Dissonance - Chapter 51

The week following Christmas was a whirlwind as we got ready to leave for New York on Friday. It seemed like everyone I knew, or was at least friends with, was going. Besides me and the band, Hanna, Kat, Sydney and her mother, Mom, and Mrs. Phillips, were all going as my personal entourage, which was a weird thing to say but wasn’t far from the truth. Rowan called to tell me he was meeting us there, and Mr. French was tagging along with him. The only person in my life not coming along was Chef, who did a pretty big business on New Year’s Eve and couldn’t put it all on Vinney’s shoulders just to see me perform. I was sad he wasn’t going to be there, considering everything he’d done for me recently, but I understood.

Friday we got in early enough to see the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and Central Park, all stuff I’d seen in movies and on TV growing up, but never thought I’d get to see in real life. It’s wild to think about all the time I spent traveling as a kid and over the last year and yet how little of the country I’d actually seen.

Saturday was all about the concert. We practiced, although I didn’t sing, since I needed to save my voice for the show. They had this prep area set up in one of the hotels off Times Square and a cordon from it to the stage with police barricades and officers to keep people pushed back. Everything else was closed, including the streets. It was still daytime when we got to the hotel where we were supposed to set up, and already there were thousands of people gathering, most trying to get a good spot for the show.

Because it was impossible to move stuff in and out once the crowds started forming, the only thing we could take up on the stage were guitars. That meant no keyboards, which was going to be a hassle. Seth would still be on stage, but off to the side with a mic stand where he could sing his parts of the chorus harmonies. We’d known about that almost from the beginning, so we’d been practicing and making small changes to our songs to pull out the keyboard parts.

Some of the changes I really hated, but there were some parts that I actually thought were better now that we’d taken the keyboard out. We couldn’t exactly change stuff that had been recorded, since I didn’t think we wanted songs to sound radically different than they did on our album unless, like now, we had no choice.

The rest of the gang went to grab dinner while I stayed behind, double-checking everything one last time. Everything was in a secure area and it was probably paranoid of me, but with how everything else had gone lately, I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

I was just looking over our set list again when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hey, man,” Eli Sampson said from behind me.

I was surprised to see him. I knew they were on tonight’s list of performers, but they were the headliners and would be playing last, finishing up right before the ball dropped, which was hours away.

“Hey. What are you doing here?”

“My manager put us up here, so we could come right down from our rooms and head to the stage. We did this two years ago and stayed in mid-town, and it was a nightmare getting in, and that was with a police escort.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

Although MAC was picking up the bill, we weren’t the kind of name that Nightshade was, and we’d been put up at a chain hotel in Hell’s Kitchen. Warren had been smart enough to suggest we head over after lunch, while the stage was still being set up, to avoid the crowds. Getting out would be hard, but as performers, we could at least get back to the hotel being used as a holding area and wait until the crowd dispersed before heading back to our hotel.

“You guys don’t go on for a long time, why are you down here slumming it with the openers?” I asked.

“I saw you were up second and asked someone to check if you were down here. I just wanted to come say hi.”

Now that was a surprise. Sure, I’d done him a favor, but not one that would make visiting me worth it.

“Really?” I said, unable to keep the confusion out of my voice.

I know I should have played it cool, but it just kind of slipped out.

“Sure. I still owe you for what you did in Nashville and I wanted to hear your set when you go up.”

“You don’t owe me anything. Besides it being a big deal for me to get on stage with you guys, you did me a giant favor by giving us that shout-out. Things were rocky with my label, and I needed to put up numbers to keep them off my back. We’re more than even.”

“Nah, we aren’t. Not even close. Besides, after you messaged me, I listened to your stuff. Man, I knew you were good from when you played with us, but your music is solid, and trust me, that’s a compliment and a half, ‘cause I normally don’t like softer stuff.”

“Thanks, man. I hope your guitarist is doing better?”

“He’s still got another two months of treatment, but it’s hard to say. This kind of thing is tough to kick, even if you can afford treatment. You won’t hear this advice much in this industry, but stay away from the hard stuff when it’s offered to you. That shit will tear you down.”

“I’m never doing any of that stuff, so not a chance there.”

“Never say never, man. This industry corrupts everyone. Anyway, I gotta head back upstairs. We flew in early this morning and I need to get some rest before it gets too loud, I just wanted to come down and say thanks again while I had the chance.”

“I was happy to do it,” I said.

“See ya,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder before heading back towards the elevators.

The first band was a group out of Florida I’d never heard of before, and they were good. They were way pop-ier than we were, but the crowd ate them up. Just as that band was going up, they corralled us into a small backstage area just by the huge video billboard that’s in every picture of Times Square. Thankfully, our friends got to come with us and would hang out there to watch us play. It was kind of behind us, so not the best seats, and it was loud as heck, but they could see the audience and it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“This is amazing,” Mom yelled into my ear.

I didn’t have my earpieces in so I was able to hear her. They were something I had learned to use in Nashville; but it was still a weird experience, hearing our own music piped into us as we played, since it was too loud to hear ourselves play otherwise.

“I know,” I said, equally wowed by the massive crowd.

“Thank you so much for bringing me, Charlie. It really means a lot to me,” she said, hugging me.

I knew she wasn’t talking about the concert, or at least wasn’t talking about only the concert. I hugged her back, hard. I’d gotten my mom back, or at least was starting to, which was maybe the best thing happening to me, even more so than the concert.

“I love you, Mom,” I said.

“They’re calling us up,” Lyla said, walking past with her bass.

Sure enough, the other band had come off the stage and I could hear them starting to announce us.

“… new album, Country Roads,” the MC was saying. “Give it up for Charlie Nelson and the Wildcats.”

I looked at the rest of the guys with a huge grin on my face.

“Here we go,” I said.

The End