The nervousness had no time to really get a grip on him. Bill provided the opening cue, playing a brief piano solo that was amplified and sent out over the audience. They cheered louder, whistling and clapping.
The solo ended and Matt hit the first guitar chord. That was the final cue. Out on the soundboard one of the technicians hit a switch and the stage lighting blazed to life, showering them in bright white illumination. The moment it happened, Matt launched into the opening sequence of their first song: Who Needs Love?
Jake could hardly see the audience - the stage lights were too bright and the house lights were too dim - and he couldn't hear them at all over the music blaring from the amplifier stacks - but he knew they were there all the same, all 5200 of them, watching as he played his guitar, as he began to sing. He was nervous - as nervous as he'd been launching into that first show at D Street West - but he didn't let it show. On the contrary, he came across as almost cocky with self-assurance, projection confidence with his every movement, his every facial expression, and especially with his voice. And as he performed, that nervousness gradually disappeared, replaced by wonder and awe. All of his doubts, fears, and frustrations about the recording contract, the tour, his relationship with Angie, melted away. He was doing what he loved more than anything, what he felt he had been put on this Earth to do. And while he was doing it, nothing else mattered to him.
The audience liked Who Needs Love? The cheers they gave when it was over were much louder than the polite enthusiasm they had shown at the beginning. It was almost deafening, the sound of respect, the sound of an audience expressing their realization that this band they'd only heard of for a few weeks, that they'd only heard one song from on the radio, was a band to be reckoned with. The next song - Living By the Law - only reinforced this. By the time it was done they had the audience's complete and adoring attention.
In all, they performed every song on the Descent Into Nothing album, intermixing them with four songs that had not been recorded yet. With each number they did, the cheers grew louder and lasted longer. When Matt did an extended guitar solo about halfway through, they went insane. The biggest cheers occurred when they performed the final number of the set, the only Intemperance song most of the audience had ever heard before, Descent Into Nothing. They played the song pretty much as it had been recorded, at least until the end. At that point they drew out the final flourish for nearly a minute, throwing in a final guitar solo, a final piano solo, a minor drum solo, and a gloriously stretched, operatic style vocal finish with Jake moaning out the final syllable for almost twenty seconds. The audience went wild, standing, cheering, raising their lit cigarette lighters into the air. Several bras and pairs of panties came flying up onto the stage - one of them hitting Jake squarely in the face.
"Thank you, Bangor!" Jake yelled into the microphone. "Thank you and goodnight!"
The five of them met at the front of the stage while the glorious applause continued to wash over them, while a few more pairs of panties came flying at them. All five of them were dripping with sweat, their skin flushed, their bodies approaching breathlessness. They linked arms and took a bow and then another. Jake, Matt, and Darren set their guitars down and threw their remaining picks into the crowd. Darren's drumsticks went into the crowd as well. They then walked off stage, going one by one through the access door. The cheers followed them and the calls for encore began.
Alas, there was to be no encore. This was not D Street West. It was Earthstone's show and the stage needed to be cleared so they could go on in thirty minutes.
Mohammad was the first person Jake saw when he came into the relative dimness of the backstage area. He handed him a bottle of cold Gatorade and hung his backstage pass back around his neck.
"Awesome," Mohammad told him. "You guys were fucking awesome out there!"
Jake grinned and took a large drink of the Gatorade, swallowing half the bottle without taking the bottle from his mouth. He burped wetly and then drank some more. Finally he had the breath to reply. "Thanks, Mo," he said. "Couldn't have done it without you."
Even before their eyes fully adjusted to the dimmer lighting, even before the roadies all had a chance to congratulate them on a premium performance, Greg appeared and led them back to the tunnel entrance.
"Let's get you boys out of the way," he said, "so they can get Earthstone rolling. I have cold drinks and other refreshments waiting for you in the dressing room."
Greg wasn't kidding. When they stepped into the dressing room the first thing they saw was a large ice chest filled with bottles of Budweiser, Coors, and Miller. On a folding card table next to the ice chest were bottles of Jack Daniels, Bacardi 151, Jose Cuervo tequila, a bucket of ice, and various mixers. On another table were a jeweled water bong and a sterling silver tray full of high-grade marijuana. Packs of cigarettes - Marlboro and Camel primarily - and monogrammed lighters sat next to this along with a sack of crystal ashtrays.
"Drink up, smoke up, party down," Greg told them. "You guys put on a pretty good show. You deserve it." He reached into the inner pocket of his suit and pulled out a small wooden box. "And if you want something to wake you up a bit, help yourselves to a few lines." He tossed it over to Matt. "Just be sure not to lose the box or I won't have one for tomorrow."
"Holy shit," Darren said, going over and grabbing a Coors out of the ice chest. "You're all right, Greg. Let's fuckin' party!"
"Hell yeah!" Coop said, making a beeline for the bong and the pot.
Jake would have preferred to drink a little more non-alcoholic refreshment to rehydrate himself but since that did not seem to be an option here, he finished up his Gatorade and then grabbed a beer. He sat down on one of the couches and smoked while he drank it. By the time the first bottle was in his empty stomach, he was already starting to buzz a little.
The five of them discussed the show while they cooled off and drank and while Matt crunched up some celebratory lines and passed the mirror around. When it came to Jake, he snorted two of them, one in each nostril. It was excellent coke and within a few minutes he was feeling very good indeed. He opened another beer, lit another cigarette, and then topped it all off with a couple of bonghits. He was starting to think that this really was the life.
Greg snorted up a few lines from his personal stash but did not converse with them or even sit with them. Instead, he sat off in the corner, writing something in a ledger he carried. The band didn't mind. Finally, as they were having an unmitigated and passionate discussion about the panties that had hit Jake in the face, Greg stood.
"Guys," he said, clapping his hands together like a kindergarten teacher trying to get the attention of his class, "I hate to break up you little debriefing here, but Gerald really needs your stage clothes. Why don't you go shower up and put your civvies back on?"
"Gladly," Jake said, standing and swallowing down the last of his second beer. A thought occurred to him. He really needed to call Angie. He still hadn't told her he'd arrived safely. "Hey, Greg. I need to make a call to L.A. Is there somewhere around here I can do that?"
"Nowhere here," Greg replied. "The only phones are the payphones in the front of the auditorium and we can't have you showing yourself out there. You'll get mobbed."