Eerie anticipation crackles like lightning in a storm through a haze of smoke, filling the venue with the stink of sweat and desperation.
This is how it always begins, the humming of a crowd, buzzing of voices that spoke in words unheard, too mingled with their neighbors, with the house music, with the lights and intercoms and the roadies. Time never exists on the inside, only on the outside, as reality fades away for one night. One night of many, but the crowd wouldn’t know. For them, this is a time outside of time, outside of their lives, outside of their work and families, where the dim of the concert hall welcomes them in with open arms.
This is home.
Tonight, it’s The Midnight Dolls that will step under the glittering lights of the stage and gift the audience stardust. Those lights will dim, and the audience growing silent but restless, their feet moving in rhythm to a collective heartbeat known only by those in need of tangible emotion. The buzz of excitement wafts like sticky sweet weed through the floorboards of the venue.
Nick Russell sits behind it all, watching a scene he’d grown accustomed to over the years once more unfold for him, as a ribbon of smoke trails out of the end of his lit cigarette.
It’ll happen again tomorrow night, and then two nights from then. Day in and day out, night after night, the same show. It doesn’t quite matter though, that magic is a drug to an addict. The haunting melodies they’ll gift to the audience is enough to get anyone hooked.
For now, he sits in wait for his cue.
To one side, his guitarist moves to an unheard beat, shoulders bouncing from side to side as he loosens up and prepares for another night, another crowd, another city. Kurt Davis knows very well the moment he steps on the stage, that rock star persona will slide back on, the mask settling itself on his face. With one masterful stroke of a chord, he’ll part the clouds and call the sunlight with his Les Paul.
He glances toward Nick.
“You look ready,” he comments off handedly.
“To whore myself out another night?” Nick asks, one languid movement bringing the end of the cigarette up to his lips.
“One more show, Nicky, then we can go home.”
“If you say so.”
In a swift movement, he stubs the cigarette out in the ashtray at his side, leans back and closes his eyes to prepare for the inevitable.
From somewhere amidst the darkness, the haunting melody of a Hammond organ blasts through the air, just to keep the feeling light. Behind it, the keyboardist himself apologizes, though there is no feeling behind the apology. He’d done so to wake the room up, to send a bit of positivity through the air—to remind them all that he was there. Just as swiftly as the crash of four chords comes assaulting the room, the Hammond is whisked away by two men in dark clothing, roadies paid to do one job. Lance Bailey sighs in defeat, and picks up a Fender instead, simply for something to do with his hands to keep the nerves at bay.
No matter how many times they do this, from playing stadiums to bars, the nerves never go away.
Someone knocks on the door, pokes their head in.
Nick opens his eyes, but barely moves an inch at the disturbance.
“Ten minutes,” the faceless man states, though ten minutes in the world of a musician feels like five, which feels like two, which feels like thirty seconds.
The rat-a-tatting, ting-ting-tinging, and soft booms from the drummer cease, drawing to close the heartbeat of the room. Silence drops as a final curtain call, louder than any rock show in the world. He stands and stretches and tucks his drumsticks, then an extra two pair, into a back pocket. Rez is at ease, his soul thrumming its own beat of an unscripted song.
“Time to go, be rock stars,” Rez says with a smile and a smack of the bottom of Nick’s leather boot.
“Rock gods,” Nick corrects him, feeling the way the mask once more slides its way over his face, reeking of self-hatred, of depression and desperation, of cheap booze and cheaper girls, of something he can’t describe with words only music.
The front man of the Dolls rises from his seat, peeling himself out of the leather, and grabs for the glittering Eko bass at his side.
The faceless man holds the door for them, stepping aside so Kurt can lead the way, so Lance can hum to himself, so Rez can smile and nod his thanks, and so Nick can ignore him.
How many roadies are there? How many fans in the crowd?
The ground vibrates beneath his boots, but he doesn’t need a reminder.
The stage beckons them home through a tunnel of darkness, of fabric and faceless roadies. Nick’s place sits at the center, in the deep blue spotlight, behind that microphone. Faceless fans in the front row stare starry eyed up at the stage.
They wait.
Nick waits as well.
This is it.
One last show, one last moment in the spotlight.
Then rest.
In one fluid movement he swings it around, and as though he’d made a deal with the devil himself, black magic pours from his fingertips as the bass hums to life. He’s resurrecting the dead with a progression of basslines and melodies too beautiful to have come from an instrument as simple as the bass. He captivates the audience from the sidelines with the funky, groovy sound of their first song: Lucid Dreams.
When the Hammond joins in, and the guitar’s soft melodies envelope the venue—sounds of psychedelic blues—the collective consciousness inside of the four brick walls floats. The music takes the feeling of being high and blankets the crowd in it.
Nick closes his eyes, forgetting for a moment he’s in the sidelines, he’s not on stage, he’s alone with the music and the darkness of his own mind. When he steps out into the light, the floor drops from beneath him, nothing but the music keeps him afloat.
When he starts to sing, the world stops rotating.
That is when it’s over for the crowd. They sway and dance like the rolling waves off the coast, commanded by the magic of the music playing through the speakers and enchanted by the spell Nick weaves. All that’s there is the mystique flowing off the musicians and though the audience can’t see it, they can feel the raw emotion in those words, those chords and riffs and licks and the steady beat of the drumming.
Their collective heartbeats are one, just for that moment in time.
On stage, Nick and Kurt and Lance move like graceful dancers. Lance’s fingers dance across the keys of the Hammond, movements like a practiced ballet, light and airy and full of care. His counterpart on the guitar mirrors the movements as he plays the guitar without thought, his motions a fluid river as he twists and turns on stage. Nick sways left and right, keeping the world beneath himself steady and true. They, too, are taken over by the music they play.
One song after another, fading into gentle ebbs and flows of stars themselves, The Midnight Dolls captures every heart of the crowd and they reform them into glittering memories, then gift them back.
And who could forget a night like this?
All nerves are gone within the second song, and all that’s left is the electric lightning coursing through his veins. He watches his crowd and commands them this way and that, and they do what he says. He is in control, a god of rock and roll, center stage.
Nothing outside of the venue matters, the outside world doesn’t exist. They are within their own pocket of reality drifting through the cosmos headed for the light and the stars and greatness.
And at the height of the night, just as the crescendo hits its highest, when the last note from the last song echoes through the concert hall, the lighting plunges to black. A crowd of hundreds howl, they cheer, they flick lighters and illuminate the hall into a sea of twinkling starlight. Nick stands in his place and he stares out at them, these people he’ll never know, and he breathes.
This is why it is worth it. This intimate connection, the only thing in common between himself and the crowd being a collective love of music. This is why he gets up on stage and pours his heart out a little more every night. They all hold his soul.
One by one, a pool of light bathes Kurt, Rez, Lance, and finally Nick.
The crowd cheers, chanting for more, wanting anything but the night to end.
The guys are done though. They’d taken their last bow, they’d played their last song, they’re worn out and tired and no amount of persuasion will change that. They’d danced across moonbeams and played with the stars, weaving dreams through haunting melodies for one final night.
From that stage, they sit on top of the world.
This is how legends are born.