Authors: Anna Carey
‘I’m too stressed to sit down,’ I said. ‘Alice’s mum is dropping her here and then we’re going to get Cass. So I have nothing to do but wait for them.’
Rachel sighed. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘How about we go over your stage ensemble? And your make-up? You’ve got to leave in half an hour, you know. It’s getting late. You’ve
been wandering around all morning.’
‘I don’t want to wear loads of make-up,’ I said. ‘I might look like Ruthie. Or Vanessa. Anyway, I never wear loads of make-up.’ I paused. ‘I don’t even own loads of make-up.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m not going to make you look like a clown.’ She grinned evilly. ‘Or am I?’
‘Oh, go away,’ I said. ‘I’m nervous enough without you making fun of me. You’re not funny.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m only joking. Go on, show me your dress again.’
So I went upstairs and tried it on. Rachel looked very serious. ‘Hmmm, very nice,’ she said. ‘No, seriously, it is. Go for the tights, though, not bare legs. As for your hair …’
She hovered over me for a while, doing painful things with a brush, some clips, and her anti-frizz serum stuff. Finally she sighed.
‘I’m afraid your hair is always going to be a bit odd,’ she said. ‘But this isn’t too bad.’
I looked in the mirror. It was a bit unruly, because it always is, but it did look much glossier and neater than usual.
‘Ooh, thanks,’ I said.
‘Now for your make-up,’ declared Rachel.
She made me close my eyes while she got out her make-up bag so I wouldn’t see her secret hiding place and messed around with some eye-liner, creamy Benefit
eye-shadow
in a smoky sort of shade called Skinny Jeans and this really posh mascara that’s meant to make you look like you’re wearing false eyelashes. Every so often I said, ‘Ow!’ and ‘Don’t poke me in the eye!’
Finally, she stopped poking me and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Not bad. It’ll have to do, anyway. Just don’t cry or rub your eyes, you’ll wreck it.’
‘I hope I don’t have any reason to cry,’ I said nervously. Then I looked in the mirror. And I have to admit, Rachel had done a pretty good job. My eyes looked huge and my lashes looked about an inch long.
‘You just need some nude lip gloss with that,’ said Rachel. She sighed. ‘I suppose you could borrow this Laura Mercier one …’
‘Thanks, Rachel,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Our family all have to look our best in the public eye at the moment to make
up for Mum’s madness.’
‘Rebecca!’ called Mum from downstairs. ‘Alice is here! Are you ready? We’d better go!’
‘I’ll see you in there later,’ said Rachel. ‘Break a leg!’
And I was off. Alice had brought the guitar and the keyboard and she looked lovely. Her hair was at its most German and she looked all peachy and glowy.
‘Imagine if we were this glamorous all the time,’ I said.
‘It’s too much work, really,’ said Alice. ‘We’d never have time for band practice if we spent all our time dressing up and putting on perfect make-up.’
‘True,’ I said. We had reached Cass’s house and I ran out to get her. Her little brother Nick answered the door.
‘Is Cass there?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Nick.
‘What?’ I shrieked. Had Cass had an attack of nerves and run away? I knew she was eerily calm this week …
‘She’s been kidnapped by aliens,’ said Nick. ‘And they’ve left some stranger with loads of make-up.’
‘Oh, shut up, Nick,’ said Cass. She looked lovely and she wasn’t wearing lots of make-up at all. I suppose just a bit of eye shadow and blusher looks like a lot to Nick. Cass
hardly wears any eye-make-up usually because of the whole glasses thing (she thinks you can’t see it behind the specs, but you can and it still looks nice) and I don’t think their mum even owns mascara. Speaking of Cass’s mum, she came out to wish us good luck.
‘I’m very proud of you all,’ she said. ‘I wish you’d let me and your dad go, Cass.’
‘Next time,’ said Cass. ‘Come on, Bex, we’d better go.’
We said goodbye to Cass’s mum, ignored Nick, and headed to the car.
‘Right,’ said Mum. ‘Before we leave this part of town – do you have everything you need? Instruments, drumsticks?’
We did.
‘Right,’ said Mum. ‘We’re off.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I said loftily. ‘I don’t want you to feel bad about actually doing something to improve my life. For once.’
Mum rolled her eyes and drove on.
In what seemed like about two seconds, we were in town. Mum dropped us off outside the venue.
‘Good luck, girls,’ she said. ‘Are you absolutely and
totally sure you don’t want me and your dad to come along later?’
‘Yes!’ I cried. ‘But, um, thanks very much for the lift.’
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you out here at six, okay? Give me or your dad a ring if there are any problems.’
So there we were, at our first gig. We each looked at each other, took a deep breath, and headed inside. Cass and I carried her keyboard between us. A young man was standing inside the door checking off names on a list.
‘Which band are you?’ he said.
‘Hey Dollface,’ said Alice.
The man grinned and ticked something on his list. ‘Cool name. There’s just three of you, right?’
We nodded.
‘Great. Okay, best of luck!’
There was a big crowd inside the venue – there were probably about sixty or seventy people there. It was mostly boys.
‘Wow,’ whispered Alice, a bit nervously. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place where there were so many boys and hardly any girls.’
‘I have,’ said Cass. ‘When my parents make me go to my stupid brother’s football matches.’ She paused. ‘Though of course they’re all about ten so it doesn’t really count.’
Everyone was just shuffling around, looking slightly unsure of themselves. Lots of people had taken their guitars out of their cases and were strumming at them quietly. We weren’t the only girls, though, which was cool – there were a couple of girls about our age holding guitars and basses and a few without instruments who turned out to be singers. We were in the minority though. I think that’s why we all ended up catching each other’s eyes and kind of smiling at each other in the crowd.
Suddenly Alice said, ‘Oh my God!’
Cass and I both said, ‘What?’ really loudly.
‘Ssssh,’ hissed Alice. ‘You will never guess who’s here. Over there. No, don’t point! To the right, near the bar.’
Cass and I both looked and then gasped.
‘It’s Bike Boy!’ I said.
‘Ssssh!’ said Alice.
‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘He’s on the other side of the room and it’s very noisy. He’s not going to hear me.’
‘He might notice us and realise that we’re talking about
him,’ said Alice. ‘I can’t believe he’s here.’
‘He’s got a bass,’ said Cass. ‘Oooh, he’s looking over here!’
‘Stop staring!’ said Alice.
‘I think he’s seen us,’ I said.
‘Shut up!’ said Alice, edging behind me.
‘Alice, if you don’t want him to notice you, maybe you should stop acting so weirdly,’ said Cass. ‘That hissing and skulking isn’t very inconspicuous.’
Then a woman came on to the stage with a clipboard. She was quite old, about thirty I think, but she was wearing cool clothes and seemed very nice and friendly. She grabbed a microphone from a stand.
‘Hey everyone,’ she said. ‘Welcome to the Battle of the Bands! I’m Veronica, one of the organisers, and I’ll be doing the sound for you this afternoon. I know that for a lot of you this is your first gig, so lots of luck – I know you’ll all be brilliant. Now, we just about have time for everyone to do a very short soundcheck – like, half a song – just to make sure we can hear you out here and you can all hear yourselves on stage. If there’s anything that doesn’t sound right when you’re doing your soundcheck, just say
something and we’ll change it. We’ve got a fairly basic set-up – most of you are just using one or two microphones, but from the details you gave us when you registered, we know that a few of you need three. So we’ll check you lot first.’ Cass, Alice and I looked at each other in horror. We need three microphones! ‘When I call the name of your band, come up to the stage.’ She looked down at her notes. ‘Okay … first up, it’s The Retreat.’
Four skinny boys made their way up the stairs at the side of the stage. They didn’t look very happy about being the first band to play anything. I didn’t blame them – I was just glad it wasn’t us. The stage was full of amplifiers and, in the middle, the drum kit. It was on a platform towards the rear of the stage, looking huge and impressive. The boys in The Retreat said a few words to Veronica, and then she and the bloke who had been ticking off names at the door moved some of the microphone stands around. Veronica jumped off the stage and went over to the mixing desk at the back of the venue.
‘Okay, boys!’ she said. ‘Let’s hear you.’
‘What’ll we do if they’re amazingly brilliant?’ whispered Cass.
‘Run away,’ said Alice.
The band started playing. And to my relief, they weren’t amazingly brilliant. They weren’t terrible either, though. They were fairly good. Not that we got a chance to hear much of them. They played for about a minute and then Veronica’s voice rang out over the speakers.
‘That’s great, lads,’ she said. ‘How does it sound to you? Can you hear your vocals in the monitors?’
One of the boys said he could do with it being a bit louder, so Veronica did some fiddling around on her mixing desk and asked them to try again. They played a few bars and said it was okay.
‘Great,’ said Veronica. ‘Thanks, everyone. Now, next up it’s … Hey Dollface.’
The walk to the stage seemed to take about five years, not least because I was helping Cass carry the keyboard which suddenly felt about five times heavier than usual. I couldn’t help glancing over in Bike Boy’s direction to see if he’d seen us. He had, and looked surprised. We clambered up the stairs and tried to pretend there weren’t loads of people staring at us as we set the keyboard on its stand. The bloke from the door walked over and smiled.
‘Hey, I’m Paul,’ he said. ‘So you each need a mike, right?’
We nodded. I think we were all too scared to speak.
‘Okay,’ said Paul. ‘Which of you is the drummer?’
‘Me,’ I said, in a tiny little voice.
‘Right,’ said Paul. ‘You sit yourself down behind the drums and I’ll get the mike ready for you.’
So I climbed onto the drum platform. It felt very exposed. I’d been kind of relieved at the idea that I could hide away at the back of the stage. But I hadn’t realised the platform was so high. I felt like everyone was staring at me. Which some of them probably were. Paul moved some mikes around and adjusted the heights of the stands.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘That should be fine. Okay, off you go!’
‘What song will we do?’ whispered Alice, as she tuned her guitar. She looked terrified.
‘The Kinks one,’ said Cass. ‘It’s easier.’
We all nodded at each other. I was so nervous I was worried my hands were going to start shaking. Then I banged the sticks together and shouted, ‘One, two, three, four!’ And then I hit the tom drum.
It didn’t sound brilliant, but it sounded okay. At first it
felt weird playing a strange drum kit AND singing into a microphone, but it didn’t make too much of a difference. When we all started singing, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to hear the others’ voices, but I could hear Alice singing perfectly. I wasn’t sure I could hear Cass at all, though. After what seemed like a split second, Veronica interrupted us.
‘That sounds good, girls,’ she said. ‘Can you hear yourselves okay?’
I hated the idea of speaking into the microphone in front of all those people, but I knew I needed to make sure I could hear properly.
‘Um, could I hear more of Cass’s singing? I mean the keyboard player.’
‘And can I hear more of Rebecca’s voice?’ said Alice. ‘She’s the drummer.’
‘Sure,’ said Veronica. She did something to the desk. ‘Okay, try it again.’
We did, and sure enough I could now hear both Alice and Cass singing perfectly. She didn’t sound half bad.
‘Is that okay?’ said Veronica. We looked at each other and nodded again. Maybe we are developing a psychic link
with each other. Eventually we won’t have to speak at all.
‘It’s fine,’ said Cass.
‘Great,’ said Veronica. ‘Okaaay … next up, it’s The Tools.’
We gathered up our stuff and got off the stage as quickly as we could.
‘That wasn’t so bad,’ said Cass.
‘I suppose not,’ said Alice. ‘But just think what it’ll be like when we’re doing entire songs in front of a crowd. Including people we know.’
‘Including Paperboy,’ I said, feeling a bit sick.
‘Including Bike Boy too,’ said Cass.
‘Where, where?’ said Alice.
‘He’s still over near the bar,’ I said. ‘Oh, I think he’s looking at us. He is!’
‘Quick, let’s find somewhere to sit down,’ said Alice.
‘Oooh, Alice, you’re bright red,’ said Cass.
‘Shut up,’ said Alice, scuttling off. We sat down at a table at the side of the hall. The next band weren’t very good. They were another all-boy four piece and the lead singer was strutting around the stage in a really cocky way, like he was headlining a huge festival, instead of just
checking the sound at a small gig. I hoped they weren’t Paperboy’s mates. Then there was a duo who were kind of folksy and a bit boring. After them came a band called Bad Monkey, with three girls and a boy drummer. The girls looked really cool, especially the lead singer. She had a lovely turquoise electric guitar and a great choppy short haircut. They were really good too, much better than the other bands we’d seen so far (including ourselves).
‘That’s it, we’re not winning tonight,’ said Cass. ‘They’re the coolest people here.’
‘Stop that, Cass,’ said Alice. ‘We’ll be great.’
We sat there for ages, watching the other bands play snatches of songs. It was really boring, to be honest. Apparently being in a band is not always fun and exciting. It also involves just hanging around big stuffy rooms while other people do things.
‘Some people are going out of the venue for a while,’ I said, indicating the boys from The Retreat who were heading out the front door. Another of the bands who’d played earlier was just coming in clutching sandwiches and cans of Coke. ‘Let’s go out and get some fresh air. And maybe some chocolate. We’ve got half an hour before the concert
starts, so we’ve got loads of time.’