Louder Than Thunder

Their first show in New York was an early evening show. The place was a bar and venue, which was slightly smaller than an auditorium. It was smoky and dimly lit; the building was old and creaky, but it was a good and excited audience.
The bands were prepped separately in a small room behind the stage. The Rag Dolls were ready to go on any minute.
“Ready, girls?” Paul asked, returning to their dressing room.
“Yeah, we’ll be out in one minute,” Darlene said.
“Alright.”
The door was closed and the girls turned to look at each other. Mary and Michelle had their bass and guitar, respectively, on their backs and Darlene held her drumsticks in her right hand.
“Okay, first show of the tour,” Michelle said.
“First show in America,” Mary added.
“Can I just take this moment to say that we’re in New York!” Darlene cheered.
Mary and Michelle smiled at her, realizing just where they were.
“This is real,” Michelle said out loud.
“Then what are we doing in our dressing room? Let’s go out and play!”
Darlene led the way through the dark hallway between the room and the stage. Darlene appeared on stage first, sitting at the drum set in her paisley patterned dress. Mary, wearing a dress and a blouse and her favourite white boots, switched her bass to the front of her body and looked out into the audience. Michelle plugged in her guitar and stood by the second microphone. She stared down at her shoes for a moment, going through the set list in her mind.
“Hey! We’re the Rag Dolls,” Mary introduced through the microphone.
The audience cheered. Ease washed over the group. It didn’t seem like any problems would be caused tonight. Mary plugged in her bass, causing some low toned but very loud feedback to vibrate through the building.
“One, two, three, four!” Darlene counted in before going into her drum part.
Michelle and Mary’s strums came in soon after the powerful but playful beat, which seemed to weave between the riffs like a child who had just learned to walk. The building shook with every beat.
“This is a song which was written by our own Michelle Townshend. It’s a favourite back in London,” Mary said with a laugh. “It’s called Blues Hearts and I hope you like it.”
With that, a small drum fill launched Mary into the first verse. She sang like a siren that ate too much sugar and had made their throat raw. Michelle always admired Mary’s singing voice, wishing she could sing that way herself. She stuck to singing backup vocals for now. Her voice was simpler, more intimate, which was nice in its own way but she wasn’t ‘the voice’.
The audience yelled and danced along with the music, digging the sounds they produced. The show was going very well, when suddenly half the stage lights went out. The side of the stage Michelle stood on was black, leaving her in shadow. Mary looked over, confused, but kept on singing. The lights switched, leaving Mary in the dark.
Next thing they knew, all the lights went out at once and the sound stopped, leaving the girls strumming acoustically. Darlene stopped the drums and looked around.
“Come on, man!” she yelled chucking her drumsticks into the audience.
The audience was booing now, impatiently waiting for the lights to return. Unsettled, they chatted with their neighbours. The only part of the venue that was lit was the area at the opposite end of the building, near the bar.
The girls saw Paul off at the side of the stage and, making an apologetic face, he ran backstage. A minute later, the lights returned and feedback came from the amplifiers again. The girls looked between them, and decided to return to their song.
As they started on the intro again, they shared a strange look and each had a feeling they knew what caused their brief outage.
By the time their set was over, the crowd had forgotten all about their earlier issue and was dancing as though nothing had happened. The girls were sure to give the Leatherjackets harsh looks as they stepped off the stage. The roadies began switching the equipment as they headed back to their dressing room. They placed their instruments back in their cases once in their room.
Paul entered the room frantically as they were winding down.
“Oh, girls, I’m so sorry about that!”
“It was them, wasn’t it?” Mary asked, gesturing in the direction of the stage.
“We tried to make sure no one could reach the light and sound panels. Apparently, I wasn’t clear enough on ‘who’ or ‘why’. Albert and I will make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“Alright, Paul. We made a good impression, after all. I think they liked us,” Michelle said, closing her guitar case.
Then, a knock was heard from the door.
“Come in,” Paul said, taking the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiping his forehead.
The door opened to reveal Keith Jones and Eric Archer. They entered and closed the door.
“ ‘ello,” Eric said.
“Hi,” Darlene said, staring him eye to eye.
“It seems that, erm, they liked you out there,” Keith said, holding his guitar by the neck with both hands. “I just wanted to say good job.”
“Are you serious?” Michelle asked.
Mary and Darlene turned to Michelle, who hardly ever snapped words like that. Even Paul watched carefully, hoping she was sure of what she was saying.
“Yeah. I’m serious. Well done.”
“You messed up our set's light and sound, and then you come in ‘ere and congratulate us? Are you pissed?”
“Just wanted to say well done to some fellow musicians, that’s all. Anyways, we’re on in a minute, so we’ll see ya,” Eric said with a wave.
“See ya,” Darlene waved back.
Once they were out of the room, the girls shared an odd look.
“Did that really just happen?” Mary asked.
Later that night, both bands got back tired and hungry. The boys brushed off some fans at the entrance and joined the Rag Dolls in the elevator.
“Bloody birds, always ‘ere when I’m tired and gone when I want ‘em,” Keith said.
Eric chuckled in agreement.
“Is that all your fans are to you? Groupies to be used?” Mary asked.
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s just that those are the people who love your music. It means something to them and you’re tossin’ ‘em off like dirt!”
“Get off our backs, eh? You worry about us too much. Mind yer own business, why don’tcha?” Eric snapped.
“I just don’t get why you don’t understand! It’s like you’ve never been a fan before. I mean, who do you like?”
“I don’t know. I like the Rolling Stones.”
“Then fancy that you met Keith Richards. Would you want ‘im to shrug you off like you was the wind?” Michelle asked.
“Hey, ‘e’s Keith Richards and he can do whatever he wants. He’s a busy guy.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t feel too good about it, would ya?” Mary explained.
Just then the elevator opened and the boys were quick to get out. They joked around and pushed each other down the hallway.
“Bunch o’ wankers,” Michelle said as they walked over to their room.
“Hold on a minute,” Mary said, marching up to the boys, who were just entering their room. “Just hold on a minute.”
She entered the room right behind them, Darlene following closely. Michelle grunted into her hands but followed as well. She closed the door as they entered. Mary and Darlene walked into the living room as all the boys sat down. Mary gave an evil stare and Darlene put her hands on her hips.
Kurt sat down on the couch, staring up as if watching his parents in an argument.
“Now, I’m serious, Keith.”
“You should take better care of your fans because they might not stand by you forever,” Darlene explained.
“You should stop tellin’ us what to do. Who’s the famous one ‘ere, huh?” Eric’s gruff sugar-swollen voice demanded.
Michelle already knew she was done for the day and definitely not ready to get involved in any kind of argument. She slipped out the door.
Once in the quiet of the hallway, she realized this was going to be a long tour. She leaned her head against the wall, releasing a frustrated grunt. She slowly began banging her head against the well, just enough to get the blood pumping. Once she felt a little better, she turned around and backed into the wall, staring up at the ceiling.
“I know how you feel,” a voice said out of nowhere.
Michelle turned around and saw Sidney sitting against the wall near the hotel room door, writing in a small notebook. The hallway was dead quiet and they were the only two, alone together.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. They did this last year too. Don’t think they’re discriminating against you, they don’t like competition of any kind. I always need to get out when they’re like this.”
“Oh. Well, that doesn’t really make me feel better, but, it does help me feel more . . . what’s the word? ‘Understood’.”
Sidney chuckled at her as she sat down beside him, trying to get a small glimpse of his notebook.
“Writing lyrics?”
“Yeah. We’re gonna be recording after the tour. Trying to get some new stuff down.”
Michelle looked into his dark puppy dog eyes. Though she had never been attracted to the greaser-rocker look, something about the way Sidney did it had her seeing it differently. He only half did the look, as if he didn’t care if he was one or not, or if he looked like one or not.
“So, Sid, how did you end up in a band like the Leatherjackets?”
“Well, first of all, I didn’t go to England to meet them; they came to America to find me. I mean, they didn’t know they were looking for me but they found me and they liked my songwriting, so, I was alright with it. At the time I was a bartender in Malibu.”
“You couldn’t be old enough to be a bartender. How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, and I was hardly allowed in the place at the time, but somehow I squeezed by. They really needed one and I was better than the other guys, I suppose. Anyways, they came to America to find a new member for their band and they wanted a West coaster. They came into the bar, where a band was supposed to be playing. The band never turned up, so the manager told me to just go, since I told him before that I could play, and I played something I wrote and Keith, Eric and Kurt just happened to be there at the right time. So here I am; I’m in the band.”
“Cool.”
“What about you? How’d you end up with Darlene in your band?”
“Well, in primary school we had to write to pen pals in America, just to practice our writing and make friends, you know? And I ended up writin’ to Darlene. We both liked rock ‘n’ roll and played instruments, so we kept in touch. After we finished high school, Darlene lost her mom. She was really sick and, well, Darlene’s mum wasn’t married and the rest of her family wasn’t really happy about that so Darlene had nowhere else to go. She didn’t know what else to do so she contacted me and I invited her to England. Mary I had known since primary school as well and we were already playing together. For a while we played with this other girl from school, but once we heard Darlene play for us we knew that we ‘ad to ‘ave her in our band.”
Sidney nodded as Michelle finished her story. He jotted down one last sentence into his notebook before looking up at her.
“And now, here we are.”
“Yes. Here we are.”
Just then, Mary and Darlene were shoved out of the room, squirming in attempt to regain control of the situation - if they ever had it. The door shut behind them.
“You can’t lay a single bloody finger on us!” Mary yelled at the closed door.
“Mary, leave it alone,” Michelle said, picking herself up. “Don’t bother what they think, it doesn’t matter. I know you’re angry, but come on! You’re acting like a child.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
Darlene had somehow gotten a hold of a beer and took a swig of it, wiping her mouth off with the back of her sleeve.
“Where’d you get that?” Michelle asked as they began to walk down the hallway.
She turned back to Sidney after asking, thinking about the conversation she had had with him. He had gone back to writing, as if he was never disturbed to begin with.
“Eric just offered it to me, out of the blue. I couldn’t refuse.”
“Here we are,” Michelle trailed off.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.”