Let me tell it back to you and see if I've gotten the spirit of it. You're on stage and the whole place is dim and smokey. You're standing with your legs apart and your head down. You're holding the mic up near your face, your elbow bent. In your other hand you hold the looped microphone cord. You're tapping your foot and setting the tempo. The kids in the crowd are silent and watching you and drinking their beer. Somehow they've all ended up here tonight, kids you went to high school with ten years ago, old crushes from old jobs, that cute boy you saw on the train yesterday. They're staring and they're frowning because they're not sure you've got the balls to go through with it.
Your guitarist starts to play the opening chords of "Sweet Child O' Mine" and the audience looks around at each other. Your whole body starts to move, swaying as the rhythm guitarist joins in, and you lift up the mic and you sing. They're not blown away, not yet, but they're impressed.
After the first chorus you change it up--you signal to the guys in the band they transition into "Welcome to the Jungle." You pull a David Lee Roth high kick and you start to sing and sparks shoot up from either side of you. The crowd nods and they say, "Shit, yeah!" and they swig from their beers and they can't believe how bad ass rock n' roll you are.
You're covered in sweat and you've kicked it into gear. The band plays an extended medley and your a better Axel than Axel ever was. The crowd is singing along and dancing and doing the hip-kid hop, and slowing down and swaying you sing "November Rain" in its entirety. The girls in the back, the ones who aren't as cute as you and know it, along with all of the boys you've broken up with or have broken up with you, shake their heads and scowl because they know they can't touch your shit. But all the same they enjoy the show, because goddamn, how can they not?
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