The Black Dog Apparition
Chapter 6
Jennifer’s Point of View
We had another two hours before we were actually up on stage, and, as usual, we were all freaking out beyond ourselves. Except me. I had already planned and played in my head over and over just what I was going to do up on stage. I had already imagined all of those faces, moshing and bouncing up and down, fists in the air, singing our lyrics.
Ever since Gabe told me about the Battle of the Bands, I had tried my best to perfect every beat and every roll and every riff that we had ever practiced. Some of the songs were just too fucking hard, but damn, other songs I got down so sweetly.
We were designated to the Smartpunk Stage which was sadly and utterly horribly so very very far away from the Main Stage Left and Right, 13 and Lucky, as they were called, where Fall Out Boy was now playing.
…Wait, what the fuck am I doing ranting about Fall Out Boy when I should be rocking?!
“Hey, guys, I’m gonna go to the Main Stage… I meet you in like an hour at Smartpunk, okay?” I asked quickly; there was no time to waste when it came to my music.
I didn’t wait for an answer. I ran a hand through my gelled and hair sprayed short, spiked red hair and raced off towards Lucky. Oh, Christ, I could already hear Patrick starting to beginning of ‘Thnks Fr Th Mmrs’. Beautiful music, here I come!
Laura’s Point of View
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
Overdoses of language normally calmed me down, but I was way too nervous for any type of therapy to help me now. I couldn’t help but continuously playing and tugging at the bright green band around my wrist that said I was here to play, not to mosh. Good thing it hadn’t torn yet
In two hours - less than two hours! - we were playing our very. First. Concert. Oh. My. God. Our drummer has just ran off and she said she’ll meet us back in an hour. What if the schedule changes or we get switched to a different stage? What if she gets mugged or beaten up beyond comprehension and is incapable to play or worse? What if we get mugged or beaten up beyond comprehension? Oh my God oh my God oh my God. I don’t believe in you God, but I’m sorry for using your name in vain! Please don’t kill me before this concert. Maybe after the concert. Yeah.
There were dozens up dozens of different bands in the Warped Tour. Someone told me there were around 100 bands. Holy crap. That’s one overloaded tour I-Pod. I’ve seen the other bands and their members. They’re all several years older than us - at the least. I felt like a baby in diapers or a toddler next to all these adults whose music was probably far better and more developed than ours. But in the teenagers that I did see who were actually in a band and not behind gates rocking out, I saw the same nervousness, and that calmed me a little bit, but not much. Oh yeah, I saw some egotistical idiots who thought they were big rock stars already, but for the most part we were all scared shitless, pardon my French.
Jennifer’s Point of View
1 Hour Later
I returned to the Smartpunk Stage sweaty and ecstatic. I found my band mates and raced over to them, hyperventilating and my cheeks hurting from my grin. “Oh my God! You guys will never believe what just happened!” It was so freaking hard not to jump around, so I settled with bouncing in my place.
“What,” Bret asked, starting to laugh, “What happened?”
“PETE WENTZ HUGGED ME!!!” I exploded, several people turned to stare at me angrily, but I didn’t give a shit. I had just got hugged by a hot songwriter and bassist. I was touched by the glorious beauty that graced my bedroom walls in posters. I got hugged by my poster boy! My body was shaking now in excitement as I felt the weight around my neck, “And-and he gave me his necklace!! And he and Patrick wished us all good luck! OH MY GOD I DON’T BELIEVE IT JUST HAPPENED!!”
We were backstage and the drummer from the band onstage looked over at us, and he looked pretty pissed. I guess he could hear me even over that noise he was producing from the instrument he wasn’t using correctly. I promptly flipped him off and scurried away, my friends following me.
Laura’s nervousness was rapidly turning into excitement; she bounded up to my side as we were walking and asked, “Really? Holy crap how in the world did that happen?! Tell me, Jen!”
“I was backstage with the people with the passes while they were playing and when they were done I wanted to get them all to sign my shirt. So i fought my way to the front of the crowd of backstage people and, like, fucking launched myself at Pete and he caught me and gave me a HUG!! And he said I must be pretty damn eager to dive at them. Then I told him about the band and he said, he said ‘Well, you guys are gonna need some luck on your side’ and he gave me his fucking necklace as a good luck charm! And Patrick gave me a noogie and said, ‘Yeah, good luck when you get on stage - to you and all your mates.’ Then they were drowned by the wave of teenie fans.”
“Yeah, like you?” Bret chimed.
“I am not a teenie, faggot!” I snapped.
I then signed and started playing with the necklace I had received from a bass-playing god.
“Yeah… sure…” Bret rolled his eyes.
Bret’s Point of View
30 Minutes Later
We were already beginning to tune our instruments but Jen had yet to calm down from her incident with Pete Wentz. It was starting to get incredibly annoying to me and I was ready to blow up right in her face from the frustration, but we didn’t need an argument right before we went onstage. It might screw us up or some shit like that.
We had a four-song line up that we would be performing: ‘Satan is My Valentine’ - a piece I made myself; ‘The Games Children Play’ - our most practiced and favored song; ‘Letters from the Institution’- Something Jen and Michael came up with, a rather slow and sad song, I think; and ‘Hospital Means Hell’ - a good fast song to leave the crowd wanting more.
It was a good line up, right? We had worked our asses off for this chance, to play in front of hundreds of people and show our stuff to the world. We’d worked so hard just for that fucking record label, and now we’re on tour of all things!
40 Minuets Later
“This is something,” Laura said loudly into the microphone, her fist raised as she stepped backwards while speaking, “Jen, our drummer, and Michael, our guitarist, came up with together. But first, TELL ME SOMETHING!”
The crowd cheered in reply to her statement, begging for her to finish her sentence.
“DO YOU LOVE US?”
The horde of teenagers and young adults exploded into a frenzy of celebration for our band. I swelled again in pride behind my sweaty exterior. I was really regretting the pants I was wearing today, but every time I looked over to Laura’s singing self, my insides flipped over and twisted into a knot. God, she was beautiful.
Laura’s Point of View
I raised my arms up high while the crowd cheered for us. My nervousness had worn off after ‘Satan is My Valentine’, our first song. Now all I am is sweaty and exhilarated. Our first fucking concert. They loved us.
I cued Bret and raise the microphone to my mouth again, “LETTER FROM THE INSTITUTUION!” The jumping, crowd-surfing mass gave us one more cheer to welcome the slow and sad rifts and beats. I opened my mouth and allowed my raw voice weave the lyrics in and out of the audiences’ ears.
Sit down
You’ll need to for this
Sit back
Hand on your lap
Oh so beautiful
A monster for a wild-eye for pleasure
An angel with grace too much for measure
I’ll never be the one to tell you everything
Only the letters within a letter can speak
When my heart, my tongue, my sight fails
The letters within a letter speak
It was a slow, quite beginning. A random guy in the back gave a whoop during the space of silence that separated the sung lyrics from what was coming.
Jen gave a drum roll, Bret strummed louder and louder, his pitch growing with each one, and Michael shredded in with a tearing guitar chord, making a window for the explosion.
Take that for weakness
I could never say it to you face
Letter from the institution
We’re starting a revolution
I started to sway from side to side, as did the mass, calming the crowd down from the chorus and bringing my voice back to softness.
Burn this building down
I’m tired, so tired
Of the shadows in the corner
Let’s shed some light
The demons in my head
Are jaded replicas of myself
Tell you about them
And what their words always meant
In the letters that never get sent
We gave the electrifying chorus again, building up to a climax. The crowd moved with me, and did as I did. I stepped back and Michael stepped forward, playing with a glistening and blank face that worried me. But he hit every note of that guitar solo that he’d always had trouble on
Before the last notes of his powerful guitar solo could die down, I roared in with the last bit of the song, but long brown hair falling beside my face and I threw it behind me.
To know a full life,
You must first know an empty one
read the letters you never received
And such a life you could perceive
Through the letters you never received
Letter from the institution
We’re starting a revolution
Taking the world’s perception
And ripping it in half
Take that for weakness
I’ll never be good enough
We had another two hours before we were actually up on stage, and, as usual, we were all freaking out beyond ourselves. Except me. I had already planned and played in my head over and over just what I was going to do up on stage. I had already imagined all of those faces, moshing and bouncing up and down, fists in the air, singing our lyrics.
Ever since Gabe told me about the Battle of the Bands, I had tried my best to perfect every beat and every roll and every riff that we had ever practiced. Some of the songs were just too fucking hard, but damn, other songs I got down so sweetly.
We were designated to the Smartpunk Stage which was sadly and utterly horribly so very very far away from the Main Stage Left and Right, 13 and Lucky, as they were called, where Fall Out Boy was now playing.
…Wait, what the fuck am I doing ranting about Fall Out Boy when I should be rocking?!
“Hey, guys, I’m gonna go to the Main Stage… I meet you in like an hour at Smartpunk, okay?” I asked quickly; there was no time to waste when it came to my music.
I didn’t wait for an answer. I ran a hand through my gelled and hair sprayed short, spiked red hair and raced off towards Lucky. Oh, Christ, I could already hear Patrick starting to beginning of ‘Thnks Fr Th Mmrs’. Beautiful music, here I come!
Laura’s Point of View
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
Overdoses of language normally calmed me down, but I was way too nervous for any type of therapy to help me now. I couldn’t help but continuously playing and tugging at the bright green band around my wrist that said I was here to play, not to mosh. Good thing it hadn’t torn yet
In two hours - less than two hours! - we were playing our very. First. Concert. Oh. My. God. Our drummer has just ran off and she said she’ll meet us back in an hour. What if the schedule changes or we get switched to a different stage? What if she gets mugged or beaten up beyond comprehension and is incapable to play or worse? What if we get mugged or beaten up beyond comprehension? Oh my God oh my God oh my God. I don’t believe in you God, but I’m sorry for using your name in vain! Please don’t kill me before this concert. Maybe after the concert. Yeah.
There were dozens up dozens of different bands in the Warped Tour. Someone told me there were around 100 bands. Holy crap. That’s one overloaded tour I-Pod. I’ve seen the other bands and their members. They’re all several years older than us - at the least. I felt like a baby in diapers or a toddler next to all these adults whose music was probably far better and more developed than ours. But in the teenagers that I did see who were actually in a band and not behind gates rocking out, I saw the same nervousness, and that calmed me a little bit, but not much. Oh yeah, I saw some egotistical idiots who thought they were big rock stars already, but for the most part we were all scared shitless, pardon my French.
Jennifer’s Point of View
1 Hour Later
I returned to the Smartpunk Stage sweaty and ecstatic. I found my band mates and raced over to them, hyperventilating and my cheeks hurting from my grin. “Oh my God! You guys will never believe what just happened!” It was so freaking hard not to jump around, so I settled with bouncing in my place.
“What,” Bret asked, starting to laugh, “What happened?”
“PETE WENTZ HUGGED ME!!!” I exploded, several people turned to stare at me angrily, but I didn’t give a shit. I had just got hugged by a hot songwriter and bassist. I was touched by the glorious beauty that graced my bedroom walls in posters. I got hugged by my poster boy! My body was shaking now in excitement as I felt the weight around my neck, “And-and he gave me his necklace!! And he and Patrick wished us all good luck! OH MY GOD I DON’T BELIEVE IT JUST HAPPENED!!”
We were backstage and the drummer from the band onstage looked over at us, and he looked pretty pissed. I guess he could hear me even over that noise he was producing from the instrument he wasn’t using correctly. I promptly flipped him off and scurried away, my friends following me.
Laura’s nervousness was rapidly turning into excitement; she bounded up to my side as we were walking and asked, “Really? Holy crap how in the world did that happen?! Tell me, Jen!”
“I was backstage with the people with the passes while they were playing and when they were done I wanted to get them all to sign my shirt. So i fought my way to the front of the crowd of backstage people and, like, fucking launched myself at Pete and he caught me and gave me a HUG!! And he said I must be pretty damn eager to dive at them. Then I told him about the band and he said, he said ‘Well, you guys are gonna need some luck on your side’ and he gave me his fucking necklace as a good luck charm! And Patrick gave me a noogie and said, ‘Yeah, good luck when you get on stage - to you and all your mates.’ Then they were drowned by the wave of teenie fans.”
“Yeah, like you?” Bret chimed.
“I am not a teenie, faggot!” I snapped.
I then signed and started playing with the necklace I had received from a bass-playing god.
“Yeah… sure…” Bret rolled his eyes.
Bret’s Point of View
30 Minutes Later
We were already beginning to tune our instruments but Jen had yet to calm down from her incident with Pete Wentz. It was starting to get incredibly annoying to me and I was ready to blow up right in her face from the frustration, but we didn’t need an argument right before we went onstage. It might screw us up or some shit like that.
We had a four-song line up that we would be performing: ‘Satan is My Valentine’ - a piece I made myself; ‘The Games Children Play’ - our most practiced and favored song; ‘Letters from the Institution’- Something Jen and Michael came up with, a rather slow and sad song, I think; and ‘Hospital Means Hell’ - a good fast song to leave the crowd wanting more.
It was a good line up, right? We had worked our asses off for this chance, to play in front of hundreds of people and show our stuff to the world. We’d worked so hard just for that fucking record label, and now we’re on tour of all things!
40 Minuets Later
“This is something,” Laura said loudly into the microphone, her fist raised as she stepped backwards while speaking, “Jen, our drummer, and Michael, our guitarist, came up with together. But first, TELL ME SOMETHING!”
The crowd cheered in reply to her statement, begging for her to finish her sentence.
“DO YOU LOVE US?”
The horde of teenagers and young adults exploded into a frenzy of celebration for our band. I swelled again in pride behind my sweaty exterior. I was really regretting the pants I was wearing today, but every time I looked over to Laura’s singing self, my insides flipped over and twisted into a knot. God, she was beautiful.
Laura’s Point of View
I raised my arms up high while the crowd cheered for us. My nervousness had worn off after ‘Satan is My Valentine’, our first song. Now all I am is sweaty and exhilarated. Our first fucking concert. They loved us.
I cued Bret and raise the microphone to my mouth again, “LETTER FROM THE INSTITUTUION!” The jumping, crowd-surfing mass gave us one more cheer to welcome the slow and sad rifts and beats. I opened my mouth and allowed my raw voice weave the lyrics in and out of the audiences’ ears.
Sit down
You’ll need to for this
Sit back
Hand on your lap
Oh so beautiful
A monster for a wild-eye for pleasure
An angel with grace too much for measure
I’ll never be the one to tell you everything
Only the letters within a letter can speak
When my heart, my tongue, my sight fails
The letters within a letter speak
It was a slow, quite beginning. A random guy in the back gave a whoop during the space of silence that separated the sung lyrics from what was coming.
Jen gave a drum roll, Bret strummed louder and louder, his pitch growing with each one, and Michael shredded in with a tearing guitar chord, making a window for the explosion.
Take that for weakness
I could never say it to you face
Letter from the institution
We’re starting a revolution
I started to sway from side to side, as did the mass, calming the crowd down from the chorus and bringing my voice back to softness.
Burn this building down
I’m tired, so tired
Of the shadows in the corner
Let’s shed some light
The demons in my head
Are jaded replicas of myself
Tell you about them
And what their words always meant
In the letters that never get sent
We gave the electrifying chorus again, building up to a climax. The crowd moved with me, and did as I did. I stepped back and Michael stepped forward, playing with a glistening and blank face that worried me. But he hit every note of that guitar solo that he’d always had trouble on
Before the last notes of his powerful guitar solo could die down, I roared in with the last bit of the song, but long brown hair falling beside my face and I threw it behind me.
To know a full life,
You must first know an empty one
read the letters you never received
And such a life you could perceive
Through the letters you never received
Letter from the institution
We’re starting a revolution
Taking the world’s perception
And ripping it in half
Take that for weakness
I’ll never be good enough