37: The Gig

[cws_eat_chs]

Title: The Gig
Author: Leah
Rating: PG for about one concept, I think.
Summary: Jemaine and Bret actually manage to get a gig.
Author's Notes: The fictional FotC characters are in because we love them so much. Also, this is based on a dream I had once. Note: The actual FotC concert was nothing like this. ...Pity.
Also, you can clearly see that I've started just writing fanfic instead of a pitiful excuse for RPF. This gets worse later. Sorry.


Responding to the constant knocking, Julian opened the door.

“Oh, sorry,” said Jemaine, lowering his hand. “I guess I got the wrong house.”

“I don’t know,” said Julian. “Which house were you trying for?”

“The one with all the girls,” said Jemaine. “And Noel, I guess. He just looks like a girl.”

“Then you’re right,” said Julian. “I live here now.”

“Oh,” said Jemaine. “Good.” He came into the house and Julian backed up to let him in. “Are you drinking tea?” Jemaine asked.

Julian looked down at the mug in his hand. “Yes.”

“Thanks, I’d love some,” said Jemaine. Julian looked briefly confused and then wandered off to the kitchen to pour out another mug. Jemaine followed and took the mug from him once it had tea in it.

“So are you here for a reason or are you just here to sit around like everyone else who comes here?” asked Julian eventually.

“No. There’s a reason,” said Jemaine. “I want to explain the reason to everyone in the house, though.”

“They’re downstairs,” said Julian. “Come on.” They went downstairs to find the other Roommates draped around various points in the basement.

“Oh, hey, Jemaine,” said Leah. “Are you here for a reason?”

“Yes,” said Jemaine. “Yes, actually.”

“Well, what is it, then?” said Noel.

“I was getting to that,” said Jemaine. “Basically, me and Bret…well, Murray actually found us a gig. It’s at the University Centre.”

“Oh, congratulations!” said Sharmy.

“Thanks,” said Jemaine. “Only there’s a problem. Murray doesn’t understand how bands work so he scheduled us for 5 hours that we need to play or we won’t get rehired.”

“Why is Murray your manager?” Julian asked.

“Um…we don’t really like the idea of firing him,” said Jemaine. “Bret wrote it down once but we thought of the face that he’d make if we did and we couldn’t do it.”

“But you’ll be okay,” said Leah reassuringly. “You can find something to do, right?”

“It’s at 6 tonight, though,” said Jemaine. “You’ll all come, right?”

“Um…” said Sharmy. “We’ll try?”

“Where’s Bret, by the way?” asked Paisley. “I thought you two were one beast.”

“No!” protested Jemaine. “I’m an individual! It’s just a coincidence that we have all the same classes. Anyway, Bret is still probably arguing with Murray.”

“Why aren’t you?” asked Noel.

“Because I know it’s futile,” said Jemaine. “Bret will just keep saying ‘no’ until he gets bored and Murray’s attention span is much longer. Bret can’t win.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” said Julian.

“Arguing,” said Jemaine. “’Yes’, ‘no’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, etc.”

“That’s not an argument,” said Leah. “That’s just contradiction.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s why Bret’s not here,” said Jemaine. “I better go now. We have to come up with a set in two hours.” After he’d climbed the stairs and left, everyone looked at each other.

“So…are we going?” asked Sharmy.

“Well, me and Julian are busy,” said Noel. “We’re painting our rooms.”

“We’re painting YOUR room,” corrected Julian. “You didn’t buy one colour of paint without the word ‘electric’ in the name.”

“You need some colour in your life!” said Noel. “You live in a sea of browns and soft blues and greens.”

“That’s because I use my bedroom for sleeping,” said Julian. “Electrics are too distracting.”

Sharmy turned to Paisley and Leah. “What about you guys?” she asked.

Leah shrugged. “I haven’t got much on,” she said.

“I’m busy,” said Paisley. “I’ll be helping Noel paint Julian Barratt.” But this was only in her mind. “I guess,” she said out loud. “I might leave in the middle, though.”

“Yeah,” said Sharmy. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay interested for 5 hours.”

“I should be okay,” said Leah. “I’ll get myself a Matcha Monsoon and my jitters will look like interest.”

“Or like you’re bored,” said Sharmy.

“Eh,” said Leah. “Either way, I’ll still have a smoothy.”

“Good point,” said Sharmy.

“Guys, shut up,” said Paisley. “I’ve nearly reached my greatest draped form. It’ll revolutionise draping and, um, drapes.”

“Your mom revolutionises drapes,” said Leah.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” asked Julian.

“YOU’RE a good thing,” said Leah.

“Okay, no, that one was definitely positive,” said Julian. “You need to pause and actually listen to what you’re saying.”

Leah paused. “Your MOM,” she concluded.

“Let’s go paint your room, Noel,” said Julian.

“Hang on,” said Noel. “I’m draping.”

Two hours later, the girls got off the bus and trooped into the UC. In the main courtyard section, a whole bunch of folding chairs were set up in front of a small raised platform. The Flight of the Conchords were tuning up on the platform. Surprisingly, there was actually a small audience, although most of them were sitting near the back of the folding chairs. Murray was sitting in one of the front seats with a clipboard on his knee and a few seats across sat an enthusiastic young woman, bouncing a little even though Bret and Jemaine were just tuning their guitars. She had a thrilled look on her face. Leah instantly went off to Booster Juice and her movement attracted the attention of Murray.

“Hello, girls!” he called. “Come and sit over here!” Paisley and Sharmy had been going to sit in the middle so that they would be demonstrating their friendship and still not having to sit in the front but now that Murray was smiling hopefully at them they couldn’t snub him. They walked over to the front row and sat beside him, between him and the excited woman.

“I’m glad you could make it,” said Murray. “Do you mind if I add you to my list of fans?”

“Yes,” said Paisley.

“So that’s a ‘yes’ for Paisley,” said Murray, writing down her name, “and what about you, Sharmy? Are you a fan too?”

“Um,” said Sharmy.

“Maybe a little bit of one?” asked Murray, his pen poised over the paper.

“A little bit,” agreed Sharmy.

“All right, I’ll write your name down,” said Murray, “then ‘L. bit’ beside it…oh, no, that’s not very specific, I guess. Hmm, and ‘ittle’ doesn’t really fit beside the ‘L’. It just says ‘Lit bit’. I hope I still know what that means in a month. That’s one of the difficult parts of being a manager.”

“I suppose so?” said Sharmy. Leah came over to sit on the other side of Murray, sipping from her green tea smoothy.

“Hey guys,” she said. “Hey, Murray. Man, I am totally stoked for this concert.”

“You certainly seem to be,” said Murray. “I’ve never seen anyone dance while sitting so quickly.”

“I think she’s just vibrating with caffeine energy,” said Paisley.

“No, that’s definitely what I’d call fast dancing,” said Murray. “You’re even faster than Mel over there. I’m going to write you down on my list as the ‘dancing fan’. But I’ll also write ‘Leah’, of course. Imagine if I only called you ‘Dancing Fan’. That would be quite silly.”

“Yeah, probably,” said Leah. Mel looked across Paisley and Sharmy at them.

“Haha, I hope I didn’t just hear you take away my status as top fan, Murray,” she said, and then looked at him very seriously. “You didn’t, did you?”

“No, of course not, Mel,” said Murray. This didn’t reassure Mel at all.

“Oh no!” she said, looking heartbroken. “You totally did! I’m going to have to step it up, I guess, if these three random girls who probably know nothing at all about Bret and Jemaine and are just here because they think that the amazing talent and hotness of my boys will rub off on them and then they’ll suddenly be cool or something, if they’re top fans instead of me! I think I’m gonna cry.”

“No!” said Murray. “No, honestly, Mel, look at the list!” He showed it to her. She was, in fact, number one on the list. Number two to four were Paisley, Sharmy and Leah.

“Oh,” said Mel. “Sorry. I guess I kinda overreacted.” She smiled again. “Hi! It’s always great for the boys to get new fans, because they totally deserve it. They are SO good. They’re like my LIFE.” She paused a moment to breathe heavily then continued, “Anyway, you’d better not ditch them and break their hearts because sometimes their new fans do that and I have to be there to comfort them with baked goods and hugs and kisses and stuff.” Mel stared dreamily off into the air until Jemaine tapped the microphone in front of him and said, “Uh, hello. We’re the Flight of the Conchords.”

“Yeah,” said Bret. “And we’re going to play our songs now.”

They did. In fact, by doing what they said were the ‘extended version’ of most of their songs, they managed to fill two hours. All of the audience were actually still there at the end of the two hours and were getting pretty into the music.

“Okay, that’s the end of the music section,” said Jemaine after the last song. “Now we’re going to have a sort of contest. Bret’s passing around sheets right now and you have to figure out which picture is an instrument really close up.”

“Huh?” said Leah. Most of the other people in the audience were also a little confused but they started trying to do the puzzle sheet anyway.

“This is amazing,” said Mel as Bret handed her a piece of paper, his hand as far away from hers as possible. She managed to grope it anyway. “This is the best idea for a concert ever. You two are visionaries.”

“Um, thanks, Mel,” said Bret, finally managing to pull his hand free, and continuing to hand out the sheets.

“These are kind of easy,” said Leah quietly.

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Jemaine, sitting down beside her. “We made them in three minutes. We didn’t have a lot of time to come up with things.”

“Because it’s obviously just number 5,” said Leah.

“Ummm…yes,” said Jemaine, leaning over to look at the sheet.

“Do I win a prize?” asked Leah.

“There’s not really a prize,” said Jemaine. “We’re hoping no-one else will ask that.”

“No, that’s not an instrument,” said Bret behind them, to a different audience member.

“That’s definitely a violin,” said the audience member.

“No…it’s just the letter ‘J’,” said Bret. “Really close up. It doesn’t really look like a violin at all.”

“Now, Bret,” said Murray, coming over, “I think you need to learn to accept other people’s perspectives and views.”

“But his is just wrong,” said Bret.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Murray. “You should accept his view as equally relevant to your own.”

“I made the sheet,” said Bret. “I know what every one of these pictures is and that one’s just the letter ‘J’,”

“I came up with the idea, though,” said Jemaine loudly.

“Yes. That’s true,” said Bret. “Jemaine thought of it. But I actually know what all the pictures are.”

“Hang on,” said Murray. “Are you saying that in this instance that there actually is a right or wrong answer?”

“Yeah,” said Bret. “Like a test.”

“But these pictures are very close up,” said Murray. “It’s difficult to tell. Like that inkblot test. Do you know about that test, Bret?”

“Yes,” said Bret. “But-”

“Well, that’s a test where there’s more than one answer for each picture,” said Murray. “It all depends on point of view.”

“But this one actually does have a right answer,” said Bret.

“Well, I think you may be jumping to conclusions,” said Murray.

Twenty minutes later, the Conchords had given up on the sheets. Instead, Jemaine went behind the platform to the equipment and brought a table around to the front of the stage. Then he went and got a grill and placed it on top of the table. Bret, meanwhile, brought out a stack of Tupperware containers.

“We’re going to have a snack, now,” explained Jemaine.

“Crepes,” said Bret, putting down a pile of crepes that had already been cooked. Jemaine turned on the grill and waited for it to heat up.

“What are you making, guys?” asked Mel. “Whatever it is, I bet it’s going to be delicious.”

“I’m making crepe…things,” said Jemaine.

“That’s why I brought out crepes,” added Bret.

“They’re already cooked,” pointed out Paisley. “What’s the grill for?”

“Just-just you wait and see,” said Jemaine.

Everybody waited.

It turned out that he was making sort of…fruit and crepe wraps. Or something.

Mel put hers into a plastic bag.

“I’ll eat this later,” she said, grinning.

“It’ll get cold?” said Bret, sort of like a question.

“Oh, I’ll heat it up,” said Mel. Bret’s lips went pursed and he frowned but continued to hand Jemaine random fruit.

An hour later, Jemaine was doing dramatic readings from Frankenstein while Bret played background guitar music. And by dramatic readings, it really just means he was reading the entire book out loud. Dramatically.

The weirdest part was that the entire audience was still there. Even the Roommates. Murray was writing down notes on his clipboard and Mel was just staring at Jemaine’s lips. This was obvious because she was also sketching them in a notebook she’d brought. Paisley kept glancing sideways at them and reassuring herself that she wasn’t so creepy as to sketch Jemaine’s lips. She really just wanted a taste of his sugalumps.

“That’s it, then,” said Bret at the end of the five hours, as Jemaine went to have a drink of water. “Um, we’re done. You can go home now.”

Everyone stared at him for a while.

Then the majority of them stood up and left.

“That was so sexy and amazing!” gushed Mel. “Wow. This was so much better than that essay I’m supposed to be doing.”

“We’re going to leave now,” said Jemaine, gathering as much equipment as he could carry. Bret gathered the other half.

“Good job, guys!” said Murray. “This concert merits a very good review in the Ontarion.”

“D’you want to come with us, Murray?” asked Sharmy politely.

“No, thanks, I need to stay behind and stack the chairs,” said Murray. “You girls have a good night.”

Bret and Jemaine presumably went home, followed closely by Mel, while Paisley, Sharmy and Leah took a bus to their house.

Only to find Julian asleep and snoring with his head resting on the dining room table and the entire house painted various electric colours.

“Hi,” said Noel coming downstairs. “There was a lot of paint and I was well bored.”

“Paint it back or I’ll kill you,” said Paisley.

Everyone stared at her.

“No, I seriously mean it,” said Paisley.

“C…can I wait for it to dry first?” asked Noel.

“Go out and get different paint right NOW,” said Paisley. “Actually, nowhere’s open. Oh, whatever. Did you paint Julian Barratt’s room?”

“Yeah,” said Noel.

“Does he know?” asked Paisley.

“No,” said Noel.

Paisley walked over and shook Julian awake.

“Mmmmnnnff, what?” said Julian blearily.

“Noel painted your room,” said Paisley.

The shit hit the fan.

But not literally.

Because that would be unlikely and gross.

THE END