Nevel sat behind his dad waiting for the signal. His ear monitors were in so he couldn’t experience the full magnitude of the crowd, but he could feel the roar vibrate through his feet and the stale heat from 10,000 open mouths on his face.
“You ready for this bud?”
Jed’s voice in his ears interrupted his reverie and he snapped to attention. Dad had used Jed to run sound since the 80s. Jed was like an uncle to Nevel, and he and the stage manager Stewart were pretty much the only voices Nevel allowed in his monitor mix during a show.
“Ready for what?” Nevel replied through the almost invisible microphone taped to the side of his face, “Is it dinner time already?”
“Joker,” said Jed.
“Hmm…..I don’t know that one. Wait, is that Steely Dan or Steve Miller? I always get those old fart bands confused.”
“Shutup you two” broke in Stewart. Stewart was always a little anxious before a show. Nevel often felt bad for Stewart because of that. The shows were much more enjoyable when you didn’t give a fuck.
“Georgie is givin’ you the stink eye kid,” Stewart said, “Better pay attention.”
Nevel looked up and saw that his dad was indeed glaring at him. Well, glaring might have been a stretch. It was more like a bleary-eyed whiskey-induced gaze. But whatever. Nevel looked back at his dad blankly. He would never give his dad the satisfaction of seeing him scared. Or happy. Or angry. Emotions were for pussies. Dear old dad taught him that.
The stare down lasted probably only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity for Nevel. He did well though; his dad looked away first.
Stewart gave the cue for Jed to start the eight-click intro that would signal Nevel to start playing. Jed had already started the track with the slick studio produced version of the entire show. Unbeknownst to the audience they started doing the simulcast a few years ago when Gorgeous George started forgetting the lyrics on a regular basis. Georgie told his staff of roadies and managers it was their fault. The label excused the lapses because Georgie had such an, ‘Immense catalogue of hits stemming from the late 70s when he fronted the band Exodus, through his solo heyday in the 80s, to his comeback album in 2016.’ At least that’s what they put in the press kit.
Everyone on the tour knew it was the whiskey and the Propofol. No one was going to call him out though. It wasn’t like a band intervention would change anything and no one was willing to get fired for trying. The label was just amazed he was still making money for them thirty years past the “twenty-five-year-old effect” that claimed Jim, Janis, Kurt, and Jimi. Any new hits Georgie created would just be icing on the cake. But that never happened. His posthumous greatest hits album had been finished for ten years because the fifty-something crowd who would be buying it didn’t want to hear any of his new shit anyway.
They did, however, want to hear Nevel. Nevel was holding a drum stick before he held a pacifier. He had a vintage Ludwig set by the time he was five and he was in the studio with Georgie by age ten. No doubt he was a prodigy. Nevel remembered being eight years old and his dad waking him up at midnight, eyes wild and breath stinking of whiskey, screaming at him to get his “lazy ass out of bed.” His mom would try to stop Georgie but Nevel always ended up downstairs in his Power Ranger pajamas playing ‘Whole Lotta Love’ or some other ancient hit for one hundred of Georgie’s closest douchebag friends.
And so, the proverbial 10,000 fucking hours later, and there he was, fourteen years old, staring at his dad’s leather-clad ass and ten thousand screaming cougars. It was standing room only in yet another 80s-review show with Def Leopard, or Heart, or some other shit band, and the crowd had paid to hear Georgie sing the oldies they made out to in High School. They might even be willing to sit through a few of Georgie’s new songs in order to see Nevel the wonder boy, Georgie’s greatest creation, on the drums in back.
8-7-6
Nevel focused on the ladies old enough to be his grandmother on the front row, balancing their white wine-filled plastic cups in one hand, and raising their shirts with the other so they could show Georgie their droopy tits.
5-4
Nevel threw up a little in his mouth.
3-2-1
Katenotkatherine 