“Most definitely.”
By the timeNora came back, we had barely played the song all the way through twice. It had taken a while to tweak the orchestra and for me to come up with lyrics for the first verse. I begged her to leave us alone for another half hour, and after some complaining and persuading, she agreed. We focusedentirely on this one song, and only when she returned did we move on to the rest of the setlist.
After rehearsing, we ate the sandwiches Nora had bought, then packed up our things. The bar where we were playing that evening was kind enough to let us practice one last time at the venue before they opened.
Raul, who was still hired as our driver by Nora—not that he had much say in the matter—picked us up again.
The bar was a five-minute walk from Fremont Street, the historic entertainment district of Las Vegas. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was big enough to have its own small stage. They hosted live music every other night to attract both locals and tourists, though most people came for drinks since all the musicians were unknown artists, like us. Admission was free, but we could ask for donations afterward.
We spent the afternoon setting up our equipment and going through the setlist one last time with their sound engineer, Drake—a lovely dude with dreadlocks who wasn’t very talkative. But he asked the right questions to make sure we sounded as good as possible and was open to assisting Raul with the livestream.
After we played through the entire setlist, the tiny audience—Drake, Nora, Raul, and the owner of the bar, who was restocking the fridges for the evening—applauded.
“I’m happy,” Nora said after we finished the last song. “We’re ahead of schedule, the livestream test worked perfectly, and now that we’re done?—”
“Actually,” I said into the microphone, abruptly interrupting her as it was still on. I leaned to the side to speak with her at a normal volume. “Actually, there’s one more song we’d like to practice.”
“Guys, we talked about this. No need to overpractice.”
“No,” I said into the microphone again. “This is a new one. We’d like to know if you think it’s okay to play it as well.”
“A new one? This late? Oh, that’s why you made me leave this morning!” She turned to Drake and Raul, her mouth agape, as if hoping they would talk us out of it.
But Raul just shrugged, and Drake gave us a thumbs-up.
“We’ve got plenty of time to try out whatever you want,” Drake said, and Raul nodded in agreement.
“All of you are driving me crazy.” Nora flopped into a chair, leaned back, and threw her arms up.
“I thought you liked our songs.”
“I do. I also like to be prepared.”
“Then how about this? We play it once, and ifyoudon’t think it’s ready, we won’t play it tonight.”
“I get the final say?”
“Yup.”
“Okay. Deal,” she said instantly, her face like a stone wall, as if she was already set on saying no and just letting us play so we got that ridiculous idea out of our system.
“You might want to get your camera out for this one.” I looked at Alex, who was standing behind me, half-hidden behind his laptop and piano keyboard. He clicked a few buttons, then nodded at me. I brought my mouth back to the microphone. “This song is called… wait. It doesn’t even have a name yet. So, here goes nothing.”
The in-ear monitor I had gotten used to by now started playing a faint click that only I could hear. We used it to synchronize the live components with the pre-recorded parts. I counted to four, then opened my mouth.
“They were calling out my name / Then they turned and cursed it / Booed me like a hurricane / Tore me from the surface.”
On the last word, the orchestra came in. I closed my eyes because I couldn’t bear to look at the faces in front of me. Every other song we had played so far had been approved by enough people to make me feel confident, but with this one, I felt completely naked. The lyrics came from my subconscious. The melody had existed within me before I even realized it. This song was so muchmeit was scary.
As we played, a new energy filled the room. We hadn’t had enough time to fill in the gaps in the first verse, so I played the melody on the guitar there and only sang the rest of the song. It was a magical yet frightening experience, and I was grateful to have this trial run with people I trusted before a room full of strangers, a thousand people online, and—worst of all—my family would hear it.
When the last chord struck, I held the final note until it was the only sound left in the room. I opened my eyes as the silence left behind by my voice stretched on.
All eyes were on us. Even the owner had stopped restocking drinks and was now leaning against the bar, listening.
Nora stared, frozen, her phone still raised in her hand, pointed at us. “This was…” She looked at Drake and Raul. “Where did that come from?” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Damn. I’ve got goosebumps all over. If you weren’t gay and in a relationship, I’d be throwing my underwear onstage right now.”
Drake and Raul burst out laughing, and it quickly spread throughout the room.
