For the Love of Music (Sixty Minute Romance)

Anne Richardson was
backstage wondering how she had been persuaded to do this gig. She was not in
the best of moods. An April shower had caught her unawares and she was drenched
from head to toe. Her long brown hair was not looking its best, and her shoes
were damp and smelly. Things could only get better, couldn’t they? Being a
musician was very rewarding most of the time, but not today! Her usual cool and
calm demeanor was absent. She was red faced and rushed.

The back changing room of
the concert hall, where the band was getting ready, was dark, dilapidated, dingy
and in need of decorating. Their manager, Carlos, had decided that they should
perform in their 80’s outfits. This involved lots of black and far too many
chains, four inch nails and giant safety pins. For a group of girls in their
early thirties, it looked a bit out of place.

Carlos was wearing his
usual afghan coat, over a tatty T shirt and torn jeans. He had the appearance
of an unscrupulous wheeler dealer and his deep South American accent made him
sound dishonest. His long wavy black hair was tied back in a huge bundle. The
girls took him on because his client list included at least two top forty acts.
They figured he must know what he was doing.

The full line up of their
band, known as the Kovergirls, was as follows;

Gail – Lead Vocals and Guitar.
Never wore enough clothes and her skirts were always far too short. To complete
her eighties look she had put some holes in her black opaque tights.

Narinda – Vocals and Lead
Guitar. She had black hair, black beads, black dress, black Dr. Marten boots and
black makeup. Everything was black!

Anne – Keyboards, Vocals
and band leader. The good looking one who always looked cool and calm, but not
today! Anne was wearing bright pink jeans with matching pink cowboy boots. Her
black, semi sheer, flouncy blouse finished off the look.

Kate – Drums. Permanently
attached to her Metallica T shirts and torn Levi jeans.

For this concert, the
fifth and occasional member, Naze was joining them on Bass Guitar and Vocals.
As everyone knows, bass players are notoriously unreliable and moody. Naze was true
to form and very unreliable and moody. When she was on a high, like today, she
was great. The Kovergirls had used many bass players in their first year as a
band, but Naze was the best musician by far. She was dressed in black leather
trousers and black denim jacket.

“You girls are looking
lovely today.” Carlos made even the simplest of compliments sound a little bit
sleazy. But since he had taken them on last November, Anne had to admit that
they were playing good gigs most weekends and they were getting a bit of a name
locally. For this particular gig, Carlos had hired a huge state of the art PA
system from one of his other acts. The setup had taken an hour but it did sound
good and loud. The sound man obviously knew his stuff. This would be the
biggest gig the “Kovergirls” had ever played. There would be at least six
hundred and fifty people in the audience.

Anne was used to playing in
front of very large audiences. As a classically trained pianist she had played
in orchestras, where there could be thousands of paying concert goers. The
thought of playing a freebie concert, to a room full of old war veteran guys and
their families, did not thrill her one bit. Carlos was insistent that the band
needed this gig, and he must be obeyed at all times.

The lineup also included
Darrell Rufus, a stand-up comedian. At the age of forty seven he was purposely
a bit scruffy. Darrell had seen better days. He wore a Saville Row suit that
used to fit him when he was thirty pounds lighter than his current two hundred
and ten pounds. His humour was beginning to sound a bit old-fashioned in 2013.  He
was one of the story telling types of comedian, who led you down a tale and
then twisted it on its head at the end to get the laugh.

The trouble was that some
people didn’t have time for his long tales. They wanted short, quick laughs and
lots of them. But even so, Darrell had seen a recent upsurge in his bookings.
This was mainly due to the fact that he kept his act clean and suitable for all
ages. He was a safe bet who would offend almost no one, and in particular on
this day, would not offend Colonel Hatch. Colonel Hatch was the MC and was an army
officer of many years’ service. He had come dressed in his full military
uniform and wore a long strip of medals. He stood tall and upright. His hair
was extremely short and closely trimmed. All his movements were deliberate and
precise. Nothing in his life happened spontaneously, or by accident. Everything
was planned meticulously, he was obviously used to running a tight schedule.

The old run down hall, just
to the side of their changing room, was getting very noisy. It was supposed to
be full of war veterans, along with helpers and families. But there was too
much life and noise coming from the hall for that to be the case. Anne hoped
that whoever they were, they liked their mix of hits from bands like The
Bangles, Sister Sledge, Girls Aloud and The Spice Girls. They also had a few
well-chosen rock classics in their repertoire.

 “You are due on in three
minutes. I’ll announce you and you must run on straightaway as I walk off.”
Colonel Hatch reminded the comedian Darrell.

“Yes Sir!” replied the
comedian, thinking that it would be funny. It was not funny as far as the Colonel
was concerned.

Darrell ran on as ordered
and started his set which was about thirty five minutes long. The raucous,
enthusiastic audience could be heard laughing, in all the right places. At the
end there was a huge cheer as Darrell delivered his last punch line. Darrell
came off stage to a huge roar of appreciation and passed the microphone to the
Colonel.

“Good crowd in today.” He
said with a wide sweaty grin on his face. Colonel Hatch was forgiven for not
having a sense of humour.

Gail and Naze were putting
the finishing touches to their make-up and generally preening themselves in
front of the mirror. Narinder and Kate didn’t care how they looked, and Anne
knew she looked good already. They were ready to face an audience who were
shouting and chanting, in anticipation of the Kovergirls.

The five girls ran onstage
as they were announced by the Colonel. Actually, Anne glided onto the stage, as
was her style. She never ran anywhere. The room filled with cheering and wolf
whistles. This felt like a set up. To the girls’ surprise, the room was full of
young men. The oldest must have been about forty, but the majority of the guys
were much younger. Some of them had wives, girlfriends and children with them. The
girls smiled and laughed at each other, Gail gave a count of one, two, three,
four and they let rip with
“Wannabe”
.

Narinder and Gail were on
top form, egging on the audience and jumping around like any girl band should. Naze,
who was usually quite reserved on stage, started walking around her section of
the stage, eyeing up some of the men in the crowd and blowing them kisses. Anne
stood quietly and demurely at the side playing her keyboard, singing the
harmonies when needed, and holding the band together. Even she couldn’t help
laughing at the way the crowd was reacting to them. The audience was totally
into the band’s repertoire and cheered and jumped around as if they were a top
line act. Only a few people in the audience sat quietly at the back.

The set of quiet songs in
the middle could barely be heard due to the noise. But the former pandemonium
did eventually calm down a little. Carlos ran on to say to Anne.

“No interval, Keep going.”

Gail and Anne looked at
each other and thrashed out the intro to
“Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
This
got the loudest cheer of the evening so far. Some of the guys started playing
air guitar to the power chords. Anne’s big moment was the keyboard solo. The
other girls left the stage for this part of the gig and Anne was left in
command of the stage.

She had played this organ
solo so many times that she could play it with her eyes closed. But this time
she played it with her eyes open. She looked around the audience, as they stood
mesmerised by her four minute long solo. She caught the eyes of one particular
guy, in a wheelchair at the back, and found that he was staring at her
intently.

His mates nearby were
waving their hands in front of his eyes, as a joke, but he just kept on
looking. She broke away from his gaze, but had to look at him again a few
seconds later. The crowd was getting quieter as the solo progressed. The guy’s
gaze seemed to grow even more intense as the crowd became almost silent. Eventually
the moment was broken when Kate’s powerful drum break came in followed by
Narinda hitting the Townshend power chords with extra enthusiasm.

Anne stopped looking at
the guy in the wheelchair and had to concentrate on her playing again. There
was a huge cheer for Anne’s solo and the air guitarists started up again. The
man at the back caught Anne’s eyes once more. He was clapping very slowly and
pointedly and holding out his hands towards her in appreciation. The noise
level was now almost deafening as they played through the second half of the
set.

As the band finished their
second encore off with “It’s Raining Men”, the whole crowd cheered and shouted
for more.

The girls rushed off the stage
on a complete high. They went back on stage for a wave and to thank the
audience and then ran off again.

“Who are these guys?” Anne
asked Carlos.

“I thought you said they
were old war veterans. It’s like you put our best audience in front of us,
plucked out of nowhere!”

“I never said that they
were old. They are mostly Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Many of
them have severe injuries. All of them are having a tough time getting back
into normal life. They always make lots of noise at these concerts, but you have
had the biggest reaction I have ever seen. I didn’t tell you about who the
veterans were beforehand, because I knew it would affect your performance. By
the way, you girls were great out there, the best ever.” Carlos said.

“Thanks, we were brilliant,
weren’t we?” Naze said enthusiastically. Naze was in a good mood today, for a
bass player.

The girls were back in the
dingy changing room, laughing and joking with each other about the gig and
things that had happened. There had been very few mistakes and they had
performed to the top of their ability.

About ten minutes later there
was a knock on the dressing room door.

Carlos opened it to see Darrell
Rufus standing there.

“These guys want
autographs, can you believe it?” he said.

Colonel Hatch followed
Darrell into the changing room.

“That was brilliant, just
what the doctor ordered. Would you girls be able to meet some of the men who
have stayed behind?”