Dissonance - Chapter 12

We got back to Hanna’s aunt’s house in the middle of the night, so she and Sam were already asleep. We’d been there for weeks and it had been nice getting up each morning, having cereal with Sam, and just enjoying us all staying together. It felt strange that this was going to be our last night and after this we’d be staying in hotels for the remainder of our tour, although we’d be back home for an Ashville gig after Richmond.

I thought we might just slip out in the morning for the drive to Virginia without a big goodbye but Hanna’s Aunt had a different idea. We woke up around ten to the smell of bacon and pancakes, which I think might be my preferred form of alarm clock. Some time since we’d gotten in, she’d arranged for a sendoff breakfast, or I guess brunch considering we all needed to sleep in a bit. Sam had drawn a big banner that said: “Good Luck on your Tour!” They’d hung it up in the kitchen.

Seth, Lyla and Marco showed up in time to get some food, which was lucky, because Hanna and I could really pack it away and had already put a dent in the stacks of pancakes, bacon and eggs Hanna’s Aunt had made. By the time we left to get on the road to Richmond, everyone was in a good mood, even Marco, who’d lost whatever chip he’d been carrying around on his shoulder since we were in the studio. It was nice to not find him sulking while everyone else was having a good time for a change, and I’d hoped we’d see more of this Marco.

I’d actually been giving some thought on how to get him into the mix, having some of his songs in our repertoire and maybe even on a later album, if we got that lucky. The biggest problem was, Marco just wasn’t that good at writing music. I wasn’t an expert by a long shot, but I’d already noticed a pattern of a lot of Marco’s suggestions being turned down. For good reason, since they were usually pretty bad, but I could imagine having none of your suggestions or songs taken by your band, to be pretty demoralizing.

I hadn’t talked to Hanna or the others about it yet, but I thought we might, instead of saying 'no' to his suggestions, try and find a way to alter them just enough to work while still close enough to his original suggestion that he could claim credit. It’d be a fine line to walk, and only a handful of his ideas would be able to fit, even so. We'd need to keep an eye out for them and use the opportunities, since one disgruntled band member could tank everything if it got out of hand.

I’d also taken one of his least bad songs and started thinking about how I’d change it to be something usable. I knew I couldn’t just change his song and say I fixed it, since that would piss him off just as much, but if I sold it right, like by saying I had a song that wasn’t working and his was pretty close, so I meshed them together, he might accept it. Especially if I then took some of his suggestions into the final steps on it, so it could be a collaboration between the two of us. It still wasn’t the same as having him come up with his own song that we then played, but maybe he’d accept it and we’d get out of the funk he was in.

Along that same line, I also changed up the seating for the trip to Richmond, talking Lyla into riding with Hanna and Kat while I rode with Seth and Marco. Kat gave me puppy dog eyes, which considering the conversation I’d had to have with her the night before, she might have taken my not riding with her as some kind of rebuke, but I’d deal with that later.

Lyla was all for it, since it gave her a chance to mess with Hanna for the thee-ish hours it took to drive to Richmond, which was also why Hanna gave me the stink eye. Everyone knew Lyla wasn’t serious about her hitting on Hanna, including Hanna, and was doing it more for the joke than anything else, but Hanna still acted like it bugged her. I think she and Lyla were actually becoming friends, which made sense. Both were take-no-shit kind of women and really seemed to get along, in spite of the incessant teasing.

We got to the location well ahead of the seven PM start time, which was earlier than we normally played, but House of Grace was a real band with an actual draw whereas we were playing clubs that needed live music, so it worked out.

The venue didn’t have an in-house kit, but House of Grace’s manager had reached out and let us know we could use their drum kit, and the venue was providing everything else other than instruments, so all we needed was Seth’s keyboard and Lyla and my guitars, which would make setup easy. I didn’t know if they’d made the offer because they wanted to keep the downtime between us finishing our set and their coming on to a bare minimum, or if it was something they offered us because they knew us, but I’d take it.

Although they were doing sound check first, I still wanted to get there before they started, because I wanted more chances to see other bands' processes in live music. I’d watched a bunch of bands when we’d gone to the festival, but that was a different environment and I wasn’t sure how much it compared to normal shows, and everything else I’d seen had been something Willie made the arrangements for.

I was realizing the craft of music was a lot more than just being able to play or even write a good song. I’d already realized some of that, and had been trying to pay more attention to how I played a crowd, the kind of show I put on, and the kind of experience people got, but it wasn’t something I was just going to figure out on my own, and my limited exposure to mostly just Willie had kind of locked me into the blues way of thinking.

The problem was, I wasn’t playing blues. Blues musicians tended to let the music talk for them, which is why you saw their audiences sitting back, taking the music in. We were going for pop and rock audiences, which expected something they could get on their feet to. They wanted more than just a song they could sing along with or just listen to. They wanted a show.

Opening for House of Grace was a good chance to see how they did things, and I wasn’t planning on missing any of it. We swung by the hotel Brent had arranged for us and picked up the keys, so we could come right back and crash after we finished everything for the night, and then headed to the venue.

I had looked at the Lobart Arena’s website that morning, to just get an idea of what it was, but the pictures hadn’t really done it justice. The stage itself was a half circle with a roof that extended up about two and a half stories that extended out into a rectangular one-story building. Behind it were where the venues’ offices, green room and loading ramps were located.

In front was a wide open floor area and then stacked rows of seating that were helpfully built into a hill so the top was still at ground level and led towards the parking lot. The total capacity was seventeen thousand, which was the largest stage we’d played by a huge margin and I’d read that the show was sold out for tonight. Part of me wished instead of our own tour we could have just gone on tour with them, since the exposure would have been great, but they’d already arranged the tour and signed opening acts before we ever got our contract. It had just been our good luck that the band that had been opening for most of the tour had a conflict with this one date and we had an opening in our tour schedule the same day.

The only downside was we couldn’t set up a merch table. Unlike the small venues we’d been playing, the Lobart had all kinds of agreements, including with merchants. House of Grace would still be selling merch, but they’d be doing it through the area’s merch stands instead of flimsy tables set up by the entrance, and those merchants would take a cut. I didn’t know if their normal opener was also allowed to sell through the stadium or not, but as a one-off replacement, we didn’t have any contract to do so, so we couldn’t.

That meant even though this was the largest audience we’d play for this tour, or in the foreseeable future, we wouldn’t be able to sell any of our stuff, which sucked, but this was the struggle of just starting out. Even without the merch stuff though, it was a great opportunity and would give us the most exposure we’d ever gotten.

Even though we were hours early, House of Grace was already on the stage doing their sound check. There was still hours till we went on, but maybe the Venue needed to do something to get the place ready or maybe they wanted a chance to relax before the show went on. They still sounded great though, even with the sound being dialed in and playing part of their music.

They finished up and Linda looked around, pointing out some things for one of her roadies, when she noticed me and came jogging over.

“Hey,” she said, pulling me into a hug. “How’s your tour been going?”

“We’ve only done two shows so far, but they've been really good. They were a lot smaller than this, but the audiences have been great and we’ve been getting some good sales through on our merch. I just wish we had our record available to sell, because it would have given us a good bump with the studio.”

“Don’t worry about those numbers too much. You’re contract means as long as you’re making good money on touring, you don’t have to carry that much on album sales. Plus, I think your record will do better than you think it will. Rowan sent me a rough cut of it, and it’s really good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Your music is really coming along. The songs sound a lot more mature than when I heard them the first time,” she said.

I guess I made a face at the word mature, even though I didn’t mean to, because she held up her hands in a defensive motion and said, “I didn’t mean that to sound condescending and wasn’t saying your music is immature. What I meant was it’s showing a growth into something more complex, with a fuller sound that it didn’t have before. That’s not a knock on you. Our music goes through the same process, with our first pass being kind of one dimensional and then building out from there as we work on it.”

“I think that’s mostly Rowan’s doing. He really made everything better.”

“A good producer will do that. Most people don’t really understand how important a producer really is. People hear music on the radio and they think it was just born like that. Every good song you’ve ever heard was polished up and made into what it was by a producer.”

“I’m starting to see that.”

“Anyway, I’m glad things are really working out for you guys and I’m excited for our fans to get to hear you. What songs were you going to do?”

I’d sort of opened for Willie once and we had a limited set at the festival at spring break, but this was our first time opening for another band for real. The first thing I realized when looking over the details was how short our gigs were. Once we got out of the smaller clubs, we’d almost certainly have to increase our set lists again. Normally, we played for an hour and a half or so, even at the Blue Ridge. House of Grace was doing two hours and Lyla said she’d played with bands that did upwards of three when they had no opener.

For tonight, we were set to go for about forty-five minutes, which meant about seven songs, plus stage patter, which was important even for openers. That also happened to be the bulk of our songs, but I already knew we had a problem with not enough original material. Our gigs were still at least fifty percent covers, which hadn’t seemed to bother the people at clubs who just wanted to dance, but would be a problem for this kind of thing, where people were paying to hear a band they liked play their music.

The sound check went well, which wasn’t a surprise. The equipment here was a big step up from the frayed microphones and fifteen-year-old underpowered amps we used in the clubs we’d played over the last week and made me look forward to the day we managed to move out of tiny clubs and into actual music venues.

We went through two of our songs all the way, dialing everything in, and did snippets of the rest, before heading backstage while the venue finished the final setup for the audience to pile in.

I found Hanna in the green room huddled with Linda and Cody Rose, the band's Drummer. She was holding it together pretty well, but I knew her well enough to see she was practically screaming on the inside. Considering we’d talked to Linda a handful of times already, I’d have thought she’d have gotten over her fangirling, but clearly that hadn’t happened yet.

We hung out talking for a little while, and the rest of the band, who I hadn’t met before now, was just as cool as Linda. They treated us like equals, musicians just grinding out the music business, instead of a tiny band just getting started out. Besides Hanna, Marco was enjoying it the most, I think. He really craved recognition, which is probably why he was so adamant that he got an equal number of songs in rotation as everyone else, and this kind of thing played into that for him.

Our set itself went great. This wasn’t one of the gigs we’d been playing so far, where the people came to the venue so they could drink and dance, and the fact that there was live music wasn’t the main thing bringing them there. This was a crowd that came to hear music, and were excited to be entertained. Although the whole place was sold out, it looked like a third of it was still empty when we started, which was expected. there was the type of concertgoer who showed up late to just see the band they paid for, and didn’t care about the opener.

It didn’t matter. This was by far the largest crowd we’d ever played, and the most enthusiastic. It helped that our style of music wasn’t that far off of House of Grace, but they responded to my intro and the little bit of patter I did in between songs.

It didn't occur to me during my set, but setting in the wings watching Linda as she did her things, if I got another chance to get up on this kind of stage again, I needed to change it up. A sentence or two, maybe a joke, in between songs worked well in smaller settings, but that was because the audience wasn’t really paying attention as much. Here, they needed more of a show. We were still fine without it as the opening act, but it was something I’d have to work on if we ever got to doing shows in venues beyond clubs and bars.

After the show, Linda and the rest of her band couldn’t stay and hang out, since they had to get to their show the next day. We did get to see their bus, which had several very slim beds for sleeping in the back half of the bus and tables and couches in the front half. I thought it was awesome, maybe because it reminded me of my days in the RV, but they were less thrilled. They were big, but not one of these huge solo artists who flew everywhere in a private jet, although all of them except Linda thought they rated it now.

We said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel to get some sleep. We had a drive back to Asheville for another show the next evening, and then a few day's break before we headed into Tennessee for more shows. Apparently, as a minor, there was a limited number of events I could do in a row, so they’d had to build in these break days. They’d arranged the tour so we headed into an area, did shows, and ended back up in Wellsville, probably so they didn’t have to cut into their profit by paying for hotels.

We left early enough so we all had time to run by our homes, grab showers, and rest a bit before we piled into the van and rode together to Ashville. It would be a tighter fit than we’d had to endure since leaving home a month and a half ago, but we figured it didn’t make sense to take two cars when we’d only be in the van for one hour each way.

Wellsville wasn’t a big place, but I still rode with Kat and Hanna so we could go directly home and the rest of the guys could go back to the apartment they’d rented in town without anyone having to make any stops. While we hadn’t exactly been roughing it, we’d all been gone for long enough to get a little homesick.

We pulled into the driveway and Hanna’s mom rushed out to greet us, giving us all big hugs.

“The house has been so quiet since you’ve all been gone,” she said, as she let go of Kat and pulled me into a big hug.

“Ooff,” I said as she squeezed me hard. “We missed you too.”

“So, did you all get famous?” she asked, letting me go. “Were you swamped with hordes of groupies?”

If someone else had said that, I’d have thought maybe they were being sarcastic, but I knew she was being supportive even though she was teasing us.

“Not yet, but we’re working on it.”

“I know you’re mother’s going to want to see you, so I won’t keep you, but you two are going to sit down and have lunch with me before you all head off to your awaiting fans again.”

It was a little late for lunch, as we’d skipped stopping and had driven straight through, so I was hungry, too. But she was right. Mom knew we’d be back around now, and I knew she’d want me to have lunch just the two of us.

“I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?” I said to Hanna.

The band was meeting us at her house at five for the drive down to Ashville, which gave me about two and a half hours with Mom, before it was time to go. I left my guitar and equipment in Hanna's house, since there was no reason to carry it home and back again. Grabbing my bag, now holding mostly dirty clothes, and giving them a wave, I jogged down the slope towards the creek and home.

I know it was bad for my rep to admit that I was excited to see mom, but I hadn’t been away from home this long in …ever! I jogged up the stairs to the trailer and pulled open the front door, and froze in my tracks.

“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son,” my father said, sitting at our kitchen table.