odd. A rather clumsy and heavy-handed surge got us from the newest album to the oldest as we started Seek and Destroy. For those that don’t know, this is the perfect song for an audience to that’s already interacting with you, as the chorus is real simple and practically built for a bit and back and forth. The initial reaction surprised me as what felt like the entire audience followed up my (slightly strangled I admit) “Search and…” with a full bloodied “Seek And Destroy!”. What was weird though was I’d have sworn I heard the tail end of a single, high-pitched laugh as the roar died away. Another three repeats of the line, and every time the same thing, a massive reaction with that giggle on the end.
It wasn’t the sort of laugh I’d have expected under the circumstances, nothing derisory or sarcastic about it, just a high, musical giggle that was intriguing me every tie I heard it. Ripping through the next verse I signalled for the bass player to take the next chorus and as he growled out the “Seek and…” part I kept a close eye on the crowd, trying to pick up on where the laughter was coming from. It took three of the four repeats before I spotted it. A young woman, looked to be in her early twenties was about three rows back in the crowd, flanked, no, surrounded by five guys, one either side, three behind her. Four of them were pretty big, six foot plus and with the sort of build that screams professional athlete. The fifth though was about as different as you could get. Five seven or so, scrawny with hair like a brillo pad, he really looked out of place in this sort of crowd as he stood behind the lady. She was, well to be honest, if I was asked to describe the ideal rocker I’d have come up with someone much like her.
Long black hair cascaded down her back, framing a pale face, sharp cheekbones and bright blue eyes giving her an almost classical beauty. She wore faded black jeans, a close cut and frayed Motorhead t-shirt and what looked, in the brief glimpse I caught between the bouncing crowd in front of her, like black combat boots. She was stunning, and unlike the guy standing behind her she looked totally at home here. As the final “Search and….” was blasted out by our bass player I caught the motion that had attracted me earlier. As the crowd started the “Seek And Destroy!” reply, the five men around her would lean in and tickle her, hands descending on her ribs, armpits, shoulders and, from the shorter of the men, her waist, hips and belly. It would only last a second, timed perfectly with the crowd, only that last lingering remnant of her shriek hovering to catch my attention.
Unfortunately, for her at least, I couldn’t resist having a little fun with the situation. We blasted through the fast guitar break part of the song, then the third verse and chorus. Then we dropped the guitar riff completely, leaving the bass player and drummer with a chance to play around. After their own show off moment they hit a nice steady beat and, microphone in hand, I started to play around with the crowd. Picking on someone in the first couple of rows for a quick duet I’d do the first part of the chorus, they’d finish it through the mic. It was a great couple of minutes, and I made sure to keep an eye on the unfortunate woman as she got tickled over and over again each time we hit the lyric. The sight of this dark angel wriggling and writhing against so many hands, even if only for the second or two the lyric lasted for, was intoxicating and I made another pass of the crowd, not giving them the cue this time, just letting them sing to the beat as I raised a hand on the ‘Seek’ part of the lyric. All the time the poor lass was getting tickled harder and harder, her eyes wide and body shaking as she stood, waiting for the next cue.
Pulling back up to centre stage (not that great a feat as the right and left of the stage could be covered in just a few strides) I started to work the crowd back into the song as we started to rebuild the riff. It took four tries to get everyone singing again, and another six to raise the volume to a level that seemed to shake the rood before we ended up ripping through the tail end of the song. Finishing up with Whiplash, played at a speed that presented serious danger to fingers when used with steel guitar strings it had the feeling of a seriously good set and as we started to leave the stage it happened.
“We want more! We want more!” It started off as a small chant, then was quickly taken up by the rest of the crowd. As we reached the door to the small function room that was acting as a dressing room the entire crowd was chanting it and we looked each other in disbelief. I shrugged, grabbed and gulped a bottle of water in two second flat and turned round. If this was the only time in our lives we’d get this sort of reaction, it seemed silly not to make the most of it. Heading back through the crowd to get to the stage was an incredible experience as cheers rose to greet us, people were slapping us on the back, moving aside as best they could to let us through, and it was just the greatest felling.
“So, you guys want some more, huh?” I asked, trying (and failing) to look cool, like I didn’t care if they did or not, though the grin on my face kind of gave the game away. “You don’t mind if we do something a little different do ya?” The roar that greeted that statement proved they didn’t and I turned to pick up my own guitar. When I turned back a wave of clapping started up which I just couldn’t understand at the time. The next day I was told that some of our recordings of the practice sessions I’d done with the group previously had made their way out to the people in the crowd that night, and that the few guitar tracks I’d done with them had earned a small but noticeable fan base in the area. Of course, I didn’t know that when the applause started up, but that wasn’t the time to question it.
A couple of quick sound checks, simple cords more than anything, and with a quick glance around I hit the riff for Stone Cold Crazy, although I just about had the presence of mind not to try the siren-like feedback that should be at the start of that song. I swapped vocal duties with one of the two guitar players and just concentrated on what I was doing, fingers flying as I found myself playing better than I’d ever done before, every note seeming to be perfect, at least to my slightly-defended ears. Surging from that into Tie Your Mother Down went surprisingly well, and I was flying in my heart, enjoying the moment more than anything else I could remember in my life. If anyone ever tells you the singer in a band has it easy, they’re lying; it’s the guitarist that gets to have the fun. As I tried not to completely disgrace the original solo I head around the edge of the crowd, eyes travelling over as many faces as I could see, head moving right along with theirs on the drum beat. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the mysterious ticklee.
The four guys I’d seen earlier had vanished, just the other, shorter man left beside her and he clearly wasn’t enjoying himself. Dressed in a short leather jacket, black jeans and, oh dear, an Fcuk white t-shirt, he looked like he’d come to the wrong party or something, his eyes travelling slowly around the room, trying to find something to keep his interest. The woman on the other hand was soaked from head to foot, her hair matted as her head flew forward with more enthusiasm than anyone else I’d seen that night. She looked up in surprise as the edge of the guitar entered her vision, and just for a moment our eyes locked. It really was only for a moment, and then I had to move on so as not to appear suspicious. The reason for avoiding that suspicion was simple, as she’d mouthed a request to me in a way that seemed calculated to escape the notice of what I presumed was her date.
Finishing up the song with a flourish I didn’t know I had in me we stopped for a moment to make a couple of changes to the equipment and grab a drink. We’d been on stage for over an hour and I for one was feeling it, only the adrenaline of performing in front of such an enthusiastic audience keeping me on my feet.
“So you guys are tired, huh?” I asked, pulling my lines straight from a Metallica concert. Hey if you’re going to steal material, steal from the best, right? “We’re just getting warmed up here and you guys are tired, you’re ready to go home!” The reaction to that was just what I hoped for an angry denial. Perfect.
“I tell you what, we’re going to give you a little test here, I start it, you finish it and we’ll find out what you’ve got left. Oh Yeah!” My heart stopped, wondering if such a blatant bit of manipulation would work. I shouldn’t have worried. “Oh Yeah!” came back, loud enough to wake the dead.
“Hmm, I hope that ain’t it. Oh YEAH!” I tried again, determined that, if we were going to this, we’d do it right. This time the reaction was loud enough to shake the walls. I paused, hitting a single note on the guitar, letting it fade gradually, then stepped away from the mic and settled for yelling “Hammer To Fall!”
The crowd went nuts, all except for the guy in the white t-shirt. Suddenly he was looking panicked and I’d deliberately set myself over on that side of the stage to watch his reaction. Quickly, but subtly, the people around him moved away and were replaced by four women, all about the six foot mark, all dressed in black (big surprise I this company I know) and all with a single red streak down the middle of their hair.
It was a mirror of Seek And Destroy, only this time it was the guy getting the hell tickled out of him, and worse, they seemed to be keyed to the riff rather than the lyrics. Doing my best to hide the grin I moved down the front of the crowd during the solo, dragging the riff out as long as I could, messing about with the other guys, even doing a Status Quo-like routine with the bass player swinging his instrument around on the beat as I ducked under it. Finally I made it back over to where I’d started and had to work very hard not to laugh out loud.
The man was hunched over, arms wrapped around his sides, sweating now when he hadn’t been previously, his body trembling as the girls poked and prodded the areas he couldn’t cover. Finally I stepped up to the mic to finish the song, dragging out the last note of the riff, holding it as the crowd bunched up and the girls posed their fingers delicately over the most ticklish spots on the guy’s body, waiting for their cue. I looked right, left then lent forward into the microphone “Give it to me one more time…” and hit the last notes in near perfect time with everyone else, immediately killing the sound. The guy couldn’t stop laughing in time, his ticklish howl echoing around the room as the women grinned triumphantly and glanced up towards Carly who was now sitting on an equipment case at the side of the stage, clearly enthralled by the proceedings. She paused then nodded and the man was swiftly marched away by the women, leaving the gorgeous woman alone with a big grin on her face. As I watched her she looked straight at me and mouthed the words “thank you” followed by a wink. I had no idea what I’d actually done for her, but I decided that it didn’t really matter.
