Bandfic: Snapshots from a Possible Future (32-34)
Title: Snapshots from a Possible Future [32-34]
Author: tigs
Characters: Patrick, Spencer, Frank
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own.
Author's Notes: So this really wasn't supposed to take so long to do. Really, really. But after these parts, there's only one more arc of the story to go, so. I'm getting there! Many thanks, as always, to amy13 for all of her help on this!
32. The Answer
The thing is: it's an off-hand comment. It's an afterthought. Because Patrick and Adam are sitting in his office, eating a late lunch, discussing the weekend: the show, the after party, Patrick's trip to the airport with Pete and Joe the afternoon before. And it's just a flicker of thought: he remembers seeing that Casey, the lead singer of Last Bastion, had finally tracked Adam down, remembers wondering if she was asking him to tech for them.
So he asks.
So he says, "I saw you taking to Casey on Saturday night."
Adam nods. "Yeah," he says. Then he grins, almost looks like he's going to start laughing. "I-she actually asked me if I might be interested in going out on their upcoming tour with them. As a guitar tech, mostly, but playing the piano for them onstage for a few songs."
"Wow," Patrick says, trying to sound surprised. Trying not to sound like he suspected the question was coming. He waits for the rest: how Adam's going to go, how he'll need to take a leave of absence from the studio, one which Patrick is sure he won't actually come back from.
But then Adam says, "I told her no," and Patrick stares at him for a long moment, longer, because that's just. That's just *stupid* is what it is, because Adam is of an age where he should be out on the road. He should be stuck in the back of a bus traveling 12 hours a night, more hours a day, rather than in the studio, recording backing parts for Gary's new age artists or young upstarts with half his talent.
"I called her this morning and told her that I was going to pass," Adam continues, when it becomes obvious that Patrick isn't going to immediately say anything. He's looking at the floor now, frowning. He runs a hand over his head, pushing his bangs up off of his forehead, then letting them fall forward again in messy clumps.
It takes a moment, but Patrick finally stutters, "Why?" Because seriously, *why*?
"I'd rather. I'd rather play a gig once every two months, you know?" he says. "I'd prefer to just fuck around, covering, like, the fucking greatest hits of the last fifty years with you all in your basement, for however long this lasts, than get up on stage every night playing something with a group that will never be mine. I've-I've done that. I don't want to do it again."
Now he looks back up at Patrick, and Patrick wishes, suddenly, that he hadn't, because he looks almost… broken, actually, like he maybe hopes that Patrick will tell him that he made the right decision. Or tell him that the four of them aren't just fucking around, playing together for themselves, or maybe, occasionally, for charity.
But Patrick can't tell him that because it's not true. Because this is just for fun. Because that's all it was ever supposed to be. Spontaneous fun. Nothing more. Not what Adam was (is) so obviously hoping for.
"I-" Patrick starts, but he really doesn’t know what to say, and maybe Adam gets that, or maybe he gets that whatever Patrick does say isn't going to be what he wants to hear, because he halfway smiles then, cracked, and says, "So that was my answer."
Patrick wants to tell him to change his mind, tell him to call Casey back. What he says is, "Yeah, okay. Okay."
*
He plans to say more to Frank.
Frank, who is currently sitting at the score console on lane 30, wearing his pink bowling shirt. There's black embroidery on the front: his name in cursive over his chest, a skull and crossbones underneath.
Greg is currently up at… well, Patrick wants to say 'at bat', but that would be mixing sports metaphors. Whatever it's called in bowling, Greg is up and he's weighing his ball in his hand. It's blue, heavier than it looks-Patrick knows, because Frank dropped it into his hands not 15 minutes ago with barely a 'here, catch!'-and as Patrick watches, Greg takes the suggested three step approach towards the lane, then releases the ball as he kicks his right leg backwards, the toe of his shoe sliding over the boards.
He gets a strike.
"I told you," Frank says. "We totally pulled coup. He, like, represents Riverside in the NCAA. In *bowling*. He balances out the rest of us losers and makes us suck not quite so much."
Patrick nods. He nods because there's not much else for him to do, sitting here in a bowling alley in Riverside, watching Frank bowl, because this is not the place to talk about what he wants to talk about. Namely, that Adam said *no*.
*No.*
Because he was *happy* with what he was doing with Patrick, Frank and Spencer. Because fucking around in Patrick's basement was preferable to going out on the road with Last Bastion-and, okay, so they might drive Patrick up the fucking wall, yes, but Adam is young still. Adam could actually be out on stage every night doing this for a living.
Beside Patrick, Frank sighs. He puts a hand on Patrick's shoulder and says, "Okay, you stay here. I'm up now, but after I knock down my grand total of five pins-yeah, Ed, I'm betting five this time 'round-I'll be back and you can tell me all about whatever's got you looking like a cheerful little storm cloud."
Because he doesn't know yet. Because after Adam had walked out of Patrick's office earlier, Patrick had, well. He'd tried to go back to the mix he'd been playing with, tried to go back to work, but after he'd wasted two hours and had walked the perimeter of his office about 20 times, he'd made his way out to his car and he'd just started driving. He'd shown up at the Ragged Nest a little after six, and Jamia had taken one look at him, then drawn him a map to the Sunrise Lanes. When he'd arrived, Frank smiled, motioned for him to take a seat, offered to let Patrick bowl one of his frames-totally against the rules, dude, but frame three is totally yours if you want it-and, well. He hadn't asked.
But now that they're on the last frame, apparently he's ready to. This frame, Frank actually manages to get seven: two, then five. He throws his arms up in victory, having actually bowled 132 this game. Greg is at 250 and Eduardo at 211, but Herbert Von S, the owner of the bookshop that Greg works at, is at 128.
"Fuck yeah," Frank says. He slaps hands with Eduardo and Herbert, bumps chests with Greg, wipes his face with his shirt, leaving the fabric darker pink, then turns back to Patrick and says, "Let's go get a drink."
At first Patrick thinks he means somewhere else. Maybe at the bar down the street; dark corners and hushed conversation while Patrick explains just how stupid Adam is being, and can Frank please, please talk some sense into him?
Frank doesn't head out of the building, though. Instead he heads towards the bar at the other end of the bowling alley, where there's actually a gate keeping those under 21 out. It's loud-'Back in Black' playing over the speakers, accentuated by the background noise of ball after ball rolling the lanes, knocking over pins.
"Two," Frank says, pounding a fist on the bar, and Patrick expects the bartender to slide two cheap beers their direction, but instead he fills up two glasses of water, slices of lemon adorning the rim.
"I get fucking parched," Frank continues. "You wouldn't think of bowling as a particularly thirsty sport, you know? But you fucking burn some calories, let me tell you." Then, as they find a seat: "So."
"So," Patrick says. He takes a sip of the water, then unhooks the lemon and squeezes it out over the ice cubes.
He wants Frank to ask for elaboration, to ask for an explanation, but he just stares. And stares. And that's when Patrick remembers that he was in a band with Gerard and Bob; he knows the power of the silent interrogation.
"Fuck," he says finally. "The fucking kid."
"What'd AJ do?" Frank asks, and Patrick actually opens and closes his mouth twice before he speaks because there are so many things he wants to say right off the bat. So many things.
"Casey," Patrick says finally. "Last Bastion of Sanity girl? She-they-asked AJ to go out on tour with them, tech. Do keyboard, you know. Get up on stage and play every single night."
Frank-because he and Patrick are clearly on the same wavelength, Patrick is gratified to see-looks vaguely impressed.
He opens his mouth to say something, but since Patrick is pretty sure that he can anticipate his question, Patrick rushes on. "He said no. He said he'd rather play, like, a show every two months with us, or, like, fucking pop songs in my basement than go out and do something that was never going to be *his*. It's a fucking national tour, on a CD that's already taking the fuck off, and all I can think is, *what the fuck is he thinking?* Why the fuck would he want to stick around playing 'soothing chords' on fucking new age albums when he could actually be out *there*?"
He waves his hand in the direction of the parking lot, and he has more to say: about the people Adam would meet, the connections he'd make, the opportunities that it could lead to-he's heard Last Bastion's name being floated for this summer's Warped Tour. Fucking *Warped*.
Before he can continue, though, Frank says, softly, "And you'd really want him to say yes? You'd want him to pack his bags and head out onto the road and, what, forget all about us?"
"Yes!" Patrick says, because that's what he's been saying for the last few minutes, thinking for the last few hours, but when he says it like that, *just* like that, *yes* he wants the kid to go, *yes* he wants the kid to leave… the word actually tastes a little bit bitter on his tongue.
"I-" he says. "Yes, I do. And so, yeah, I wouldn't choose to spend a few months out of the year with Last Bastion, but AJ'd meet a whole fuck load of people, make a whole lot of connections. We both know he needs to be in another band and-"
"And you're saying he's not in one already?"
"We're not-" Patrick says. "We're-"
They aren't a band, after all. They just hang out in Patrick's basement and play together multiple times a week, perform the occasional show, and, yeah, so maybe Patrick's fingers have gotten a little itchy over the last few months, maybe he doesn't feel quite like he's finished his day unless he sits down and plays for a bit, and maybe when he thinks about it like that-
"Oh, fuck," he says, and if he were alone, he would absolutely be banging his head on the table. Or on his arm resting on the table, anyway.
"Yeah," Frank says, and when Patrick glances at him, he's smirking, looking almost smug, the fucker.
"We're a band," Patrick says weakly.
"We are," Frank says. "Sorry to break it to you, but we have a name and merch and everything."
And the thing is: Patrick had honestly, honestly believed it would never happen again. Too many years with Fall Out Boy, no one in the world that he wanted to play with more than Pete, Andy, or Joe. Or any of their friends. And that was apparently the loophole that he hadn't realized existed, but given the people he's friends with, the scene that he helped to create, maybe he should have.
"Did you know?" Patrick asks slowly, glancing up to meet Frank's gaze.
"That we were a band? Um, *yeah.* See: the aforementioned name. Also: merch."
"No," Patrick says quickly. "When you walked into my studio last fall, were you wanting to start up a new band then? Were you looking for this then?"
Frank stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. "No," he says finally. "No, I was honestly just looking for someone to jam with. But we fucking clicked, dude, and you don't throw that away. You know that."
"Even if we're never more than a glorified cover band? Even if we don't do more than play around here?"
"We don't need to be more than a glorified cover band," Frank says. "We're fucking rock stars, Stump. We're expected to develop quirks in our old age."
"Yeah," Patrick says. "Right. We are."
*
He doesn't see Adam at all the next day, which is… Actually, it's probably good, because Patrick honestly doesn't know what to say to him. Not without Spencer being there, too, because apparently they need to be having a fucking *band meeting*.
He does see Adam and Spencer on Wednesday, though, when they show up at his door at seven o'clock, just like they usually do. Adam comes to the door first, Spencer pulling up just as he comes inside. Frank hasn't arrived yet, and it's a normal day, right, except for the fact that Patrick has no clue what the fuck to say.
So, he just listens: Adam telling Spencer about some show he went to the night before, the band of a friend of a friend, Spencer telling tales of the kid he's helping out now, how he needs to be practicing about four hours more a day than he is already if he's going to make something of himself. Frank shows up halfway through that story and as Spencer's wrapping up, he looks at Patrick, grins. Seems to be able to tell that Patrick doesn't know what to say.
With every *other* band that Patrick's been in, after all, it's been a conscious choice to actually be a band. It was always someone's idea; it had never just *happened* while Patrick apparently wasn't fucking paying attention.
"Do you think he'd appreciate you staying around a little longer?" Frank asks Spencer, and Spencer looks confused for a moment, asks, "You have another show lined up for us?"
Frank shakes his head, then drops an arm over Patrick's shoulders and says, "But we *could* have more, is the point. Stump finally figured out Monday night that we were an actual band. Despite the fact that we have a name and, you know, merch."
"Sorry," Patrick says, and he doesn't know if he's apologizing for being so slow on the uptake, or for somehow pulling these guys into a band when none of them had been asking for it. He can't deny that Frank's right, though: they've clicked. He was also right when he said that you don't voluntarily walk out on that. You just don't.
Spencer doesn't look sorry, though. He's pushing his bangs away from his face and grinning that Spencer Smith smile of his: wide, bright, eyes scrunched up. It doesn't compare to the look on Adam's face, though, because the kid is just… He's fucking *beaming*, is what he's doing, grin spread ear to ear. He looks like he wants to be saying things like, 'Seriously? No, *seriously?*' He stays where he's sitting, though, pressed into the corner of Patrick's couch, his knee bouncing up and down.
"Fucking *finally*," Spencer says. "I have about three more weeks of lessons lined up, and then I was going to call a band meeting. Non-band meeting. Whatever. I was going to call one and ask what the fuck we were doing." Then he laughs. "Dude, Ryan's going to buy you the biggest fucking fruit basket, like, ever. Brendon, on the other hand, fights dirty, so you might want to keep an eye out. Just in case."
"Oh, God," Patrick says. Because he's going to have to tell Pete, Joe, Andy. And Frank will be telling-or maybe already has told-all of his band mates, and-
And this is going to be a *thing* now. No more excuses that they're just fucking around, no more claims that they aren't *really* a band, so they won't be doing *real* shows or making CDs or doing magazine interviews or going on tour. Because they're a band with a back catalog that consists of a whole lot of radio hits and nothing that's theirs.
"Hey," Frank says. "Dude. You don't get to fucking freak out yet, okay? Save it for when MTV starts calling you up, wanting to run an MTV news brief on this or something."
"For a band that doesn't have any songs," Patrick says, because suddenly that seems more real than anything else. They're a band with *no songs*.
"Hey," Spencer says. "We have songs. Between us, we have fucking hundreds of songs."
"And that's not counting all the millions of songs out there, just waiting for us to play them," Adam says, and it's the first time he's spoken since Frank made his pronouncement.
"Because we really want to be a glorified cover band," Patrick says, and Frank says, "Hey, I told you, the four of us are fucking rock stars. We've earned the right to play whatever the fuck we want. If that's our old hits, awesome. If it's fucking Cher? Double awesome."
"I want to do a hair metal theme one night," Adam says-not sounding hesitant, not sounding at all like the kid from a few months before, the one who couldn't quite believe that Patrick Stump was asking him over to his house to fucking *jam*. Because this is AJ's band, too. Just like it’s Patrick's, Frank's, Spencer's, the four of them in it together.
"Diva night," Spencer adds. "Can you even imagine? Cher, Whitney, Mariah, Rihanna."
Frank slaps his thigh. "Hey, we got a start on the Rihanna already, thanks. Gerard Way, ladies and gents."
"Think about it," Spencer continues, "we could do every song we've ever wanted to do. Because, okay, here's the thing. You're officially acknowledging that we're a band-finally-but we've been a band for weeks, okay? Nothing has to change. We're still doing this for fun. We're still planning on fucking around in your basement, okay?"
"But now we have an excuse to play more shows around here," Frank says. "Eduardo's already called dibs on an intimate taco joint performance, just so you know. I know a few other club owners who'd kill to get us in their space, too."
"And if at some point we start writing songs of our own," Spencer says, shrugging, "well-"
"We start writing songs of our own," Adam finishes.
And that's not at *all* the way Patrick's used to working: Pete feeding him lyrics, Patrick writing the music, Andy and Joe fleshing their parts out. Backs of busses and holed up in hotel rooms, a two man job until suddenly it wasn't anymore.
But Spencer's right: this is still just for fun and it still may not ever be much more than the four of them fucking around in Patrick's basement and Patrick’s not even sure he really wants it to be.
Nothing really has to change at all.
33. Four Shows (I)
Pete laughs, the fucker. Like, a lot. Patrick can picture it, too: Pete sitting at his desk, feet kicked up on top, shoelaces from his sneakers hanging down, leaning back in his chair.
"Dude," Pete says. "You should learn to listen to me sometimes. How long ago did I call this shit? A really fucking long time ago, so please, give me credit where credit is due. Now when's your next show? I'm going to be your fucking groupie, just so you know."
Because that’s really what Patrick needs, right? Pete following him around the greater Los Angeles area, sitting in the front row, making faces while Patrick tries to sing. And of course Patrick would actually be able to see him, because the venues that they’re going to be playing (all two of them!) are small enough that Patrick can actually see people's faces.
"Sunday," Patrick says.
Pete clucks his tongue, sounding distressed. "But that's only three days away. And Monday morning I've got to be in New York! Dude, what the fuck is this shit?"
"Blame Frank," Patrick says. "Or possibly Spencer."
Frank is the obvious choice, because they're playing at Eduardo's, doing an intimate taco performance, or whatever the hell Frank had referred to it as, but Spencer is one of the few people he knows, aside from Pete, who could manage to arrange a performance in 24 hours.
"Okay, so your next show then. I expect at least two weeks notice, dude. At-fucking-*least*."
"How about a week and a half?" Patrick asks, because, well. Show number two is scheduled for the next Saturday, at a club Ryan knows about, at a place where he owes the manager a favor.
("Don't you mean, the manager owes you a favor?" Patrick had asked, but Ryan had just looked at him, his gaze weighted in a way that Patrick was coming to understand again, and Patrick had said, "Oh. Um.")
Pete, of course, laughs again. "Dude. Dude. Fuck. You deny for *how* many months that something is going on, and then within 72 hours of your grand realization, you're halfway to a mini-tour! Jesus, Stump. I've missed you so fucking much."
Me too, Patrick thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud.
*
Show one:
Eduardo's place is… okay, it's really fucking tiny to begin with. All twelve of the indoor tables have been cleared from the floor, an extra one moved outside in case people actually show up to sit and eat, and there's a platform stage filling one corner of the room. Eduardo's two sons are acting as security, but given that they printed up all of 20 fliers-one for Patrick's studio, one for the Ragged Nest, two for Eduardo, one for the book shop, and the rest to scatter around campus-Patrick's not exactly expecting much.
But it's a Reason No. 437 gig. It's not just Patrick Stump, Frank Iero, Spencer Smith, and Adam Jacobson getting up on stage, playing together, it's their *band* and for some reason, Patrick's actually a little bit terrified. Or, well. Nervous. Really fucking nervous. And he doesn't even have a greenroom to freak out in, because Eduardo's isn't set up to host shows. They're making their grand entrance from the fucking *kitchen*.
They aren't really planning for it to be a long set, only 45 minutes or so. Ten songs, maybe. Start at nine, over by ten. According to Eduardo, there were already 20 people there at seven, though. There were 40 by eight when Patrick arrived. It was standing room only by the time they actually left the kitchen at 8:57, Frank first, Adam bringing up the rear. They actually have to work their way through the crowd to get to the stage and, well, the last time that Patrick did that, Fall Out Boy hadn't been large enough for it to really be an issue.
They take the stage, though, get positioned behind the microphones, Spencer taking his place off in the corner behind his drums. He taps out a few beats, then stops, and that seems to be Frank's cue to start speaking.
"So," he says. "So, thanks for coming out tonight. There are, well. Ha, there's a whole fucking bunch more of you than we were expecting, actually, which is awesome. Really fucking awesome. So, um. Hi! We're Reason No. 437-yes, we're officially admitting to being a band now. Also, we're continuing our quest to cover every song any of us have ever wanted to cover. So. Um. Fucking enjoy this, okay? Because we sure will be."
They have plans to do heavier songs at their next gig-Patrick still isn't quite over that, the fact that there is already a *next* gig-but for now they're, well. It's not an acoustic set, but the place isn't big enough to handle a serious amp, so the songs they're playing are quieter. Some are covers of songs by bands they toured with in the past. Others they picked out of their collected back catalog. And, as always, they've plucked a few off of the radio, putting their own twist on them.
They start with one of those: The song that hit number one on the Billboard charts the week before, a pop princess singing about her boyfriend leaving her for her best friend, and possibly stealing her car, too? Patrick's never really understood the meaning of the second verse. It gets them warmed up, though, Frank bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, Adam posing with his guitar at the front of the stage, and Spencer at the back, keeping their beat. They punk up the song some, not as much as some of the other pop covers they've done, but some, and their audience appreciates it, chuckles turning into full blown laugher as Patrick sings about how he'd seen his best friend's number on the boyfriend's cell, the horror, the horror.
He'd cracked the fuck up the first, er, five times he'd tried to sing it, but by the tenth time, he could actually mostly keep a straight face. It's fun, is what it is, and okay, yeah, Patrick has really fucking missed this.
From there they go into a Silverchair song, 'Straight Lines', Adam's choice. It's softer than anything any of them (except maybe Spencer) have played regularly in their shows, a good segue between the pop and the rest of the set. The chorus has been stuck in Patrick's head for the better part of the last two days-"Wake me up, lower the fever. Walking in a straight line. Set me on fire in the evening. Everything will be fine"-and while the kids in the audience don't necessarily recognize the song right off the bat, by the end, they're singing along, too, some of them even dancing in place.
From there they go straight into the next song, 'Keep the Car Running', Spencer drawing soft noises out of his cymbal in place of the strings at the beginning. Frank moves over behind Patrick (he barely fits) as he starts picking out the melody. Adam joins in almost immediately, then Patrick, and there's no way for them to replicate the Arcade Fire sound, not with just four of them, but Patrick's been a fan of theirs for years, and this whole band thing is really about nothing more than playing songs that they enjoy, right?
They take a quick breather-long enough to take drinks of water, beer-before they start in on song number four. Frank starts the guitar on that one, the short riff, pause, then another. A least one member of the audience recognizes the song already, Patrick thinks, given the "Woo-hoo!" he hears from the back of the room. It's then that he notices Jamia and Karen sitting on top of the register counter, arms linked. Jamia waves and Patrick grins and that's Patrick's cue to join in. He gets up close to the mic and sings, "I want you to remember, a love so full it could send us always. And I want you to surrender, all my feelings rose today." The kids in the front row are singing along with them now, some of them even pumping their fists in the air. Frank is singing along, too, adding a few bits of harmony here and there. He turns to Spencer after the first verse, and he must issue some sort of silent challenge because he can hear Spencer's drumming get just that extra bit sharper.
"Now you," Patrick says into the mic about two minutes into the song, when he sees that more than half of the people in the front row are singing along anyway. He stops playing his guitar and tips his mic stand out towards the crowd. Only long enough for them to start shouting the words back to him, though, before he's singing, his fingers picking up the melody again: "The chemicals between us, the walls that lie between us, lying in this bed."
Frank takes the few seconds of guitar solo, just enough time for Patrick to get his breath again before he jumps right back into the song feet first. Adam's worked his way behind Patrick, is now playing at Frank, their guitars just inches apart, the two of them carrying all of them to the end of the song together.
They take a minute's break then, while one of Eduardo's sons brings the portable keyboard up to the stage. There's barely enough room for it on Adam's side of the stage, but he, at least, has proven that he can play within a limited two foot square area, where as they all know Frank would be more likely to kick the damn thing over.
The original idea was for Adam to play the keyboard on the next few songs, but in practice, they realized quickly enough that they actually needed a bass player for at least two of the three. So, during the lull, Patrick and Adam switch places. Patrick notices that Adam spends the few minutes it takes Patrick to get situated talking to Spencer, occasionally glancing over his shoulder. Like he's not quite sure what to do in the center of the stage, rather than off to the side.
He turns forward when Spencer counts out the beat, though, and stands still as Frank starts in on the intro. Adam joins in, then Patrick starts playing the keyboard, leaning forward so that he's within range of the microphone. It's not a song anyone will know, but Patrick hadn't really cared when they'd been discussing the song choices during their last practice. The song's got a good beat, though, and by the time he gets to the second verse, singing, "She said, 'You're pretty good with words, but words won't save your life.'" Frank's nodding his chin along with the beat, and Patrick just *knows* that he's waiting for next week, when they'll have a stage large enough to accommodate them, amps strong enough that they can let loose.
Especially since the next song is even softer. This was Spencer, possibly influenced by Ryan or Jon, or maybe Cassie. It's a fucking catchy song, though, and that's what matters; that seems to be what most of this evening is about: catchy.
This time, it's Patrick who starts them out, quick chords, hands moving up and down the keys. "They made a statue of us and put it on a mountaintop," he sings, and then Frank and Adam are joining in, playing comparatively softly, as if they could *possibly* emulate the violins. Once again, Patrick thinks, definitely Spencer's song. "Now tourists come and stare at us. Blow bubbles with their gum. Take photographs, have fun, have fun."
After that, it's a song with a lot of-not bounce, because 'Us' is a fucking bouncy song. *Umph* would probably be a better word. It was an anthem from the summer before: sun and surfing and all of those things that Frank and Patrick and Spencer seem to prefer not to engage in. Patrick would include Adam in that, too, but the kid's been known to spend his days off fucking *jet skiing*. It definitely has more guitars, though: the opportunity for Frank to actually bang his head slightly, for Adam to lose himself in the music far enough that he starts dancing around the stage a little bit.
After that, it's another radio hit, a Frank pick, from a band that would probably list one of the bands My Chem influenced as one of their influences: guitars and vocals that have just an edge of screaming to them. Frank and Adam help with that.
Then they move onto Steel Train, one of the bands that had gone out on the road with The Hush Sound and The Cab eons ago, a band that Fall Out Boy had taken on tour with them once, too. 'Alone on the Sea' and Patrick likes that the intro is over a minute long, giving all of them a chance to just play.
"Coming home from a month away," Patrick sings finally, the build up complete. "Empty cabinets and bed. Well if there's love in this house again, then let the lights shine through the windows and onto my head."
Then, their final song of the evening, an old Motion City Soundtrack cut. They take a quick breather before Patrick launches straight into the first verse: "Let's get fucked up and die." There are squeals from some of the girls in the crowd at that point, and the next thing he knows, it's pretty much a sing-a-long, the whole crowd shouting the words back at him, Frank and Adam, too. Too soon they reach the end, though, and Patrick hears himself singing, "It hurts, it destroys ‘til it kills. I am tired and hungry and useless." There's one more guitar interlude, and then he's leaning into the mic and singing the final line: "In this department."
There are catcalls and screams then, as they take their bows, and then Eduardo's sons are trying to clear a path back to the kitchen for them, but. But, there are all of 60 people there, some of them already wielding pens, and yeah, so Patrick was just up on stage a few weeks ago, but.
But this is different.
He stops a foot from the stage, asks the girl in front of him what her name is, and when she asks to take a picture, he says, "Of course." Frank gives him bunny ears, he's pretty sure, but when he turns around to glare, it's Adam who's looking innocently back at him.
Then a girl and a guy approach the kid, say, "AJ, right?" and when Adam nods, looking more than a little dumbfounded, they ask to take a picture.
Patrick hears Adam say, "Um," but before he can offer to snap the picture himself, another kid steps in front of him with a napkin and pen, wanting him to sign. He does, and when he's finished, he spots Frank and Spencer farther into the room, each surrounded, each grinning as widely as Patrick feels he is, too.
Set list:
1) Straight Lines-Silverchair
2) Keep the Car Running-Arcade Fire
3) The Chemicals Between Us-Bush
4) Stuck Between the Stations-The Hold Steady
5) Us-Regina Spektor
6) Alone on the Sea-Steel Train
7) LG FUAD-Motion City Soundtrack
34. Four Shows (II)
Pete comes out of Patrick's guestroom, yawns widely and stretches his arms towards the ceiling in an exaggerated show of still-waking-up-ness, but there's a glint in his eye that makes Patrick think he's been up for longer than he'd like Patrick to believe. Patrick's suspicions are confirmed when he sees the flecks of red, blue, gold caught underneath Pete's fingernails.
Patrick stares for a long moment, then says, "What the fuck, Pete. Is that *glitter*?"
Pete curls his fingers into fists, burying nails against palms, and says, "Glitter? Where the fuck would I get glitter, Stump?" but he's grinning, looking playfully guilty, and Patrick just sighs.
Because a week and a half ago, Pete had said he was going to be Patrick's groupie, and Patrick *knows* that Pete's definition of groupie-like behavior usually seems to involve cardboard signs and bubble letters and magic marker hearts and, yes, glitter.
"Jesus," Patrick says, but it's mostly fondly; in reality, he wouldn't want Pete any other way and Pete knows it.
"I wouldn't want you feeling underappreciated," Pete says. "I don't want you feeling like your fans don't care enough to spend hours of their time making you signs proclaiming their devotion."
And that's about the time that Patrick starts thinking about, you know, punching Pete in the arm or something, hard enough to make Pete wince, but not hard enough to bruise. Pete is grinning too widely, though, is far too pleased with himself, and really, the only thing that Patrick can do is say, "Jesus," again.
*
Show two:
Unlike Eduardo's, The Backlot actually has a backstage area. It's a hallway off of which the bathrooms also sprout, but still: they don't have to make their way to the stage by walking through the crowd.
This, in Patrick's opinion, is a good thing. Especially since The Backlot is not only about five times bigger than Eduardo's, holding around 300 people, but apparently is also sold out.
According to Pete anyway. He pretty much crows the news in Patrick's ear: "Dude, they're turning people away at the door! Another two weeks and you'll be selling out the Gateway! I'll totally bet you, like, a thousand dollars that I'm right about that. You in? You in?"
It's a bet Patrick *should* take, because he knows absolutely that Pete is wrong. It's the novelty factor, is all: Frank, Spencer, Patrick, all on stage together, doing this thing. He can understand, a little bit. If, like, Kanye or Lupe Fiasco or Usher ever decided to come out of retirement, he'd try and get a ticket damn quickly, too.
On the other hand, Kanye, Lupe and Usher would never dream of fronting cover bands, so maybe it's not so similar.
But: it's still a novelty, this whole thing, and he's pretty sure that eventually the shine will wear off. In two weeks, they could be barely filling Eduardo's. In three months, they could be playing in front of five people, taking requests from the audience. Ten years ago, thoughts like that would have made Patrick feel horrified, like he'd somehow failed; that was why they'd quit when they had after all. They'd wanted to go out while they were still in demand. So, they had.
But that's not what this band is about.
This band is about-
Well.
It's fun. That's all. And that's okay with Patrick.
*
Ten minutes before they take the stage, Spencer herds the three of them out into the alleyway behind the club, then proceeds to glare at the five kids who were already out there smoking until they finally move, walking a few steps farther away. It's not like they really have anything to talk about, but Ryan's taking care of last minute sound checking and Pete's probably warming the crowd up, and the last thing any of them need is to be in there, listening to that, the crowd.
Frank takes the opportunity to light a cigarette himself and leans back against the wall, taking a drag before carefully blowing the smoke away from Patrick. It actually feels good to be outside, Patrick thinks; already the club had been starting to feel a little bit too warm for Patrick's liking, which doesn't bode so well for how he'll feel halfway through their set. It's not long, not compared to the sorts of shows he'd put on back in the day, but 50 minutes of music isn't exactly a quick set either.
Adam shivers a little, then bounces up and down on the balls of his feet. It's his thing, his pre-performance thing, and apparently Patrick knows him well enough to know his nerves-induced tells. He wonders if he should be worried about that.
"So I was telling AJ about this girl that came into the store today," Frank says, like they haven't been standing outside in near silence for several moments. "With her mom. And this kid, she was, fuck, like eleven? Twelve? And she was dressed entirely in pink, okay? She had fucking *pigtails*, right? And she just walked right up to the counter and asked if we carried any Goth clothes, because she would like to become a Goth, please. Fucking *please*."
Spencer chokes a little bit, and Adam's laughing.
"And her mom was just letting her? My mom would have fucking shit bricks, you know?"
"Fuck yeah," Frank says. "But this kid's mom, she was giving opinions on the clothes and shit. We sent her away with a skeleton hoodie and some skirts and black t-shirts and shit, you know, the ones with the bunnies in skeleton masks? And her mom was the one who got her the little make-up bag with all the eyeliner and the dark lipstick and shit."
"That's awesome," Spencer says. Spencer's staring down the alleyway towards the kids, whom are all (very, very obviously) trying not to stare. He cracks his fingers and rolls his shoulders and fuck, Patrick thinks, this pre-performance stuff is way too fucking normal. Already. Show number two.
Then the door is opening and Pete is sticking his head outside. "Little dudes," he says. "Your public awaits. So, you know, anytime you want to grace them with your fucking presences? They'd probably appreciate it."
Spencer flips Pete off before Patrick can, and that feels normal too, when it really shouldn't, as far as Patrick's concerned, because Pete is *his*, but as they walk back through the door, Pete crowds up to Patrick and drops an arm over his shoulder, pulling him close quickly enough that Patrick tips slightly off balance.
"Go get 'em, tiger," Pete says, his voice rough in Patrick's ear, and then, somehow (damn fucking small venue), they're at the steps that lead up to the stage. The houselights are down, but with the lights coming from the back of the venue, at the bar, it's more dim than anything else.
"*All of you* go, get 'em!" Pete continues, and he transfers his arm from Patrick's shoulder to Ryan's-or his waist, anyway-and together, Patrick thinks, the two of them almost look like proud parents, watching their kids head out onto stage.
Adam walks onto the stage first, followed by Frank and Spencer, Patrick last of all. He grins at Pete one more time, then makes his way up the three steps. Then he's up on the stage, and while he'd heard the shouts and screams for his band mates (*his band mates*), they seem to get even louder when he steps out from behind the speaker. He takes his guitar from the last tech on stage, some kid who works for the venue, then gives it a strum, just a test. Then he turns back towards Spencer, who counts them down before launching into the intro to the song, two beats before Adam joins in on the keyboard and Frank starts plucking the strings of his guitar.
The savvy ones in the audience, or the ones who've made a habit of watching 80s movies, realize what song it is right away, and are already mouthing along when Patrick steps up to the mic and sort of hum-sings, "Mm-ba-ba-de, um-bum-ba-de, um bu bu bum da de." Frank and Adam join in on the, "Pressure!" before leaving him to sing the, "Pushing down on you, pushing down on me, no man ask for." They're back then, singing, "Under pressure!"
It's a slower song than Patrick usually prefers to start sets on, but also, one can never really go wrong with Queen and Bowie. Plus, it sets the mood for the evening, which pretty much continues to be songs that any of them have ever wanted to perform, ever. Tonight: 80's rock edition.
They'd debated stopping after that song to introduce themselves, or explain themselves, for Frank to give his opening remarks, but after they'd decided on the set list, Frank had laughed and said, "I think it pretty much explains itself, don't you?"
So, they move right into song number two, with Ryan running on stage to take Adam's bass while he starts playing the intro on the piano, as Patrick trades his guitar for Adam's, because they've got to have the bass, but they need the piano more. Patrick can tell the moment that some of the audience figures out what song they're playing, because he hears shrieks of laughter. There's a "Dude, fuck!" that sounds suspiciously like Pete, and then Patrick's stepping up to the mic, trying to look especially serious: yes, he is singing this with a straight face. Yes, he can emote as much as Meat Loaf while singing. Really.
"And I would do anything for love," he sings, looking somber, cupping the mic. One of the venue guys apparently has a sense of humor, because he starts making the lights strobe and now Patrick can see that Pete's signs-magic marker hearts and glitter and all-are scattered throughout the audience.
"I'd run right into hell and back. I would do anything for love, I'd never lie to you and that's a fact. But I'll never forget the way you feel right now, oh no, no way. And I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, no I won't do that."
Then there's a crash of cymbals as Spencer starts in with the drums, and from that point on, they take the song in their own direction: less ballad-like, more guitars. They take it back towards quiet in the last 30 seconds, though, as Patrick sings, "Anything for love, but I won't do that…"
They take a break then, and Frank steps towards his microphone. "Fuck," he says, and he turns his grin across the stage, towards Patrick and AJ. "So, now I'm thinking we should have worn wigs. Long poofy hair? Or maybe mullets? That would have been fucking *awesome*, yeah? Yeah?" The second 'yeah' is directed at the audience, and they chorus their approval.
"So tonight," Frank says, "we've decided to embrace our inner 80s children. Well, all of us but AJ, that is, 'cause he wasn't even a fucking twinkle in his mother's eye during the 80s, isn't that right, kid?"
Adam flips Frank off, but it's a lazy gesture, friendly. Frank laughs and turns back to the crowd. "Basically, we're out here to have fun. We want you to sing along, dance along, fucking jump up and down if you feel so inspired. Because we're going to be doing the exact same things up here. Well, I am. So, if you know the words, join in. If you don't? Well then, I guess you're fucking out of luck."
With that, Adam and Spencer begin the intro to song number three. Frank joins in a moment later, with Patrick taking the bass again. Patrick taps his foot along with the beat until it's time for the first line: "I get up in the evening and I ain't got nothing to say. I come home in the morning, I go to bed feeling the same way."
Indeed, following Frank's instructions, everyone on the floor has started dancing around, some of them jumping up and down, and when the chorus comes, Patrick tips the microphone out to them, letting them shout the words back at him: "You can't start a fire, you can't start a fire without a spark, this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark."
From there, they move into song number four. Adam takes his bass back as Frank begins picking out the opening melody, as the venue's tech hands Patrick his own guitar. Spencer chimes in ten seconds in with a steady beat, and ten seconds later, Patrick sings, "Take me down to the paradise city, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty."
They'd actually debated whether or not to play this song, but the guitar interludes had won them all over: long enough for Patrick to wander around the stage, to lose himself for several seconds just playing.
As they trail off, they take a small break: all of them getting water, getting reoriented on the stage. Patrick takes the bass back, because they're back into keyboard territory. Adam starts them off, with Spencer joining in a few beats later, starting a steady rhythm with his foot pedal, and Frank and Patrick start in a few beats after that.
"It doesn't hurt me," Patrick starts. "Do you want to feel how it feels?"
Of all the songs they're playing, Patrick expects this to be the one that the least number of people are familiar with. Especially since they're doing a cover of a cover, half Placebo, half Icon and the Black Roses, Kate Bush at the root. Patrick likes the Placebo cover the best, but the Icon cover is faster, more in tune with the rest of their set: riffs and guitar solos and opportunities for Frank and Adam to do backup vocals.
By the time Patrick hits the second chorus, more people are singing along: "And if only I could make a deal with God, I'd get him to swap our places. Be running up that road, be running up that hill, be running up that building, and if only I could-"
To be honest, Patrick's not quite sure how the next song ended up in this set. He's pretty sure that Spencer mentioned it first, laughing at the time, and then Adam had started trying to talk in an Australian accent, which had set Frank off, and after that, there was no way the song *wasn't* going in their set list.
Spencer counts them in, Adam carrying the melody on the piano, and then Patrick's singing, "Traveling in a fried out combie, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie." He can see the kids in the front row trying to mouth along, but the words to the verses aren't as easily understandable as the words to the chorus, which is why he's not surprised with the volume in the room increases ten-fold once he sings, "Do you come from a land down under?"
He looks beyond the main crush of the crowd at the stage and sees some girls at the back doing something that looks like swing dancing, hands linked, spinning around.
After they finish that song, they take a quick breather while Adam takes his bass back yet again, while Patrick picks up his rhythm guitar, but before they even really have a chance to get settled, Frank starts playing the intro, and because he and Spencer are clearly in league, Spencer's totally ready to go with the drum parts. And then, on the second repeat of that (because his band is totally in cahoots and apparently doesn't believe in allowing Patrick sufficient time to get his breath back), Adam starts up the bass, and then Patrick only has another five beats or so before he's on.
"When I'm out walking," he sings, "I strut my stuff. Yeah, I'm so strung out. I'm high as a kite, I just might, stop to check you out."
Patrick, impossibly, hears a high-pitched whistle at that, and he lifts his hands off of his guitar for long enough to flip Pete off. He can see Pete down by the edge of the stage, smiling, and when Patrick continues, "Let me go on, like a blister in the sun," he's smiling too.
From there, with barely a pause, it's straight into their second to last song of the night: Billy Joel.
They get 30 seconds of intro this time and Patrick takes the opportunity to catch his breath, get a drink. He gets back to the mic in time for Frank to come up to him and play back-to-back for several long moments. When it's finally time for Patrick to start singing, "Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio," Frank doesn't go back to his spot, though. No, he continues across the stage, crowding into Adam's space, then backing up slowly, almost taunting him into following him back across stage, which Adam does. Patrick watches them out of the corner of his eye.
This is what Patrick knows about this song: if he hadn't known most of the lyrics already, there is no way they would be playing it live tonight, because there are just too many random ideas put together.
Adam shares Patrick's mic during the second group of names and places, moves over to Frank's on the third, and stays there for the chorus, on which Frank starts singing, too. Spencer just keeps pounding the *fuck* out of his drums.
Patrick actually lets the three of them carry the first chorus-"We didn't start the fire"-while he takes the opportunity to wander back to Spencer, get a drink, grin at the way Spencer's totally getting into it, hair flopping around and sticking to his cheeks.
He makes it back to the microphone just in time to begin the second set of people, places, things. It's not a long song, not in the grand scale of long songs, but by the time he reaches the fifth cluster of lyrics, Patrick can feel his tongue starting to trip over itself just a bit, then a bit more, and it's a relief each time he gets to the chorus so that he can swallow, take a breath before diving back into the song again.
And then, finally, they reach the last chorus, "We didn't start the fire, it's always burning since the world's been turning. We didn't start the fire, but when we are gone, will it still burn on and on and on and on…" Frank's the one to stop playing first, then Adam, then Spencer, and pretty soon it's just Patrick playing, the entire crowd singing the 'and on and on and on' back at them, over and over, five, six times, and then Frank picks up his guitar again, Spencer his drumsticks, and in a synchronized movement, they end it: riffs, a clash of cymbals.
They're all breathing heavily at that point, taking a moment to swallow, breathe, and Patrick can tell that most everyone in the audience thinks that that's the end, that they're done for the night, but someone starts chanting "One more song! One more song!" and the entire room picks it up quickly. They'd been planning on one more song anyway, and Frank raises his hands, saying, "Fine, fine, you convinced us. As if we could fucking play an 80s night without featuring this song, right? Right? Anyone have any guesses?"
He doesn't give them a chance to shout out their answers, though, before nodding at Adam, who starts playing the first notes on the keyboard. Just loudly enough to give Patrick the key.
"We built this city," he sings, and the crowd just joins right in. "We built this city on rock and roll."
Pete and Ryan, Patrick can see when he looks towards the corner of the stage, are laughing, and Pete's trying to dance, one arm up in the air, while Ryan studiously resists. Everyone else is dancing, too, though; the crowd seems to pulse with it, and that, more than anything, makes Patrick realize that this could actually work, that maybe people really are interested in seeing this sort of thing, will maybe stay interested even after the novelty has worn off.
Finally, though, the song comes to an end, all of them taking to their mics to sing the last of the repeating choruses: "We built, we built this city, yeah, we built this city, we built, we built this city…" They let their instruments fade out and with a last wave at the crowd, they all head off stage again.
*
So, while the venue does actually have a backstage area, it's not a truly effective one, because they get pretty much mobbed as soon as soon as they reach the bottom of the steps, a general crush of people wanting photographs, autographs, Patrick to talk to their BFF on the phone, please please please.
Spencer, Frank, and Adam are getting it too. Adam looks less shocked that people are actually wanting to talk to him this time around; in fact, when Patrick catches his eye, his grin pretty much splits his face.
Patrick's not sure how long he's caught there before Pete finally makes his way up to him. "So, can I get you to sign my t-shirt?" he asks, almost sing-songing the words. "Maybe call my BFF Joe?"
"Shut the fuck up," Patrick says, punching at Pete's shoulder. Then: "Can you believe this?"
"Um, yeah," Pete says, like it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "You're Patrick fucking Stump, dude. You know how this goes." He pauses for a moment, surveying the dwindling crowd. "Just wait until you start writing your own shit again. I give it six months before you're selling out arenas."
"I'm not-" Patrick starts. "We're not-"
Pete just raises an eyebrow and Patrick trails off.
"Fuck you," he says finally, weakly, and Pete just laughs, pulling him in for a hug.
*
And really, Patrick thinks the next night, he probably should have been more adamant when telling Pete the 'fuck you', because he's been thinking it pretty loudly for the last five hours. Since he dropped Pete off at the airport. Since he got back to his house and wandered down to his basement and started fiddling around on his acoustic, just playing strings of notes. Notes that shouldn't have been anything close to melody-like, yet were, that just happened to almost match the rhythm of some words that had been floating around in his head, words that he hadn't even really let himself acknowledge.
Words that he now has on a sheet of staff paper, with *notes*, damn it, basic melody, a bit of a bass line, and this should be a good thing, he thinks, except that this isn't what he'd signed up for.
He'd signed up for fun.
A glorified cover band.
Small shows, no stress.
He knows that he was being willfully self-delusional, thinking that he'd be satisfied with that for however long this ends up lasting, but still, still.
Still.
And so for the moment, he feels fully justified in directing his… whatever he's feeling (not quite anger, not quite fear, not quite anything he can put a name to) at Pete, because Pete had *known* this would happen once he mentioned it, once he put the idea in Patrick's head, damn it, and Patrick hadn't been ready for it, hadn't wanted this yet. Except for how he apparently had, or else he wouldn't be doodling these words, this idea.
*Damn it.*
"Fuck you, Pete," he says again, quietly, and then he lets his fingers fall back to the strings.
Set List:
1) Under Pressure-Queen/David Bowie
2) I’d Do Anything For Love-Meat Loaf
3) Dancing in the Dark-Bruce Springsteen
4) Paradise City-Guns N’ Roses
5) Running Up That Hill-Kate Bush/Placebo/Icon and the Black Roses
6) Down Under-Men at Work
7) Blister in the Sun-Violent Femmes
8) We Didn’t Start the Fire-Billy Joel
9) We Built This City-Jefferson Starship
Continued.
Author: tigs
Characters: Patrick, Spencer, Frank
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own.
Author's Notes: So this really wasn't supposed to take so long to do. Really, really. But after these parts, there's only one more arc of the story to go, so. I'm getting there! Many thanks, as always, to amy13 for all of her help on this!
32. The Answer
The thing is: it's an off-hand comment. It's an afterthought. Because Patrick and Adam are sitting in his office, eating a late lunch, discussing the weekend: the show, the after party, Patrick's trip to the airport with Pete and Joe the afternoon before. And it's just a flicker of thought: he remembers seeing that Casey, the lead singer of Last Bastion, had finally tracked Adam down, remembers wondering if she was asking him to tech for them.
So he asks.
So he says, "I saw you taking to Casey on Saturday night."
Adam nods. "Yeah," he says. Then he grins, almost looks like he's going to start laughing. "I-she actually asked me if I might be interested in going out on their upcoming tour with them. As a guitar tech, mostly, but playing the piano for them onstage for a few songs."
"Wow," Patrick says, trying to sound surprised. Trying not to sound like he suspected the question was coming. He waits for the rest: how Adam's going to go, how he'll need to take a leave of absence from the studio, one which Patrick is sure he won't actually come back from.
But then Adam says, "I told her no," and Patrick stares at him for a long moment, longer, because that's just. That's just *stupid* is what it is, because Adam is of an age where he should be out on the road. He should be stuck in the back of a bus traveling 12 hours a night, more hours a day, rather than in the studio, recording backing parts for Gary's new age artists or young upstarts with half his talent.
"I called her this morning and told her that I was going to pass," Adam continues, when it becomes obvious that Patrick isn't going to immediately say anything. He's looking at the floor now, frowning. He runs a hand over his head, pushing his bangs up off of his forehead, then letting them fall forward again in messy clumps.
It takes a moment, but Patrick finally stutters, "Why?" Because seriously, *why*?
"I'd rather. I'd rather play a gig once every two months, you know?" he says. "I'd prefer to just fuck around, covering, like, the fucking greatest hits of the last fifty years with you all in your basement, for however long this lasts, than get up on stage every night playing something with a group that will never be mine. I've-I've done that. I don't want to do it again."
Now he looks back up at Patrick, and Patrick wishes, suddenly, that he hadn't, because he looks almost… broken, actually, like he maybe hopes that Patrick will tell him that he made the right decision. Or tell him that the four of them aren't just fucking around, playing together for themselves, or maybe, occasionally, for charity.
But Patrick can't tell him that because it's not true. Because this is just for fun. Because that's all it was ever supposed to be. Spontaneous fun. Nothing more. Not what Adam was (is) so obviously hoping for.
"I-" Patrick starts, but he really doesn’t know what to say, and maybe Adam gets that, or maybe he gets that whatever Patrick does say isn't going to be what he wants to hear, because he halfway smiles then, cracked, and says, "So that was my answer."
Patrick wants to tell him to change his mind, tell him to call Casey back. What he says is, "Yeah, okay. Okay."
*
He plans to say more to Frank.
Frank, who is currently sitting at the score console on lane 30, wearing his pink bowling shirt. There's black embroidery on the front: his name in cursive over his chest, a skull and crossbones underneath.
Greg is currently up at… well, Patrick wants to say 'at bat', but that would be mixing sports metaphors. Whatever it's called in bowling, Greg is up and he's weighing his ball in his hand. It's blue, heavier than it looks-Patrick knows, because Frank dropped it into his hands not 15 minutes ago with barely a 'here, catch!'-and as Patrick watches, Greg takes the suggested three step approach towards the lane, then releases the ball as he kicks his right leg backwards, the toe of his shoe sliding over the boards.
He gets a strike.
"I told you," Frank says. "We totally pulled coup. He, like, represents Riverside in the NCAA. In *bowling*. He balances out the rest of us losers and makes us suck not quite so much."
Patrick nods. He nods because there's not much else for him to do, sitting here in a bowling alley in Riverside, watching Frank bowl, because this is not the place to talk about what he wants to talk about. Namely, that Adam said *no*.
*No.*
Because he was *happy* with what he was doing with Patrick, Frank and Spencer. Because fucking around in Patrick's basement was preferable to going out on the road with Last Bastion-and, okay, so they might drive Patrick up the fucking wall, yes, but Adam is young still. Adam could actually be out on stage every night doing this for a living.
Beside Patrick, Frank sighs. He puts a hand on Patrick's shoulder and says, "Okay, you stay here. I'm up now, but after I knock down my grand total of five pins-yeah, Ed, I'm betting five this time 'round-I'll be back and you can tell me all about whatever's got you looking like a cheerful little storm cloud."
Because he doesn't know yet. Because after Adam had walked out of Patrick's office earlier, Patrick had, well. He'd tried to go back to the mix he'd been playing with, tried to go back to work, but after he'd wasted two hours and had walked the perimeter of his office about 20 times, he'd made his way out to his car and he'd just started driving. He'd shown up at the Ragged Nest a little after six, and Jamia had taken one look at him, then drawn him a map to the Sunrise Lanes. When he'd arrived, Frank smiled, motioned for him to take a seat, offered to let Patrick bowl one of his frames-totally against the rules, dude, but frame three is totally yours if you want it-and, well. He hadn't asked.
But now that they're on the last frame, apparently he's ready to. This frame, Frank actually manages to get seven: two, then five. He throws his arms up in victory, having actually bowled 132 this game. Greg is at 250 and Eduardo at 211, but Herbert Von S, the owner of the bookshop that Greg works at, is at 128.
"Fuck yeah," Frank says. He slaps hands with Eduardo and Herbert, bumps chests with Greg, wipes his face with his shirt, leaving the fabric darker pink, then turns back to Patrick and says, "Let's go get a drink."
At first Patrick thinks he means somewhere else. Maybe at the bar down the street; dark corners and hushed conversation while Patrick explains just how stupid Adam is being, and can Frank please, please talk some sense into him?
Frank doesn't head out of the building, though. Instead he heads towards the bar at the other end of the bowling alley, where there's actually a gate keeping those under 21 out. It's loud-'Back in Black' playing over the speakers, accentuated by the background noise of ball after ball rolling the lanes, knocking over pins.
"Two," Frank says, pounding a fist on the bar, and Patrick expects the bartender to slide two cheap beers their direction, but instead he fills up two glasses of water, slices of lemon adorning the rim.
"I get fucking parched," Frank continues. "You wouldn't think of bowling as a particularly thirsty sport, you know? But you fucking burn some calories, let me tell you." Then, as they find a seat: "So."
"So," Patrick says. He takes a sip of the water, then unhooks the lemon and squeezes it out over the ice cubes.
He wants Frank to ask for elaboration, to ask for an explanation, but he just stares. And stares. And that's when Patrick remembers that he was in a band with Gerard and Bob; he knows the power of the silent interrogation.
"Fuck," he says finally. "The fucking kid."
"What'd AJ do?" Frank asks, and Patrick actually opens and closes his mouth twice before he speaks because there are so many things he wants to say right off the bat. So many things.
"Casey," Patrick says finally. "Last Bastion of Sanity girl? She-they-asked AJ to go out on tour with them, tech. Do keyboard, you know. Get up on stage and play every single night."
Frank-because he and Patrick are clearly on the same wavelength, Patrick is gratified to see-looks vaguely impressed.
He opens his mouth to say something, but since Patrick is pretty sure that he can anticipate his question, Patrick rushes on. "He said no. He said he'd rather play, like, a show every two months with us, or, like, fucking pop songs in my basement than go out and do something that was never going to be *his*. It's a fucking national tour, on a CD that's already taking the fuck off, and all I can think is, *what the fuck is he thinking?* Why the fuck would he want to stick around playing 'soothing chords' on fucking new age albums when he could actually be out *there*?"
He waves his hand in the direction of the parking lot, and he has more to say: about the people Adam would meet, the connections he'd make, the opportunities that it could lead to-he's heard Last Bastion's name being floated for this summer's Warped Tour. Fucking *Warped*.
Before he can continue, though, Frank says, softly, "And you'd really want him to say yes? You'd want him to pack his bags and head out onto the road and, what, forget all about us?"
"Yes!" Patrick says, because that's what he's been saying for the last few minutes, thinking for the last few hours, but when he says it like that, *just* like that, *yes* he wants the kid to go, *yes* he wants the kid to leave… the word actually tastes a little bit bitter on his tongue.
"I-" he says. "Yes, I do. And so, yeah, I wouldn't choose to spend a few months out of the year with Last Bastion, but AJ'd meet a whole fuck load of people, make a whole lot of connections. We both know he needs to be in another band and-"
"And you're saying he's not in one already?"
"We're not-" Patrick says. "We're-"
They aren't a band, after all. They just hang out in Patrick's basement and play together multiple times a week, perform the occasional show, and, yeah, so maybe Patrick's fingers have gotten a little itchy over the last few months, maybe he doesn't feel quite like he's finished his day unless he sits down and plays for a bit, and maybe when he thinks about it like that-
"Oh, fuck," he says, and if he were alone, he would absolutely be banging his head on the table. Or on his arm resting on the table, anyway.
"Yeah," Frank says, and when Patrick glances at him, he's smirking, looking almost smug, the fucker.
"We're a band," Patrick says weakly.
"We are," Frank says. "Sorry to break it to you, but we have a name and merch and everything."
And the thing is: Patrick had honestly, honestly believed it would never happen again. Too many years with Fall Out Boy, no one in the world that he wanted to play with more than Pete, Andy, or Joe. Or any of their friends. And that was apparently the loophole that he hadn't realized existed, but given the people he's friends with, the scene that he helped to create, maybe he should have.
"Did you know?" Patrick asks slowly, glancing up to meet Frank's gaze.
"That we were a band? Um, *yeah.* See: the aforementioned name. Also: merch."
"No," Patrick says quickly. "When you walked into my studio last fall, were you wanting to start up a new band then? Were you looking for this then?"
Frank stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. "No," he says finally. "No, I was honestly just looking for someone to jam with. But we fucking clicked, dude, and you don't throw that away. You know that."
"Even if we're never more than a glorified cover band? Even if we don't do more than play around here?"
"We don't need to be more than a glorified cover band," Frank says. "We're fucking rock stars, Stump. We're expected to develop quirks in our old age."
"Yeah," Patrick says. "Right. We are."
*
He doesn't see Adam at all the next day, which is… Actually, it's probably good, because Patrick honestly doesn't know what to say to him. Not without Spencer being there, too, because apparently they need to be having a fucking *band meeting*.
He does see Adam and Spencer on Wednesday, though, when they show up at his door at seven o'clock, just like they usually do. Adam comes to the door first, Spencer pulling up just as he comes inside. Frank hasn't arrived yet, and it's a normal day, right, except for the fact that Patrick has no clue what the fuck to say.
So, he just listens: Adam telling Spencer about some show he went to the night before, the band of a friend of a friend, Spencer telling tales of the kid he's helping out now, how he needs to be practicing about four hours more a day than he is already if he's going to make something of himself. Frank shows up halfway through that story and as Spencer's wrapping up, he looks at Patrick, grins. Seems to be able to tell that Patrick doesn't know what to say.
With every *other* band that Patrick's been in, after all, it's been a conscious choice to actually be a band. It was always someone's idea; it had never just *happened* while Patrick apparently wasn't fucking paying attention.
"Do you think he'd appreciate you staying around a little longer?" Frank asks Spencer, and Spencer looks confused for a moment, asks, "You have another show lined up for us?"
Frank shakes his head, then drops an arm over Patrick's shoulders and says, "But we *could* have more, is the point. Stump finally figured out Monday night that we were an actual band. Despite the fact that we have a name and, you know, merch."
"Sorry," Patrick says, and he doesn't know if he's apologizing for being so slow on the uptake, or for somehow pulling these guys into a band when none of them had been asking for it. He can't deny that Frank's right, though: they've clicked. He was also right when he said that you don't voluntarily walk out on that. You just don't.
Spencer doesn't look sorry, though. He's pushing his bangs away from his face and grinning that Spencer Smith smile of his: wide, bright, eyes scrunched up. It doesn't compare to the look on Adam's face, though, because the kid is just… He's fucking *beaming*, is what he's doing, grin spread ear to ear. He looks like he wants to be saying things like, 'Seriously? No, *seriously?*' He stays where he's sitting, though, pressed into the corner of Patrick's couch, his knee bouncing up and down.
"Fucking *finally*," Spencer says. "I have about three more weeks of lessons lined up, and then I was going to call a band meeting. Non-band meeting. Whatever. I was going to call one and ask what the fuck we were doing." Then he laughs. "Dude, Ryan's going to buy you the biggest fucking fruit basket, like, ever. Brendon, on the other hand, fights dirty, so you might want to keep an eye out. Just in case."
"Oh, God," Patrick says. Because he's going to have to tell Pete, Joe, Andy. And Frank will be telling-or maybe already has told-all of his band mates, and-
And this is going to be a *thing* now. No more excuses that they're just fucking around, no more claims that they aren't *really* a band, so they won't be doing *real* shows or making CDs or doing magazine interviews or going on tour. Because they're a band with a back catalog that consists of a whole lot of radio hits and nothing that's theirs.
"Hey," Frank says. "Dude. You don't get to fucking freak out yet, okay? Save it for when MTV starts calling you up, wanting to run an MTV news brief on this or something."
"For a band that doesn't have any songs," Patrick says, because suddenly that seems more real than anything else. They're a band with *no songs*.
"Hey," Spencer says. "We have songs. Between us, we have fucking hundreds of songs."
"And that's not counting all the millions of songs out there, just waiting for us to play them," Adam says, and it's the first time he's spoken since Frank made his pronouncement.
"Because we really want to be a glorified cover band," Patrick says, and Frank says, "Hey, I told you, the four of us are fucking rock stars. We've earned the right to play whatever the fuck we want. If that's our old hits, awesome. If it's fucking Cher? Double awesome."
"I want to do a hair metal theme one night," Adam says-not sounding hesitant, not sounding at all like the kid from a few months before, the one who couldn't quite believe that Patrick Stump was asking him over to his house to fucking *jam*. Because this is AJ's band, too. Just like it’s Patrick's, Frank's, Spencer's, the four of them in it together.
"Diva night," Spencer adds. "Can you even imagine? Cher, Whitney, Mariah, Rihanna."
Frank slaps his thigh. "Hey, we got a start on the Rihanna already, thanks. Gerard Way, ladies and gents."
"Think about it," Spencer continues, "we could do every song we've ever wanted to do. Because, okay, here's the thing. You're officially acknowledging that we're a band-finally-but we've been a band for weeks, okay? Nothing has to change. We're still doing this for fun. We're still planning on fucking around in your basement, okay?"
"But now we have an excuse to play more shows around here," Frank says. "Eduardo's already called dibs on an intimate taco joint performance, just so you know. I know a few other club owners who'd kill to get us in their space, too."
"And if at some point we start writing songs of our own," Spencer says, shrugging, "well-"
"We start writing songs of our own," Adam finishes.
And that's not at *all* the way Patrick's used to working: Pete feeding him lyrics, Patrick writing the music, Andy and Joe fleshing their parts out. Backs of busses and holed up in hotel rooms, a two man job until suddenly it wasn't anymore.
But Spencer's right: this is still just for fun and it still may not ever be much more than the four of them fucking around in Patrick's basement and Patrick’s not even sure he really wants it to be.
Nothing really has to change at all.
33. Four Shows (I)
Pete laughs, the fucker. Like, a lot. Patrick can picture it, too: Pete sitting at his desk, feet kicked up on top, shoelaces from his sneakers hanging down, leaning back in his chair.
"Dude," Pete says. "You should learn to listen to me sometimes. How long ago did I call this shit? A really fucking long time ago, so please, give me credit where credit is due. Now when's your next show? I'm going to be your fucking groupie, just so you know."
Because that’s really what Patrick needs, right? Pete following him around the greater Los Angeles area, sitting in the front row, making faces while Patrick tries to sing. And of course Patrick would actually be able to see him, because the venues that they’re going to be playing (all two of them!) are small enough that Patrick can actually see people's faces.
"Sunday," Patrick says.
Pete clucks his tongue, sounding distressed. "But that's only three days away. And Monday morning I've got to be in New York! Dude, what the fuck is this shit?"
"Blame Frank," Patrick says. "Or possibly Spencer."
Frank is the obvious choice, because they're playing at Eduardo's, doing an intimate taco performance, or whatever the hell Frank had referred to it as, but Spencer is one of the few people he knows, aside from Pete, who could manage to arrange a performance in 24 hours.
"Okay, so your next show then. I expect at least two weeks notice, dude. At-fucking-*least*."
"How about a week and a half?" Patrick asks, because, well. Show number two is scheduled for the next Saturday, at a club Ryan knows about, at a place where he owes the manager a favor.
("Don't you mean, the manager owes you a favor?" Patrick had asked, but Ryan had just looked at him, his gaze weighted in a way that Patrick was coming to understand again, and Patrick had said, "Oh. Um.")
Pete, of course, laughs again. "Dude. Dude. Fuck. You deny for *how* many months that something is going on, and then within 72 hours of your grand realization, you're halfway to a mini-tour! Jesus, Stump. I've missed you so fucking much."
Me too, Patrick thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud.
*
Show one:
Eduardo's place is… okay, it's really fucking tiny to begin with. All twelve of the indoor tables have been cleared from the floor, an extra one moved outside in case people actually show up to sit and eat, and there's a platform stage filling one corner of the room. Eduardo's two sons are acting as security, but given that they printed up all of 20 fliers-one for Patrick's studio, one for the Ragged Nest, two for Eduardo, one for the book shop, and the rest to scatter around campus-Patrick's not exactly expecting much.
But it's a Reason No. 437 gig. It's not just Patrick Stump, Frank Iero, Spencer Smith, and Adam Jacobson getting up on stage, playing together, it's their *band* and for some reason, Patrick's actually a little bit terrified. Or, well. Nervous. Really fucking nervous. And he doesn't even have a greenroom to freak out in, because Eduardo's isn't set up to host shows. They're making their grand entrance from the fucking *kitchen*.
They aren't really planning for it to be a long set, only 45 minutes or so. Ten songs, maybe. Start at nine, over by ten. According to Eduardo, there were already 20 people there at seven, though. There were 40 by eight when Patrick arrived. It was standing room only by the time they actually left the kitchen at 8:57, Frank first, Adam bringing up the rear. They actually have to work their way through the crowd to get to the stage and, well, the last time that Patrick did that, Fall Out Boy hadn't been large enough for it to really be an issue.
They take the stage, though, get positioned behind the microphones, Spencer taking his place off in the corner behind his drums. He taps out a few beats, then stops, and that seems to be Frank's cue to start speaking.
"So," he says. "So, thanks for coming out tonight. There are, well. Ha, there's a whole fucking bunch more of you than we were expecting, actually, which is awesome. Really fucking awesome. So, um. Hi! We're Reason No. 437-yes, we're officially admitting to being a band now. Also, we're continuing our quest to cover every song any of us have ever wanted to cover. So. Um. Fucking enjoy this, okay? Because we sure will be."
They have plans to do heavier songs at their next gig-Patrick still isn't quite over that, the fact that there is already a *next* gig-but for now they're, well. It's not an acoustic set, but the place isn't big enough to handle a serious amp, so the songs they're playing are quieter. Some are covers of songs by bands they toured with in the past. Others they picked out of their collected back catalog. And, as always, they've plucked a few off of the radio, putting their own twist on them.
They start with one of those: The song that hit number one on the Billboard charts the week before, a pop princess singing about her boyfriend leaving her for her best friend, and possibly stealing her car, too? Patrick's never really understood the meaning of the second verse. It gets them warmed up, though, Frank bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, Adam posing with his guitar at the front of the stage, and Spencer at the back, keeping their beat. They punk up the song some, not as much as some of the other pop covers they've done, but some, and their audience appreciates it, chuckles turning into full blown laugher as Patrick sings about how he'd seen his best friend's number on the boyfriend's cell, the horror, the horror.
He'd cracked the fuck up the first, er, five times he'd tried to sing it, but by the tenth time, he could actually mostly keep a straight face. It's fun, is what it is, and okay, yeah, Patrick has really fucking missed this.
From there they go into a Silverchair song, 'Straight Lines', Adam's choice. It's softer than anything any of them (except maybe Spencer) have played regularly in their shows, a good segue between the pop and the rest of the set. The chorus has been stuck in Patrick's head for the better part of the last two days-"Wake me up, lower the fever. Walking in a straight line. Set me on fire in the evening. Everything will be fine"-and while the kids in the audience don't necessarily recognize the song right off the bat, by the end, they're singing along, too, some of them even dancing in place.
From there they go straight into the next song, 'Keep the Car Running', Spencer drawing soft noises out of his cymbal in place of the strings at the beginning. Frank moves over behind Patrick (he barely fits) as he starts picking out the melody. Adam joins in almost immediately, then Patrick, and there's no way for them to replicate the Arcade Fire sound, not with just four of them, but Patrick's been a fan of theirs for years, and this whole band thing is really about nothing more than playing songs that they enjoy, right?
They take a quick breather-long enough to take drinks of water, beer-before they start in on song number four. Frank starts the guitar on that one, the short riff, pause, then another. A least one member of the audience recognizes the song already, Patrick thinks, given the "Woo-hoo!" he hears from the back of the room. It's then that he notices Jamia and Karen sitting on top of the register counter, arms linked. Jamia waves and Patrick grins and that's Patrick's cue to join in. He gets up close to the mic and sings, "I want you to remember, a love so full it could send us always. And I want you to surrender, all my feelings rose today." The kids in the front row are singing along with them now, some of them even pumping their fists in the air. Frank is singing along, too, adding a few bits of harmony here and there. He turns to Spencer after the first verse, and he must issue some sort of silent challenge because he can hear Spencer's drumming get just that extra bit sharper.
"Now you," Patrick says into the mic about two minutes into the song, when he sees that more than half of the people in the front row are singing along anyway. He stops playing his guitar and tips his mic stand out towards the crowd. Only long enough for them to start shouting the words back to him, though, before he's singing, his fingers picking up the melody again: "The chemicals between us, the walls that lie between us, lying in this bed."
Frank takes the few seconds of guitar solo, just enough time for Patrick to get his breath again before he jumps right back into the song feet first. Adam's worked his way behind Patrick, is now playing at Frank, their guitars just inches apart, the two of them carrying all of them to the end of the song together.
They take a minute's break then, while one of Eduardo's sons brings the portable keyboard up to the stage. There's barely enough room for it on Adam's side of the stage, but he, at least, has proven that he can play within a limited two foot square area, where as they all know Frank would be more likely to kick the damn thing over.
The original idea was for Adam to play the keyboard on the next few songs, but in practice, they realized quickly enough that they actually needed a bass player for at least two of the three. So, during the lull, Patrick and Adam switch places. Patrick notices that Adam spends the few minutes it takes Patrick to get situated talking to Spencer, occasionally glancing over his shoulder. Like he's not quite sure what to do in the center of the stage, rather than off to the side.
He turns forward when Spencer counts out the beat, though, and stands still as Frank starts in on the intro. Adam joins in, then Patrick starts playing the keyboard, leaning forward so that he's within range of the microphone. It's not a song anyone will know, but Patrick hadn't really cared when they'd been discussing the song choices during their last practice. The song's got a good beat, though, and by the time he gets to the second verse, singing, "She said, 'You're pretty good with words, but words won't save your life.'" Frank's nodding his chin along with the beat, and Patrick just *knows* that he's waiting for next week, when they'll have a stage large enough to accommodate them, amps strong enough that they can let loose.
Especially since the next song is even softer. This was Spencer, possibly influenced by Ryan or Jon, or maybe Cassie. It's a fucking catchy song, though, and that's what matters; that seems to be what most of this evening is about: catchy.
This time, it's Patrick who starts them out, quick chords, hands moving up and down the keys. "They made a statue of us and put it on a mountaintop," he sings, and then Frank and Adam are joining in, playing comparatively softly, as if they could *possibly* emulate the violins. Once again, Patrick thinks, definitely Spencer's song. "Now tourists come and stare at us. Blow bubbles with their gum. Take photographs, have fun, have fun."
After that, it's a song with a lot of-not bounce, because 'Us' is a fucking bouncy song. *Umph* would probably be a better word. It was an anthem from the summer before: sun and surfing and all of those things that Frank and Patrick and Spencer seem to prefer not to engage in. Patrick would include Adam in that, too, but the kid's been known to spend his days off fucking *jet skiing*. It definitely has more guitars, though: the opportunity for Frank to actually bang his head slightly, for Adam to lose himself in the music far enough that he starts dancing around the stage a little bit.
After that, it's another radio hit, a Frank pick, from a band that would probably list one of the bands My Chem influenced as one of their influences: guitars and vocals that have just an edge of screaming to them. Frank and Adam help with that.
Then they move onto Steel Train, one of the bands that had gone out on the road with The Hush Sound and The Cab eons ago, a band that Fall Out Boy had taken on tour with them once, too. 'Alone on the Sea' and Patrick likes that the intro is over a minute long, giving all of them a chance to just play.
"Coming home from a month away," Patrick sings finally, the build up complete. "Empty cabinets and bed. Well if there's love in this house again, then let the lights shine through the windows and onto my head."
Then, their final song of the evening, an old Motion City Soundtrack cut. They take a quick breather before Patrick launches straight into the first verse: "Let's get fucked up and die." There are squeals from some of the girls in the crowd at that point, and the next thing he knows, it's pretty much a sing-a-long, the whole crowd shouting the words back at him, Frank and Adam, too. Too soon they reach the end, though, and Patrick hears himself singing, "It hurts, it destroys ‘til it kills. I am tired and hungry and useless." There's one more guitar interlude, and then he's leaning into the mic and singing the final line: "In this department."
There are catcalls and screams then, as they take their bows, and then Eduardo's sons are trying to clear a path back to the kitchen for them, but. But, there are all of 60 people there, some of them already wielding pens, and yeah, so Patrick was just up on stage a few weeks ago, but.
But this is different.
He stops a foot from the stage, asks the girl in front of him what her name is, and when she asks to take a picture, he says, "Of course." Frank gives him bunny ears, he's pretty sure, but when he turns around to glare, it's Adam who's looking innocently back at him.
Then a girl and a guy approach the kid, say, "AJ, right?" and when Adam nods, looking more than a little dumbfounded, they ask to take a picture.
Patrick hears Adam say, "Um," but before he can offer to snap the picture himself, another kid steps in front of him with a napkin and pen, wanting him to sign. He does, and when he's finished, he spots Frank and Spencer farther into the room, each surrounded, each grinning as widely as Patrick feels he is, too.
Set list:
1) Straight Lines-Silverchair
2) Keep the Car Running-Arcade Fire
3) The Chemicals Between Us-Bush
4) Stuck Between the Stations-The Hold Steady
5) Us-Regina Spektor
6) Alone on the Sea-Steel Train
7) LG FUAD-Motion City Soundtrack
34. Four Shows (II)
Pete comes out of Patrick's guestroom, yawns widely and stretches his arms towards the ceiling in an exaggerated show of still-waking-up-ness, but there's a glint in his eye that makes Patrick think he's been up for longer than he'd like Patrick to believe. Patrick's suspicions are confirmed when he sees the flecks of red, blue, gold caught underneath Pete's fingernails.
Patrick stares for a long moment, then says, "What the fuck, Pete. Is that *glitter*?"
Pete curls his fingers into fists, burying nails against palms, and says, "Glitter? Where the fuck would I get glitter, Stump?" but he's grinning, looking playfully guilty, and Patrick just sighs.
Because a week and a half ago, Pete had said he was going to be Patrick's groupie, and Patrick *knows* that Pete's definition of groupie-like behavior usually seems to involve cardboard signs and bubble letters and magic marker hearts and, yes, glitter.
"Jesus," Patrick says, but it's mostly fondly; in reality, he wouldn't want Pete any other way and Pete knows it.
"I wouldn't want you feeling underappreciated," Pete says. "I don't want you feeling like your fans don't care enough to spend hours of their time making you signs proclaiming their devotion."
And that's about the time that Patrick starts thinking about, you know, punching Pete in the arm or something, hard enough to make Pete wince, but not hard enough to bruise. Pete is grinning too widely, though, is far too pleased with himself, and really, the only thing that Patrick can do is say, "Jesus," again.
*
Show two:
Unlike Eduardo's, The Backlot actually has a backstage area. It's a hallway off of which the bathrooms also sprout, but still: they don't have to make their way to the stage by walking through the crowd.
This, in Patrick's opinion, is a good thing. Especially since The Backlot is not only about five times bigger than Eduardo's, holding around 300 people, but apparently is also sold out.
According to Pete anyway. He pretty much crows the news in Patrick's ear: "Dude, they're turning people away at the door! Another two weeks and you'll be selling out the Gateway! I'll totally bet you, like, a thousand dollars that I'm right about that. You in? You in?"
It's a bet Patrick *should* take, because he knows absolutely that Pete is wrong. It's the novelty factor, is all: Frank, Spencer, Patrick, all on stage together, doing this thing. He can understand, a little bit. If, like, Kanye or Lupe Fiasco or Usher ever decided to come out of retirement, he'd try and get a ticket damn quickly, too.
On the other hand, Kanye, Lupe and Usher would never dream of fronting cover bands, so maybe it's not so similar.
But: it's still a novelty, this whole thing, and he's pretty sure that eventually the shine will wear off. In two weeks, they could be barely filling Eduardo's. In three months, they could be playing in front of five people, taking requests from the audience. Ten years ago, thoughts like that would have made Patrick feel horrified, like he'd somehow failed; that was why they'd quit when they had after all. They'd wanted to go out while they were still in demand. So, they had.
But that's not what this band is about.
This band is about-
Well.
It's fun. That's all. And that's okay with Patrick.
*
Ten minutes before they take the stage, Spencer herds the three of them out into the alleyway behind the club, then proceeds to glare at the five kids who were already out there smoking until they finally move, walking a few steps farther away. It's not like they really have anything to talk about, but Ryan's taking care of last minute sound checking and Pete's probably warming the crowd up, and the last thing any of them need is to be in there, listening to that, the crowd.
Frank takes the opportunity to light a cigarette himself and leans back against the wall, taking a drag before carefully blowing the smoke away from Patrick. It actually feels good to be outside, Patrick thinks; already the club had been starting to feel a little bit too warm for Patrick's liking, which doesn't bode so well for how he'll feel halfway through their set. It's not long, not compared to the sorts of shows he'd put on back in the day, but 50 minutes of music isn't exactly a quick set either.
Adam shivers a little, then bounces up and down on the balls of his feet. It's his thing, his pre-performance thing, and apparently Patrick knows him well enough to know his nerves-induced tells. He wonders if he should be worried about that.
"So I was telling AJ about this girl that came into the store today," Frank says, like they haven't been standing outside in near silence for several moments. "With her mom. And this kid, she was, fuck, like eleven? Twelve? And she was dressed entirely in pink, okay? She had fucking *pigtails*, right? And she just walked right up to the counter and asked if we carried any Goth clothes, because she would like to become a Goth, please. Fucking *please*."
Spencer chokes a little bit, and Adam's laughing.
"And her mom was just letting her? My mom would have fucking shit bricks, you know?"
"Fuck yeah," Frank says. "But this kid's mom, she was giving opinions on the clothes and shit. We sent her away with a skeleton hoodie and some skirts and black t-shirts and shit, you know, the ones with the bunnies in skeleton masks? And her mom was the one who got her the little make-up bag with all the eyeliner and the dark lipstick and shit."
"That's awesome," Spencer says. Spencer's staring down the alleyway towards the kids, whom are all (very, very obviously) trying not to stare. He cracks his fingers and rolls his shoulders and fuck, Patrick thinks, this pre-performance stuff is way too fucking normal. Already. Show number two.
Then the door is opening and Pete is sticking his head outside. "Little dudes," he says. "Your public awaits. So, you know, anytime you want to grace them with your fucking presences? They'd probably appreciate it."
Spencer flips Pete off before Patrick can, and that feels normal too, when it really shouldn't, as far as Patrick's concerned, because Pete is *his*, but as they walk back through the door, Pete crowds up to Patrick and drops an arm over his shoulder, pulling him close quickly enough that Patrick tips slightly off balance.
"Go get 'em, tiger," Pete says, his voice rough in Patrick's ear, and then, somehow (damn fucking small venue), they're at the steps that lead up to the stage. The houselights are down, but with the lights coming from the back of the venue, at the bar, it's more dim than anything else.
"*All of you* go, get 'em!" Pete continues, and he transfers his arm from Patrick's shoulder to Ryan's-or his waist, anyway-and together, Patrick thinks, the two of them almost look like proud parents, watching their kids head out onto stage.
Adam walks onto the stage first, followed by Frank and Spencer, Patrick last of all. He grins at Pete one more time, then makes his way up the three steps. Then he's up on the stage, and while he'd heard the shouts and screams for his band mates (*his band mates*), they seem to get even louder when he steps out from behind the speaker. He takes his guitar from the last tech on stage, some kid who works for the venue, then gives it a strum, just a test. Then he turns back towards Spencer, who counts them down before launching into the intro to the song, two beats before Adam joins in on the keyboard and Frank starts plucking the strings of his guitar.
The savvy ones in the audience, or the ones who've made a habit of watching 80s movies, realize what song it is right away, and are already mouthing along when Patrick steps up to the mic and sort of hum-sings, "Mm-ba-ba-de, um-bum-ba-de, um bu bu bum da de." Frank and Adam join in on the, "Pressure!" before leaving him to sing the, "Pushing down on you, pushing down on me, no man ask for." They're back then, singing, "Under pressure!"
It's a slower song than Patrick usually prefers to start sets on, but also, one can never really go wrong with Queen and Bowie. Plus, it sets the mood for the evening, which pretty much continues to be songs that any of them have ever wanted to perform, ever. Tonight: 80's rock edition.
They'd debated stopping after that song to introduce themselves, or explain themselves, for Frank to give his opening remarks, but after they'd decided on the set list, Frank had laughed and said, "I think it pretty much explains itself, don't you?"
So, they move right into song number two, with Ryan running on stage to take Adam's bass while he starts playing the intro on the piano, as Patrick trades his guitar for Adam's, because they've got to have the bass, but they need the piano more. Patrick can tell the moment that some of the audience figures out what song they're playing, because he hears shrieks of laughter. There's a "Dude, fuck!" that sounds suspiciously like Pete, and then Patrick's stepping up to the mic, trying to look especially serious: yes, he is singing this with a straight face. Yes, he can emote as much as Meat Loaf while singing. Really.
"And I would do anything for love," he sings, looking somber, cupping the mic. One of the venue guys apparently has a sense of humor, because he starts making the lights strobe and now Patrick can see that Pete's signs-magic marker hearts and glitter and all-are scattered throughout the audience.
"I'd run right into hell and back. I would do anything for love, I'd never lie to you and that's a fact. But I'll never forget the way you feel right now, oh no, no way. And I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, no I won't do that."
Then there's a crash of cymbals as Spencer starts in with the drums, and from that point on, they take the song in their own direction: less ballad-like, more guitars. They take it back towards quiet in the last 30 seconds, though, as Patrick sings, "Anything for love, but I won't do that…"
They take a break then, and Frank steps towards his microphone. "Fuck," he says, and he turns his grin across the stage, towards Patrick and AJ. "So, now I'm thinking we should have worn wigs. Long poofy hair? Or maybe mullets? That would have been fucking *awesome*, yeah? Yeah?" The second 'yeah' is directed at the audience, and they chorus their approval.
"So tonight," Frank says, "we've decided to embrace our inner 80s children. Well, all of us but AJ, that is, 'cause he wasn't even a fucking twinkle in his mother's eye during the 80s, isn't that right, kid?"
Adam flips Frank off, but it's a lazy gesture, friendly. Frank laughs and turns back to the crowd. "Basically, we're out here to have fun. We want you to sing along, dance along, fucking jump up and down if you feel so inspired. Because we're going to be doing the exact same things up here. Well, I am. So, if you know the words, join in. If you don't? Well then, I guess you're fucking out of luck."
With that, Adam and Spencer begin the intro to song number three. Frank joins in a moment later, with Patrick taking the bass again. Patrick taps his foot along with the beat until it's time for the first line: "I get up in the evening and I ain't got nothing to say. I come home in the morning, I go to bed feeling the same way."
Indeed, following Frank's instructions, everyone on the floor has started dancing around, some of them jumping up and down, and when the chorus comes, Patrick tips the microphone out to them, letting them shout the words back at him: "You can't start a fire, you can't start a fire without a spark, this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark."
From there, they move into song number four. Adam takes his bass back as Frank begins picking out the opening melody, as the venue's tech hands Patrick his own guitar. Spencer chimes in ten seconds in with a steady beat, and ten seconds later, Patrick sings, "Take me down to the paradise city, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty."
They'd actually debated whether or not to play this song, but the guitar interludes had won them all over: long enough for Patrick to wander around the stage, to lose himself for several seconds just playing.
As they trail off, they take a small break: all of them getting water, getting reoriented on the stage. Patrick takes the bass back, because they're back into keyboard territory. Adam starts them off, with Spencer joining in a few beats later, starting a steady rhythm with his foot pedal, and Frank and Patrick start in a few beats after that.
"It doesn't hurt me," Patrick starts. "Do you want to feel how it feels?"
Of all the songs they're playing, Patrick expects this to be the one that the least number of people are familiar with. Especially since they're doing a cover of a cover, half Placebo, half Icon and the Black Roses, Kate Bush at the root. Patrick likes the Placebo cover the best, but the Icon cover is faster, more in tune with the rest of their set: riffs and guitar solos and opportunities for Frank and Adam to do backup vocals.
By the time Patrick hits the second chorus, more people are singing along: "And if only I could make a deal with God, I'd get him to swap our places. Be running up that road, be running up that hill, be running up that building, and if only I could-"
To be honest, Patrick's not quite sure how the next song ended up in this set. He's pretty sure that Spencer mentioned it first, laughing at the time, and then Adam had started trying to talk in an Australian accent, which had set Frank off, and after that, there was no way the song *wasn't* going in their set list.
Spencer counts them in, Adam carrying the melody on the piano, and then Patrick's singing, "Traveling in a fried out combie, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie." He can see the kids in the front row trying to mouth along, but the words to the verses aren't as easily understandable as the words to the chorus, which is why he's not surprised with the volume in the room increases ten-fold once he sings, "Do you come from a land down under?"
He looks beyond the main crush of the crowd at the stage and sees some girls at the back doing something that looks like swing dancing, hands linked, spinning around.
After they finish that song, they take a quick breather while Adam takes his bass back yet again, while Patrick picks up his rhythm guitar, but before they even really have a chance to get settled, Frank starts playing the intro, and because he and Spencer are clearly in league, Spencer's totally ready to go with the drum parts. And then, on the second repeat of that (because his band is totally in cahoots and apparently doesn't believe in allowing Patrick sufficient time to get his breath back), Adam starts up the bass, and then Patrick only has another five beats or so before he's on.
"When I'm out walking," he sings, "I strut my stuff. Yeah, I'm so strung out. I'm high as a kite, I just might, stop to check you out."
Patrick, impossibly, hears a high-pitched whistle at that, and he lifts his hands off of his guitar for long enough to flip Pete off. He can see Pete down by the edge of the stage, smiling, and when Patrick continues, "Let me go on, like a blister in the sun," he's smiling too.
From there, with barely a pause, it's straight into their second to last song of the night: Billy Joel.
They get 30 seconds of intro this time and Patrick takes the opportunity to catch his breath, get a drink. He gets back to the mic in time for Frank to come up to him and play back-to-back for several long moments. When it's finally time for Patrick to start singing, "Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio," Frank doesn't go back to his spot, though. No, he continues across the stage, crowding into Adam's space, then backing up slowly, almost taunting him into following him back across stage, which Adam does. Patrick watches them out of the corner of his eye.
This is what Patrick knows about this song: if he hadn't known most of the lyrics already, there is no way they would be playing it live tonight, because there are just too many random ideas put together.
Adam shares Patrick's mic during the second group of names and places, moves over to Frank's on the third, and stays there for the chorus, on which Frank starts singing, too. Spencer just keeps pounding the *fuck* out of his drums.
Patrick actually lets the three of them carry the first chorus-"We didn't start the fire"-while he takes the opportunity to wander back to Spencer, get a drink, grin at the way Spencer's totally getting into it, hair flopping around and sticking to his cheeks.
He makes it back to the microphone just in time to begin the second set of people, places, things. It's not a long song, not in the grand scale of long songs, but by the time he reaches the fifth cluster of lyrics, Patrick can feel his tongue starting to trip over itself just a bit, then a bit more, and it's a relief each time he gets to the chorus so that he can swallow, take a breath before diving back into the song again.
And then, finally, they reach the last chorus, "We didn't start the fire, it's always burning since the world's been turning. We didn't start the fire, but when we are gone, will it still burn on and on and on and on…" Frank's the one to stop playing first, then Adam, then Spencer, and pretty soon it's just Patrick playing, the entire crowd singing the 'and on and on and on' back at them, over and over, five, six times, and then Frank picks up his guitar again, Spencer his drumsticks, and in a synchronized movement, they end it: riffs, a clash of cymbals.
They're all breathing heavily at that point, taking a moment to swallow, breathe, and Patrick can tell that most everyone in the audience thinks that that's the end, that they're done for the night, but someone starts chanting "One more song! One more song!" and the entire room picks it up quickly. They'd been planning on one more song anyway, and Frank raises his hands, saying, "Fine, fine, you convinced us. As if we could fucking play an 80s night without featuring this song, right? Right? Anyone have any guesses?"
He doesn't give them a chance to shout out their answers, though, before nodding at Adam, who starts playing the first notes on the keyboard. Just loudly enough to give Patrick the key.
"We built this city," he sings, and the crowd just joins right in. "We built this city on rock and roll."
Pete and Ryan, Patrick can see when he looks towards the corner of the stage, are laughing, and Pete's trying to dance, one arm up in the air, while Ryan studiously resists. Everyone else is dancing, too, though; the crowd seems to pulse with it, and that, more than anything, makes Patrick realize that this could actually work, that maybe people really are interested in seeing this sort of thing, will maybe stay interested even after the novelty has worn off.
Finally, though, the song comes to an end, all of them taking to their mics to sing the last of the repeating choruses: "We built, we built this city, yeah, we built this city, we built, we built this city…" They let their instruments fade out and with a last wave at the crowd, they all head off stage again.
*
So, while the venue does actually have a backstage area, it's not a truly effective one, because they get pretty much mobbed as soon as soon as they reach the bottom of the steps, a general crush of people wanting photographs, autographs, Patrick to talk to their BFF on the phone, please please please.
Spencer, Frank, and Adam are getting it too. Adam looks less shocked that people are actually wanting to talk to him this time around; in fact, when Patrick catches his eye, his grin pretty much splits his face.
Patrick's not sure how long he's caught there before Pete finally makes his way up to him. "So, can I get you to sign my t-shirt?" he asks, almost sing-songing the words. "Maybe call my BFF Joe?"
"Shut the fuck up," Patrick says, punching at Pete's shoulder. Then: "Can you believe this?"
"Um, yeah," Pete says, like it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "You're Patrick fucking Stump, dude. You know how this goes." He pauses for a moment, surveying the dwindling crowd. "Just wait until you start writing your own shit again. I give it six months before you're selling out arenas."
"I'm not-" Patrick starts. "We're not-"
Pete just raises an eyebrow and Patrick trails off.
"Fuck you," he says finally, weakly, and Pete just laughs, pulling him in for a hug.
*
And really, Patrick thinks the next night, he probably should have been more adamant when telling Pete the 'fuck you', because he's been thinking it pretty loudly for the last five hours. Since he dropped Pete off at the airport. Since he got back to his house and wandered down to his basement and started fiddling around on his acoustic, just playing strings of notes. Notes that shouldn't have been anything close to melody-like, yet were, that just happened to almost match the rhythm of some words that had been floating around in his head, words that he hadn't even really let himself acknowledge.
Words that he now has on a sheet of staff paper, with *notes*, damn it, basic melody, a bit of a bass line, and this should be a good thing, he thinks, except that this isn't what he'd signed up for.
He'd signed up for fun.
A glorified cover band.
Small shows, no stress.
He knows that he was being willfully self-delusional, thinking that he'd be satisfied with that for however long this ends up lasting, but still, still.
Still.
And so for the moment, he feels fully justified in directing his… whatever he's feeling (not quite anger, not quite fear, not quite anything he can put a name to) at Pete, because Pete had *known* this would happen once he mentioned it, once he put the idea in Patrick's head, damn it, and Patrick hadn't been ready for it, hadn't wanted this yet. Except for how he apparently had, or else he wouldn't be doodling these words, this idea.
*Damn it.*
"Fuck you, Pete," he says again, quietly, and then he lets his fingers fall back to the strings.
Set List:
1) Under Pressure-Queen/David Bowie
2) I’d Do Anything For Love-Meat Loaf
3) Dancing in the Dark-Bruce Springsteen
4) Paradise City-Guns N’ Roses
5) Running Up That Hill-Kate Bush/Placebo/Icon and the Black Roses
6) Down Under-Men at Work
7) Blister in the Sun-Violent Femmes
8) We Didn’t Start the Fire-Billy Joel
9) We Built This City-Jefferson Starship
Continued.