Clash Of The Rockbands
How to Crash a Concert
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have been FUCKING AWESOME tonight!” Matt exclaimed into the microphone. The crowd cheered...for themselves. Selfish bastards. Rayne, Jen, AM, Kim, and I all stood off-stage, nervously adjusting our microphone things. It’s those things that singers wear when they’re dancing and can’t hold a microphone very easily. They slip over your ear and a tiny little microphone on a wire goes down to hover around your mouth, and it’s connected wirelessly to a speaker.
We were about to ‘crash the concert’, as Matt had put it.
“You guys have been totally awesome, yes.” Matt said once the cheering had died down a bit. “But I’m sad to inform you that this will be our last encore. After this song, you will go back to the parking lot, climb into your beat up old Taurus, and head back home, where you’ll take a Tylenol for your headache and post the thirty seconds of concert that you recorded on your phone on YouTube before heading off to bed. So, let’s make this encore as awesome as possible!”
The crowd cheered more.
“This is a little thing we like to call Beast and the Harlot. I’m sure you’ve all heard it, if you’re a true Avenged Sevenfold fan, which I know you all are. So, is everyone ready?” The crowd cheered again. Matt turned to look at the other guys, and they all nodded.
It was almost time for our debut.
“Looks like everyone’s ready,” Matt said as he turned back to the crowd. And just as all the guys with instruments started to hit their first note, Rayne’s voice blasted out of the speaker.
“And, okay!” she screamed perkily. She sounded like a cheerleader. “Let’s crash this concert, girls!”
After taking a quick, deep breath, we all sprinted out onto the stage. But we didn’t just sprint. We acted like cheerleaders. We ran out onto the stage doing all sorts of gymnastics. We were all doing front hand-springs, and back hand-springs, and cartwheels. We even had little pompoms, which was why we needed the fancy invisible microphones. We kicked our legs up and cheered and all that good stuff as we ran out on the stage.
And get this: we even had cheerleading uniforms on. The shirts were black with a white Deathbat splashed across our chests. They were sleeveless and stopped at the bottom of our ribcages. The skirts were also black, and ruffled at the bottom like cheerleader’s skirts always are. Each little ruffle was adorned with a white Deathbat. They were just a lot shorter than cheerleader’s skirts are. Not extremely short, but just shorter than what you normally see. We all wore black socks that went up to just above our knees with white Deathbats running across the top. And then we had simple white sneakers on with one-inch platforms. Our hair was tied back into ponytails and white elastic headbands wound around our heads, but didn’t hold back our bangs.
All the guys looked over, acting surprised that we were there. Jen, Kim, AM, and I all lined up a few feet to the left of Matt, still waving our pompoms and smiling like our faces were stuck that way, but otherwise relatively silent. Rayne walked over to Matt, smiling away.
“Rayne?” Matt asked, watching her as she bounced besides him on the heels of her feet.
“Hello,” she said cheerfully. She didn’t even need to lean over to talk into his microphone since she had the tiny invisible one.
“What are you guys doing here?” Matt asked, looking puzzled. Rayne giggled, glancing excitedly over at us.
“We’re here to crash your concert.” she answered gleefully, still bouncing on the heels of her feet.
“Crash our concert?” Matt repeated. Rayne nodded. “Why?”
“We’re big fans.” Rayne said excitedly. “Show ‘em, girls!” The four of us spun around and lifted up the backs of our skirts to show that little spandex bikini thing that cheerleaders wear under their skirts. All of us had ‘A7X’ splashed across our butts in big, bold, white letters. “See?” Rayne said to Matt.
“Yeah, I see.” Matt answered.
“But they don’t.” Rayne said, pointing at Syn, Zacky, Johnny, and James. “Now, show them, girls!” The four of us turned around to face the crowd again, still holding our skirts up.
“I must admit, that is kind of hot.” Zacky said into his microphone. AM giggled into her microphone. I rolled my eyes. They had to flirt everywhere, didn’t they?
“So, what do you say?” Rayne asked Matt as we let our skirts fall back over the spandex bikini things.
“Ask them.” Matt answered, motioning towards the crowd. Rayne turned to face the crowd.
“What do you say!?” she screamed at the crowd.
They cheered.
“Is that a yes?”
The crowd cheered more.
“I think that’s a yes.”
“One question,” Matt said. Rayne looked over at him. “How are you guys going to play when your instruments aren’t up here?”
“Stage hands and hydraulics, silly,” Rayne answered in a ‘duh’ tone. Both she and Matt turned around to see stage hands carrying three guitars on stage and setting one down beside Syn, Zacky, and Johnny. In the very back, on the podium that James’s drum set sat on, my drum set rose up on a hydraulic platform thing and settled down half a foot from James’s. “See?”
“Yeah,” Matt answered.
“Girls, take your places.” Rayne told us. We broke out of the line. Kim headed towards the guitar next to Johnny; Jen went to the guitar next to Syn; AM went to the guitar next to Zacky; and I went all the way back to the podium in the back. I stepped up the steps and settled down on the stool, pulling my microphone thing off. I wouldn’t need it anymore. A regular microphone was attached to my drum set for any background vocals I might need to do.
“So, can we get back to the song now please?” Matt asked Rayne. She nodded and walked over to her place. We started to play the song.
Okay, here’s the dealio. Two months previous to our concert-crashing, Matt ordered us to have a meeting in the lounge of the recording studio. There, he explained that he wanted to do a collaboration with us, but instead of making up a whole new song, we would ‘crash the concert’ before the last encore. So, we all sat down together and completely rewrote ‘Beast and the Harlot’ so that there could be two people playing each instrument and two different people singing.
I considered it organized chaos.
Once everyone agreed that the song had the stamp of approval, we just started practicing our asses off. First, we mastered the musical part of it. Then, for the last two weeks of the two months, we practiced the whole ‘crashing the concert’ part. At first, we were going to drop down from the ceiling, but that turned out to be too complicated, and we also ran the hazard of landing on the one of the guys—which wouldn’t be fun for either person. So, Rayne threw out the cheerleader idea. The guys—only thinking of seeing us in tiny skirts—instantly leaped on the idea. All five of us had taken some sort of gymnastics back in Indiana, so the whole gymnastic part of being a cheerleader was a piece of cake.
But we just couldn’t quite master the whole perky, I’m-hot-you’re-not part of being a cheerleader. For the last week, we acted like cheerleaders 24/7. We would talk in perky voices like cheerleaders, we would practice the high kicks and flips and cartwheels and gymnastics stuff everyday, and we would just generally act like cheerleaders.
I was personally glad that the concert had finally come. Acting like a cheerleader when I’m nothing like one was nothing short of torture.
And then the song was over. Rayne stepped back up beside Matt, slightly out of breath. I put my drumsticks down on the snare drum, sweeping my bangs out of my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see James glancing at me.
I was barely paying attention as Rayne and Matt wrapped up the concert. I just wanted to go home, wash off all my make-up, and go to sleep. I felt whomped after two straight months of hard, stressful work. My body had simply been pushed to its physical limits numerous times in quick succession. Now, it screamed SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP!
But sudden movement from the right side of the stage caught my eye. I snapped back into focus to see Syn walking purposefully towards Rayne.
Ooh, is he going to pick her up and toss her into the crowd? That would be funny as hell!
I watched with mild curiosity as Syn continued towards Rayne.
WHOA! OH NO HE DIDN’T!
Oh, but he did.
Syn had walked up to Rayne, gripped her shoulder with one hand, and spun her around. Without any warning sign or hesitation of any sort, he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.
I felt my jaw physically drop. I looked over at James, whose face mirrored my own shocked expression. Syn and Rayne had always flirted—constantly, really—but I didn’t think Syn would ever step up and be a man about it.
But I think he stepped up a bit too much and was too much a man about it. But that’s just me.
Rayne, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. She slung her arms around his neck and pulled closer to him as the crowd cheered and wolf-whistled and all sorts of stuff.
With a loud thunk, Matt dropped his microphone. He quickly picked it up, but he clearly had no clue what to do.
“Bow chicka wow wow!” Zacky exclaimed into his microphone.
“Rayne, stop sucking face now!” Kim pleaded into Johnny’s microphone. But both Rayne and Syn appeared unaware of anyone around them.
I sighed and slowly rose to my feet. I’d known Rayne the longest, and therefore knew the only way to get her to stop tongue-wrestling with Syn. I stepped down off of the podium and walked over to them.
“And okay then!” I said just loud enough for them to hear as I shoved myself between them. “Let’s only have thumb-wars onstage, okay?” I told Rayne since I was facing her.
“But—” Syn started.
“Syn, shut up.” I snapped without even looking at him. He fell silent.
Meanwhile, everyone else on stage appeared to be in some sort of motionless shock. I sighed again and pulled Rayne’s microphone off.
“I’m sorry, folks, but the show’s over!” I said into her microphone, just holding it up to my mouth. “If everyone will please start exiting out the back doors, it would be much appreciated. Have a good night!” I shoved Rayne’s microphone back into her hand before seizing her elbow and dragging her off of the stage before she and Syn could become lip-locked again.
We were about to ‘crash the concert’, as Matt had put it.
“You guys have been totally awesome, yes.” Matt said once the cheering had died down a bit. “But I’m sad to inform you that this will be our last encore. After this song, you will go back to the parking lot, climb into your beat up old Taurus, and head back home, where you’ll take a Tylenol for your headache and post the thirty seconds of concert that you recorded on your phone on YouTube before heading off to bed. So, let’s make this encore as awesome as possible!”
The crowd cheered more.
“This is a little thing we like to call Beast and the Harlot. I’m sure you’ve all heard it, if you’re a true Avenged Sevenfold fan, which I know you all are. So, is everyone ready?” The crowd cheered again. Matt turned to look at the other guys, and they all nodded.
It was almost time for our debut.
“Looks like everyone’s ready,” Matt said as he turned back to the crowd. And just as all the guys with instruments started to hit their first note, Rayne’s voice blasted out of the speaker.
“And, okay!” she screamed perkily. She sounded like a cheerleader. “Let’s crash this concert, girls!”
After taking a quick, deep breath, we all sprinted out onto the stage. But we didn’t just sprint. We acted like cheerleaders. We ran out onto the stage doing all sorts of gymnastics. We were all doing front hand-springs, and back hand-springs, and cartwheels. We even had little pompoms, which was why we needed the fancy invisible microphones. We kicked our legs up and cheered and all that good stuff as we ran out on the stage.
And get this: we even had cheerleading uniforms on. The shirts were black with a white Deathbat splashed across our chests. They were sleeveless and stopped at the bottom of our ribcages. The skirts were also black, and ruffled at the bottom like cheerleader’s skirts always are. Each little ruffle was adorned with a white Deathbat. They were just a lot shorter than cheerleader’s skirts are. Not extremely short, but just shorter than what you normally see. We all wore black socks that went up to just above our knees with white Deathbats running across the top. And then we had simple white sneakers on with one-inch platforms. Our hair was tied back into ponytails and white elastic headbands wound around our heads, but didn’t hold back our bangs.
All the guys looked over, acting surprised that we were there. Jen, Kim, AM, and I all lined up a few feet to the left of Matt, still waving our pompoms and smiling like our faces were stuck that way, but otherwise relatively silent. Rayne walked over to Matt, smiling away.
“Rayne?” Matt asked, watching her as she bounced besides him on the heels of her feet.
“Hello,” she said cheerfully. She didn’t even need to lean over to talk into his microphone since she had the tiny invisible one.
“What are you guys doing here?” Matt asked, looking puzzled. Rayne giggled, glancing excitedly over at us.
“We’re here to crash your concert.” she answered gleefully, still bouncing on the heels of her feet.
“Crash our concert?” Matt repeated. Rayne nodded. “Why?”
“We’re big fans.” Rayne said excitedly. “Show ‘em, girls!” The four of us spun around and lifted up the backs of our skirts to show that little spandex bikini thing that cheerleaders wear under their skirts. All of us had ‘A7X’ splashed across our butts in big, bold, white letters. “See?” Rayne said to Matt.
“Yeah, I see.” Matt answered.
“But they don’t.” Rayne said, pointing at Syn, Zacky, Johnny, and James. “Now, show them, girls!” The four of us turned around to face the crowd again, still holding our skirts up.
“I must admit, that is kind of hot.” Zacky said into his microphone. AM giggled into her microphone. I rolled my eyes. They had to flirt everywhere, didn’t they?
“So, what do you say?” Rayne asked Matt as we let our skirts fall back over the spandex bikini things.
“Ask them.” Matt answered, motioning towards the crowd. Rayne turned to face the crowd.
“What do you say!?” she screamed at the crowd.
They cheered.
“Is that a yes?”
The crowd cheered more.
“I think that’s a yes.”
“One question,” Matt said. Rayne looked over at him. “How are you guys going to play when your instruments aren’t up here?”
“Stage hands and hydraulics, silly,” Rayne answered in a ‘duh’ tone. Both she and Matt turned around to see stage hands carrying three guitars on stage and setting one down beside Syn, Zacky, and Johnny. In the very back, on the podium that James’s drum set sat on, my drum set rose up on a hydraulic platform thing and settled down half a foot from James’s. “See?”
“Yeah,” Matt answered.
“Girls, take your places.” Rayne told us. We broke out of the line. Kim headed towards the guitar next to Johnny; Jen went to the guitar next to Syn; AM went to the guitar next to Zacky; and I went all the way back to the podium in the back. I stepped up the steps and settled down on the stool, pulling my microphone thing off. I wouldn’t need it anymore. A regular microphone was attached to my drum set for any background vocals I might need to do.
“So, can we get back to the song now please?” Matt asked Rayne. She nodded and walked over to her place. We started to play the song.
Okay, here’s the dealio. Two months previous to our concert-crashing, Matt ordered us to have a meeting in the lounge of the recording studio. There, he explained that he wanted to do a collaboration with us, but instead of making up a whole new song, we would ‘crash the concert’ before the last encore. So, we all sat down together and completely rewrote ‘Beast and the Harlot’ so that there could be two people playing each instrument and two different people singing.
I considered it organized chaos.
Once everyone agreed that the song had the stamp of approval, we just started practicing our asses off. First, we mastered the musical part of it. Then, for the last two weeks of the two months, we practiced the whole ‘crashing the concert’ part. At first, we were going to drop down from the ceiling, but that turned out to be too complicated, and we also ran the hazard of landing on the one of the guys—which wouldn’t be fun for either person. So, Rayne threw out the cheerleader idea. The guys—only thinking of seeing us in tiny skirts—instantly leaped on the idea. All five of us had taken some sort of gymnastics back in Indiana, so the whole gymnastic part of being a cheerleader was a piece of cake.
But we just couldn’t quite master the whole perky, I’m-hot-you’re-not part of being a cheerleader. For the last week, we acted like cheerleaders 24/7. We would talk in perky voices like cheerleaders, we would practice the high kicks and flips and cartwheels and gymnastics stuff everyday, and we would just generally act like cheerleaders.
I was personally glad that the concert had finally come. Acting like a cheerleader when I’m nothing like one was nothing short of torture.
And then the song was over. Rayne stepped back up beside Matt, slightly out of breath. I put my drumsticks down on the snare drum, sweeping my bangs out of my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see James glancing at me.
I was barely paying attention as Rayne and Matt wrapped up the concert. I just wanted to go home, wash off all my make-up, and go to sleep. I felt whomped after two straight months of hard, stressful work. My body had simply been pushed to its physical limits numerous times in quick succession. Now, it screamed SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP!
But sudden movement from the right side of the stage caught my eye. I snapped back into focus to see Syn walking purposefully towards Rayne.
Ooh, is he going to pick her up and toss her into the crowd? That would be funny as hell!
I watched with mild curiosity as Syn continued towards Rayne.
WHOA! OH NO HE DIDN’T!
Oh, but he did.
Syn had walked up to Rayne, gripped her shoulder with one hand, and spun her around. Without any warning sign or hesitation of any sort, he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.
I felt my jaw physically drop. I looked over at James, whose face mirrored my own shocked expression. Syn and Rayne had always flirted—constantly, really—but I didn’t think Syn would ever step up and be a man about it.
But I think he stepped up a bit too much and was too much a man about it. But that’s just me.
Rayne, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. She slung her arms around his neck and pulled closer to him as the crowd cheered and wolf-whistled and all sorts of stuff.
With a loud thunk, Matt dropped his microphone. He quickly picked it up, but he clearly had no clue what to do.
“Bow chicka wow wow!” Zacky exclaimed into his microphone.
“Rayne, stop sucking face now!” Kim pleaded into Johnny’s microphone. But both Rayne and Syn appeared unaware of anyone around them.
I sighed and slowly rose to my feet. I’d known Rayne the longest, and therefore knew the only way to get her to stop tongue-wrestling with Syn. I stepped down off of the podium and walked over to them.
“And okay then!” I said just loud enough for them to hear as I shoved myself between them. “Let’s only have thumb-wars onstage, okay?” I told Rayne since I was facing her.
“But—” Syn started.
“Syn, shut up.” I snapped without even looking at him. He fell silent.
Meanwhile, everyone else on stage appeared to be in some sort of motionless shock. I sighed again and pulled Rayne’s microphone off.
“I’m sorry, folks, but the show’s over!” I said into her microphone, just holding it up to my mouth. “If everyone will please start exiting out the back doors, it would be much appreciated. Have a good night!” I shoved Rayne’s microphone back into her hand before seizing her elbow and dragging her off of the stage before she and Syn could become lip-locked again.
♠ ♠ ♠
Heyloo.Syn was very straight forward, at least. haha.
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