Sirens, p.36
Sirens, page 36
the power was a tangible ball of light she could encompass with, the
swift pass of her hand before her eyes, darting like a dragonfly,
picking it out of the shimmering air, gulping it down whole so that her
insides glowed and steamed. The song crashed to its conclusion and Nigel
leaped from behind his keyboards, grabbed his stand-up mike, yelled into
it, ', San Francisco! We're backv And the upturned faces of the
idolators seemed to burst apart in the thunder of approval. They were
all someone else now - completely outside themselves - grafted-on
entities coming out of the casket where they had been kept all these
long months off the road. Or, perhaps more accurately, they were
extensions, there all along, carried around as excess baggage or the
mis-shapen flesh of a hunchback. For surely these personas were perverse
as well as merely distorted. Bereft of any human emotion, they strode
the stage like giants come for a brief earthly stay. They might have
been the shades of Norse gods, fierce, sexual and virulent. There they
were, transmogrified by the sweat and the love 314 the painful rhythm of
their creation. But, Daina recog- there was much more. is magical
tranformation could not have taken place out the force of enercaly
emanating in waves from out of t vast black pit in front of them, filled
as it was with the of humanity. Young humanity - drugged and yearning
something they could not even understand. d these two forces built upon
one another, creating some entity - some mythical creature of their own
unique ing - that took them all, spiralling upward higher and r,
whirling them around like leaves in a storm. ris, stretched to
larger-than-life proportions by the hot ts, ran through a complex solo,
his knees bent, back arched, t flying off him like bullets from a
machine pistol. To his , Ian pushed him along, providing a sinuous bass
undering while Chris' plangent notes were bolstered by Rollie's ssive
backbeat. Four measures on the ghostly swirl of strings filled the air,
shimmering, as Nigel worked the synthesizer keyboard. ey were well into
it now and the music picked up like a wind, double-timedp superheated
and tremendously 1: an opened blast furnace. It was, Daina thought, like
ing a prowling leopard in its cage at the zoo, mesmerized e motion, too
late realizing that it has abruptly padded c open door in the side,
leaving beast and watcher alone er with no barrier whatsoever.
at would happen then, when the bars came down and laws slid away into
oblivion and'chaos encroached upon erly procession of life. It might,
she thought now, be ly moment of true creation, that change, the
admixture itement and terror. e thought swept her away on the spread
wings of the breathless and vulnerable, her eyes shining, reflecting ect
amalgam of intellect and sexuality that was this 9s message. band
carened into ' in My Pocket' without a and the lasers enipted like
cannons, a trio of piercingly nt coloured beams, so intense they became
solid. They each other like cluellists hovering in midair over the of
tile orchestra. Applause swept the hall like heat 315 lightning through
a wheatfield. All at once the percussion dropped out and it was Chris'
guitar and Nigel's shivering synthetic strings intertwining, caressing
each other like shy lovers and, incredibly, in the i__ midst of the
laser show, a hologram appeared: A young girl, long blonde hair
streaming down her back, turning and turning, as solid as flesh, eyes
closed as if in ecstasy. Then, on the third pass, her eyes opened,
staring out at the audience as she 1 revolved slowly above their heads.
The kids were on their feet, screaming. Then Chris was alone in a solo.
The hot white spot metamorphosed into green, then blue and, finally,
into loving lavender as the notes he played turned legato.
Slowly he knelt on the stage, creating the languorous melody, its
harmonics, all alone, head thrown back, his handsome face transfigured
by the music and, suddenly, shockingly, Daina heard him beginning the
first bars of Ravel's ' Pour Une Infante D6funte'. She stared, unable to
take a breath, listening with her eyes as well as with her ears as he
wrung those notes so familiar to her with love and so much haunting pain
out of that unlikely instrument that she began to weep.
She looked out across the black stage, past the silent still figures of
the band members to where Chris played on, splaykneed, closed-eyed,
feeling at this moment closer to him than she ever had before. All the
secret misery of that shared moment of Maggie's death, expressed in the
aching strains of that mournful, majestic melody. It was like a bridge
of light, she thought, linking him to her just as surely as if he still
held her hand. She felt him with each note, distance eradicated, a
two-dimensional chalk equation on a blackboard, never really existing.
There was no one in this vast dark place, this slowly rising and falling
sea. Just Daina and Chris like two small cr ft come upon each other
through a fog. Thus they clung to each other through the hot medium of
the music, each coruscating note a caress more tender than any
fingertip's touch. Daina shuddered and closed her eyes, her mind filled
with colour and light. The '' concluded on one note that Chris held for
an almost unbearably long time - the electronics of his instrument 316
ing him to subtly change the timbre, the high singing to until, at last,
he modulated the note into the opening nce7ian$. as
shegraemehmetweraesdanll
iagleol'nsetharnedatdaasinifa'sshehewaertreskwiaptpcehidnga r on stage
who had missed a crucial line, she felt acutely s' nakedness out there.
continued to play, turning the opening measures into an Ptu solo intro
as the crowd gasped and applauded. hologram Was gone and so were the
lasers. This song was @new for them to have worked out a suitable
visual. But , standing and playing, now turned from the audience to the
band and, as he did so, Daina. saw the savage whiteness . face.
fingers, curved like the talons of some predator, were a as they worked
the steel strings and ''s' melody red out into the hall again. He
stalked Rollie and, staring at him, screamed out: ', you bastard!
Beat those skins or so help me I'll come up there an' wreck your right
now!' He made a violent, running movement up on plinth and with a
convulsive start, iollie began to lay -the percussive pattern. Chris'
eyes burned like coals as red Rollie down and, jumping from the plinth,
made his over to Ian. seemed to Daina like that leopard, a wild animal
on the dangerous and deadly and totally unstoppable. ' now it's your
turnp he spat at Ian and the bassist, ed, began to play. is worked with
him and with Rollie, creating an arrangeof the moment, a trio of
illimitable power, and then g them a home, a groove that surely neither
Rollie nor ld have suspected was there. It was all improv now, in the
sheer force of Chris' will. Both Rollie and Ian d at him while they
continued to play, mesmerized, s to this awesome Svengali act. the heat
was there, shimmering and alive, rolling like -ton truck out across the
stage and into the audience. whirled from them and sprinted across the
stage to F Nigel stood behind the protection of his bank of key- He
seemed in that instant about to move but then 317 Chris was upon him
and he froze like a deer in a spotlight. Chris, chording wildly, bounced
up and down in front of hirn. His mouth worked like a ventriloquist's
dummy aandd sshee knew he was shouting but the immeasurable din tore the
words away before she could hear them. For a moment, she thought she saw
Tie's familiar silhouette lit by a green flood, the nose sharply
defined, one eye glowing ferally, but it was gone so abruptly that she
thought it might never have been. Nigel began to play. He too stared at
Chris even when Chris moved back to centre stage and with all the
musical elements now in place began to sing: ' in the nightllit by rain
and facesii'll say good-bye to my love, to my lovelleft in the hollowed
palm hillslthe fierce scandalslburning at both ends ...' The crowd was
on its feet, howling like dogs, stamping and clapping in time to the
music. Daina looked out beyond the verge of the stage, saw sparklers
fizzing in the darkness. ' a shot from a pearl-handled pistol, I'm
gone,' Chris sang. ' the red dawnlthe red red dawnllike a saurian from
the edge of timela saurian stalkingii'll find what's mineland I'll be
waiting. Now Daina could see, as the house lights came up fully, the
kids in the first few rows. Their faces were turned upward into the
hazed auroras of the coloured spots, transformed as if by alchemy.
Spectres of the rainbow, they lifted their arms wide, embracing the
fount of physicality spreading outward from the great stacked amps.
"Like a saurian from the edge of timela saurian stalkingl I'll find
what's mineland I'll be waiting! The music behind him turned savage,
cruel and sharp as flint until there was no more civilization, just the
elemental fury that lived and danced inside all of them. Like a master
snake charmer, the music had bewitched them, calling out all the hidden
magic, terrible and awesome in its inarticulate rawness. Thus they shed
their skins: the silks and satins of con- vention and, like a New Guinea
tribe who had never before laid eyes on a white man, who knew nothing of
the atom age, they were joined together in a frenzy of motion and sweat,
sensuality and sound that brought them to fever pitch, hurling 318 @Vver
the abyss. the first bars of ' in the Sky' bit into them lasers opened
their needle snouts once more, pouring living light into the far reaches
of the rafters and, upon ethereal highway of illumination, a pair of
lovers appeared logram, beginning to move and, through the magic of
ology, dancing to the beat of the music, disappearing at with the last
organ glissando from Nigel. e audience screamed, stomped, and the hall
shook as if d by an earthquake. Chris lifted his guitar over his head, d
it back and forth as if it were a banner. Nigel emerged his portable
synthesizer keyboard to stand beside Chris, ching them into "City
Lights' with all the lights up. ar too soon, the song had ended and they
left the stage. the hall lights dimmed. Applause built in strengthening
s. Kids rushed from their seats, loping down already d aisles, oblivious
to the protestations of the guards and aina looked around her. In
clusters, tiny lights wavered e kids lit matches, held them aloft,
multiplying until place took on the incongruous appearance of a ral. e
band reappeared amid a hysterical welcome to play first encore. The neon
lights along the rim of the plinth red on and began their serpentine
roll like an old-time ie marquee. The lasers returned, searching the
upper es of the hall with lemon light. The place was emptying ck as the
kids pushed and shoved' their way forward rds the stage. More security
guards emerged to help stem We but in this moment of conflagration, the
task appeared t hopeless. e first wave crashed into the screen dividing
the first of the orchestra seats from the photographers' pit. The
-journalists, cameras held high out of the way, scattered the onslaught.
r from calming them, Nigel roamed the verge of the plaving with one hand
while exhorting the crowd onward rds their goal. ''mon, c'mon! '
screamed in the musical ''mon!' Beckoning them on in a crouch, laughing
and g in the heat and sweat. His eyes were wide, feverish, 319 as they
raked the faces of the devoted, the acolytes of his music.. The kids
filled the photographers' pit now, trampling on the guards and each
other to get closer. They reached up, looked up, screamed up. A boy
lofted his girl on his shoulders. She raised her arms, fingers hungrily
clawing the nighttime air. All the barriers were down but now it seemed
reversed to Daina. Now it was they who were on stage who were the
watchers in the darkness and this insensate crowd the un- shackled
beast. A girl with corn-row hair leaped for the stage, levered herself
up on one knee. Someone from behind gave her an enormous shove and she
fell face forward at Nigel's feet. He stepped back. She came on. He
shoved his keyboard into her chest and she staggered backward, arms
outflung as if shot, flying backward off the lip of the stage and into
the howling crowd. One of the bodyguards rushed out from the wings,
dragged Nigel back from the verge where upraised hands strove to claw
him downward into their dark embrace.
Angrily, he flung the man from him and continued his prowl. Someone
threw a spray of white roses on to the stage and, grinning, Nigel lashed
out at them, kicking them high into the coloured air. Daina watched the
faces, sweat-streaked and inhuman, the bodies bouncing to the insistent
beat, eyes rolling wildly li e cattle trapped in a burning barn, lips
pulled back from teeth in ecstasy as they screamed, the band, the
audience feeding wildly off each other, pushing each other onward. Chris
and Nigel were at centre stage. Chris chorded furiously; Nigel's fingers
danced over the stubby keyboard; and the music crashed over them all in
a tidal wave of sound and fury of war. There was an intense flash on-
the left side of the stage so near to Daina that all vision in her left
eye was lost. It was followed by an ear-numbing roar, a shock wave like
a physical blow. Daina staggered back. She gasped into fumes that sucked
all the oxygen from the air. Choking, tears runnmg from her eyes. Blind
and deaf. A searing heat and, instinctively, she recoiled. It was all
that was left her. Her lungs were on fire and she felt the labouring of
her heart. All breath left her. 320 ed and fell, saw in a vision from
her mind or the d a black mountain pitching forward on top of her. ts
fuzzy as shock set in. Mountain? The amps! They rger as they tumbled
towards her, growing larger until all she could see. She tried to scream
but could not. she was in someone's arms. The world rushed by her was
not she who was running. She seemed to be in She turned her head, saw
Silka's calm face so close to was slightly out of focus. She blinked and
her eyes again. She opened her mouth, coughed, lay her head against his
chest. d her, as if from out of a dream, she heard screams ers. Roadies
ran past her. Policemen struggled past icate equipment. There came to
her a great rushing ssing in upon the hoarse sound of the white noise in
ear. th all this, as Silka rushed from the stage, she could hear the
shouts and the sound of someone crying. -80. Holy Jesus.' lay on a bench
with her head and shoulders cradled in "lap. ey must be bloody crazy out
there. An M-80 thrown up on to th' stage. Anyone see who did it?' was an
obvious question but, of course, a futile one. In t humanity? ick bloody
bastards,' Chris said. ''s happenin' t' anyway)' Ile was bare-chested,
drenched in sweat. A towel was around his neck. re were others in the
room, moving around. She could them out now, one by one: Rollie, Ian,
Nigel ... there the buxom blonde and - ow you feeliny ile's glistening
chocolate face hovered above hers. His eyes wide, startled, the ebon
pupils enormously expanded. e's okay,' Chris said. ' give her some
room.' He lifted .'I ley, Benno! Where's that doctor?' ' with the girl.
The ambulance is here. As soon as he er in, he'll be up here." at
happened?' Daina asked. 321 Chris looked down. ' threw an M-80 on to
Your side of th' stage.' ' M-80?' ' of a stick of dynamite. Great for
th' Fourth o' July but in a hall - Christv ' was hurt?' ', my lady, were
bleedin' hurt,' he said. ''d like t' get my hands on that bastard -' ''m
okay. You said something about a girl ...' '. In th' audience. Poor
bitch got th' brunt of it. Th' wall o' amps protected you from the worst
of it.' ' she be okay?" "Dunno, luv.' He looked up. ', here comes th!
doc.' ''ll be a bit erratic on your left side for from thirtysix to
forty-eight hours," the doctor told her when he had completed his
examination. ' didn't black out. There's no sign of a concussion.' He
smiled. ' were very lucky, Miss. Whitney.' He took out his prescription
pad. ' don't want anything,'she said. '?' He laughed, then blushed. ',
no. I was just .. uhm ... about to ask you if you'd give me your
autograph. She laughed, held her head. '?' She nodded. ' normal.' He
shook out two tablets from a plastic bottle. ' 500. Take a couple every
