Blogs » Musings On Muses » Shaking The Stars

Subscribe


 
Shaking The Stars
By joseexist in Musings On Muses
June 10, 2011

I look out over the vast sea of flickering lights. Some are red, or orange. Others are foot-long columns of blue with red or orange tips. I can feel the heat they produced and the swell of the crowd breathing in unison. A low thunder of voices dies away as I step forward to center stage and into the lone spotlight. A few whistles erupt along with a bit of applause. My name shoots out from random locations and echoes back and forth across the crowd.

I check my in-ear-monitors and slowly turned my head left then right, taking in the throng before me. I appreciate the fact that they have come to see me. I can feel them appreciate the fact that I’ve come to see them.

I put my right foot back a step and feel a wave of anticipation wash up from their depths. It bounces off the wall of hiss that comes from the shadows behind me. I grab the volume knob on my guitar and slowly turned the potentiometer clockwise. At the same time I lean back a bit into the wind created by a wall of ‘Stormstyle’ speakers. The low ‘D’ note disintegrates into feedback and I let it ring for a handful of seconds before I grabbed the sixth fret and bend a screamer way up to a ‘B’.

The crowd explodes with me. I launch into my solo, souvenirs thrown onstage after our first set go airborne and back into the crowd. Some come back towards the stage but the sound catches them easily and reverses their course. I lean back even more to maintain my balance. Halfway back into the crowd flames are blown out.

The mix in my earphones gives me my screaming amps along with the sound from mics scattered above the crowd all the way back to the last row. I play off the echoes and any voices I can make out. Any words I can pick out are soon echoed in the notes I send my fingers after on the fret-board. I shoot harmonics in between the wailing and jump back and forth between single notes, chords, bends, squeals, screams, slides, and every trick I knew. Along the way I even make up some new ones.

The crowd and I are alone on a journey to nowhere and everywhere. They try to drown out my guitar as I try to drown out their screams. It’s a game of sonic ‘cat and mouse’. The loose end of my bandana streams past my left cheek towards the crowd. My shirt sleeves batter my arms. My bootlaces untie. My teeth want to leave and the water in my eyes begins to froth and fly away.

The crowd gives a lull as a certain group of notes they are waiting for approaches. As I launched into them a wall of beer bottles appears from several front rows. They turn to powder in the wind and waft away. I finished the section and go on.

It will be a sad day indeed when I miss a not or two of that section. I will be killed by the blunt force of a few thousand beer bottles. These fans are awesome, and they have good aim! Grinning from ear to ear and then some, I throw my head back as I wrench out a high screaming note. The stars in the night sky above are shaking.