Power Trio

The Ringside amphitheater is Thekla’s favorite venue in the city. It’s roughly baseball-diamond shaped, with the band set at the bottom of a semicircular set of rising concrete stands, framed before the LuDi skyscrapers across the lake. It’s right on the water, next to Triton Park, and during the summer every night is packed.

Tonight’s no exception. There’s already a crowd forming before doors, and the food trucks outside the venue are making brisk business, and Thekla munches on a bug burger as she and her lovers (and Sion) watch the sound guys finish cabling their board. There’s no green room to speak of, and everyone just stashes their instruments over near the sound booth when they’re not on. But the cut of the door is money, real money, the first real money Legendary is making.

It would be the perfect evening if it weren’t for the people they’re sharing the flyer with.

Masonry’s frontman Teo Carver is a sweetheart, a young dwarf with a chunky, solidbodied Reevecaster guitar. Their drummer is a gothic hobgoblin introvert who Kell draws into in a somewhat animated discussion of the percussion sample pad he’s using. Their bassist hops on the synth for half their songs, and she hasn’t shown up yet, which according to Teo is very much how she is.

And their lead guitarist is Ragan.

Kell looks through him like he’s empty air. He’s on his third pint and mostly doing the same, though once when Thekla glances over, he’s talking in a low voice to some leatherhead and leering at her.

She’d love to break her guitar over his head. Scratch that. She’d love to break his guitar over his head.

She wishes they’d stuck around for Masonry’s set at Tvnnel. She hates not having their measure; for as much as she’d preached collaboration at the Shed, her urge to blow their sound out of the water rose to peregrine heights as soon as she laid eyes on Kell’s ex.

She remembers the first time she saw Kell crying over him. It was after their songwriting blowup. “Derivative and incurious,” he’d called her. Thekla still doesn’t understand how someone like Kell could let this guy get to her. When they were together, he was the golden musical auteur, whose every bold idea broke new aural ground. And she was the drummer, which isn’t exactly a real musician, is it? Q: What did the drummer get on his final exams? A: Drool. Ha ha ha.

There’s a certain vicious joy in seeing him as a hired gun in a project he’s not leading. But it’s nothing compared to how it would feel to push him into Lake Champlain.

Evan’s sensed her disquiet, has laid one of those soothing hands on the top of her thigh. She’s thankful that he’s never really asked them about Ragan, even if at this point he probably has the right to.

“Hey, team.” Teo knocks on the table, waves at Legendary. “Sound check’s in ten. You guys are probably gonna be faster since we’ve got the digital shit. And Beaula isn’t here yet. The guy says you can start setting up.”

“Thanks, Teo.” Kell stands up and cracks her knuckles. “Sion, you’re helping me carry the #2 kick.”

“Evan is helping you carry the #2 kick, wonderful man that he is.” Sion takes the last sip of his house red. “I will carry the show.”

“Hey, Thekla.” Teo taps her shoulder as the rest of Legendary heads for the stage. “Quick word?”

“Sure.” Thekla’s glad that she gets to have this conversation without craning her neck up. Teo’s broad, but if you count the hair, she’s actually taller than he is.

“I’m detecting this weird tension.” He looks reluctant. “Ragan filled me in on the situation. And I just want to check in and make sure there’s not gonna be any problems.”

“If Ragan filled you in on the situation, you’re definitely not getting the complete picture,” Thekla says, and Teo grimaces. “But we’re minding our own business. It’s nothing about you or the rest of Masonry. We’d just prefer to keep interactions with him to a minimum.”

“Sure, sure,” Teo says. “And look, to be honest, I get it. He’s, uh…”

“He’s good at his instrument,” Thekla says. “It’s cool, Teo. If we didn’t have history, I’d pick him too. No hate, okay? We’re all grateful that you reached out and gave us the opportunity.”

“What can I say? You guys brought the heat at Glorie’s.” Teo grins nervously. “I’ll keep an eye on Ragan.”

Thekla gives him the thumbs up as she heads out to her band. If I were you, I’d keep a fucking leash on him, she thinks.

* * *

A beautiful breeze rolls off the lake. The sunset casts the skyline’s windows into dazzling mirrors. Their light reflects, along with the first flickers of the city’s night-time neon, across the rippling water, like a blowing sand mandala.

Masonry rocks, unfortunately. Thekla tries not to feel too put out. Not a battle of the bands, girl. There’s a hypnotic, krautrock precision to their sound. The late-coming synth player, a reedy golden high elf with a permanent expression of boredom that brings Sion to mind, fills the low end with humming saws and looping arpeggios. Teo gives room to his hooks, repeating his phrases until they stick in your head. Every song is at least four minutes. A group of ketted-out grad students have started a swaying, impromptu dance party at the lowest ring of the amphitheater.

Ragan prowls the stage like a panther, spitting out long passages of staccato strums. Thekla has to give it up to Teo; the dude has tamed the butt-rock excesses and boomer bends the orc used to throw around.

Dalma is here with a group of the Labyrinth folks. She sees Hockham, waves at him, and gets a little waggle of the fingers back.

A shift in the air as Kell crouches down next to her, back from hugging the knot of orcish roommates she’s gotten to show up. “Check it,” she whispers. “The drummer’s playing to a click. He’s got IEMs in.” She points to his ears. “That’s how they’re making it work so well with the samples and the sequencer.”

“They’re good,” Thekla says.

Kell ruffles her hair. “I think I see our guy, by the way. Third ring, yellow shirt. That’s Rahul standing near him.”

Thekla cranes her neck, sees the human Kell is talking about. “Oh, yeah. I think you’re right. Dude is like forty.”

“That and he has a Warcry logo on his messenger bag.”

“That’s definitely our guy.” Thekla rubs her hands together. “That’s Mr. Label Scout. Let’s tell Evan to point those pelvic thrusts he always does his way.”

Kell snickers.

Sion is watching Masonry like a statue, no pun intended. Thekla sidles up to him, pulls on the sleeve of his slouch-neck sweater. She thought he was dressing too warm, but now that she’s out here at the lakeside, with a sweetheart neckline and a pleather miniskirt, she’s chilly.

“What do you think?” she asks, when he lends her a pointed ear.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Ragan the troglodyte has learned how to play with a modicum of taste. Darwin’s theory is vindicated.” He straightens up once more.

Of all her bandmates, Evan is the most unabashedly into it. He’s grooving rhythmically along with the synth, shoulders and hips moving in a way that stirs Thekla, just a bit. She taps his knee to get him to open his eyes. “You’re loving this, huh?”

“It’s good music!” He has to yell, even face-to-face, over a sudden fortissimo swell in Masonry’s chorus. “Not my kinda music, exactly, but they’re killing it. Sounds like Feuerwehrmann.”

“I’ve never heard them.”

“Heavy psych guys from the 80s. I’ll send you a link. Hey, look.” He touches her arm. “They’re good, but we’re better. Our arrangements are tighter.”

“It’s not a battle of the bands, dude.”

“I know.” He smiles at her. “But I can tell you’re wondering. And I think we’re better.”

“Thank you, Ringside! Thanks for spending your Saturday with us!” Teo bows to the applause. “We got two more for you, and then stick around because Legendary is next and they’re gonna blow you away!”

Thekla watches their yellow-shirted mark clap with the rest of them. It’s not a battle of the bands. It’s not. But oh, how she’d love to win.

* * *

“Ringside,” Thekla bellows into the microphone. “We are Legendary. Let’s fucking go!”

They planned this ambush opening to freeze up anyone who was thinking of leaving between sets, and it works. Fossil Fuel rolls across the amphitheater and back to them, and Thekla sees backpacks being taken off, conversations stopping.

Thekla is tired of this song, they’ve been running it over and over in the recording room, but the moment they hit that chorus and the ketamine kids start moshing, all the enthusiasm and energy for it comes roaring back.

They’ve shuffled the setlist, stuck Tremendousness in the first half to keep the energy up. Thekla lets Evan’s funky-ass playing propel her around the stage, stomping, shredding, singing. Oh, yes. She’s feeling it tonight. With Evan and Kell undergirding her, she takes risks, drops weird new hammer-ons and arhythmic talk-singing, confident that they’ll be there to keep her from losing the plot. And they always are.

Sion’s head is bobbing. It’s actually bobbing. Thekla makes eye contact with Evan, sees the look of triumph on his face at the achievement as they swing Tremendousness into its fistpumping finale.

A third of the set down and Thekla finally gives the crowd a breather. “Ringside! How are we feeling tonight!”

They let her know, enthusiastically.

“This one’s called Vampire Facial. It’s about getting your back blown out.”

Thekla always loved performing this one, usually picked some tall rando in the audience and imagined herself doing a whole sexy routine for them. That’s not what she’s doing tonight. Tonight she’s performing for the people behind her.

She slinks across the stage, winds a circle around Evan, runs a fingertip across the small of his back where the audience can’t see. When she reaches the part where she lays across the stage, her butt is pointed right at Kell, and she bends her body far enough to ensure that she’s flashed the drummer a sliver of lacy leopard print panties. When she croons I promise, I’ll bite, she’s staring directly at her bassist.

Thekla has always loved the feeling of a crowd watching her, of all these strangers and acquaintances seeing the glamorous facet of herself she saves just for the stage. Sometimes, she’s wondered how many of those eyes have imagined taking her home, guessed at what was under the persona and the makeup and the outfit, pictured what a night with her might be like.

But she’s never performed for someone she was already sleeping with. And she’s never gotten wet singing for an audience before. There’s a first time for everything.

Halfway through, now. The weather keeps getting cooler, but Thekla is hot and perspiring under the lights. During Geriatric, her part recedes into simple cowboy chords and an easy croon, and she gives herself time to scan the crowd. She’s not wearing her glasses, of course, so everyone’s fuzzy and their faces are inscrutable, and the concrete amphitheater is covered in graffiti murals, turning their audience into a blobby riot of color. But she can read body language, at least.

Her roommate Dalma is doing that arms folded, head cocked thing she does when she’s engaged. Check. The knot of Labyrinth coworkers have been stamping and cheering between each song, preferring especially the thrashers. Check. Kell’s roommate Tom is recording on his phone, or maybe he’s just on his phone and holding it weird, he’s too indistinct. Whatever. Conna is here, from Shrike, Thek is surprised and pleased to see, and already shouting along to the parts she knows.

Masonry are gathered close to the front, and Teo’s been loving it. Thekla feels a pang of guilt—is he not as competitive?—but he turns to whisper into the ear of Beaula, the synth bass lady, and she realizes she probably looked just like that during their set. Ragan stands apart from them, a row back, motionless. She can’t make out his expression so well, but he’s always got that eternal smirk screwed on. It must be there now.

Rahul has been moving the whole time, in the same way he headbanged along to their songs in the recording studio. He’s shifted closer to Yellow Shirt Guy, and as Geriatric’s abrupt firecracker of an ending goes off and the applause rises, the two have a brief exchange. Sion lets loose the syncopated barks that start Thunder Thighs, which they’ve gone back to calling Thunder Thighs but will definitely have its name changed soon, and Yellow Shirt Guy’s face is an unreadable pinkish smudge from here, eyes hidden behind the stage lights that gleam in his glasses’ reflection.

Thekla monitors him all the way through Thunder Thigh’s three moshy minutes, and then through Commodity Credit. An anxiety rises in her as the crowd grooves and he stays still. Is Sion right? Is C.C. too dancey for Warcry? If they put post-hardcore in their bio, would they be more likely to get signed? She leans on Evan’s dark disco bass to keep herself in it, lets him carry her to the finish.

“We’ve had a beautiful night with you, Ringside.” She gets up close to the mic. “Thank you, Masonry. Thank you, Audience. Thank you, second row chick with the pigtails. You’ve been going apeshit all night for us. Please hydrate.”

“WOOOOOOOO,” shrieks the aforementioned chick.

“We got one more for you and then our enchanted evening is over. We are LegendaryTheBand on your socials. Follow us and send us titty pics. We love you. This is Trapped Like Rats.”

She backs away, gives space to Sion, and nods along with the count in.

Something alchemical happens whenever they do Sion’s song, something quicksilver. It’s never gotten easy to hack through this thing in the Shed. They can never manage a run without at least one fuckup from someone.

But when they take it onstage, it just flows. Like there’s an extra, impalpable ingredient, something ethereal in the breath the crowd holds. Thekla finds her focus, as though the world has narrowed down to her fingers on the fretboard and her throat against the microphone.

Will you wait for me? she sings, and Sion’s guitar binds her like a spider’s filament.

Will the oath be kept? Evan’s right next to her, like a pillar, and she leans on him, as the stage adrenaline finally abates.

Will I see you there? Kell’s tribalesque toms echo across the water.

Is our home a trap? And the band snaps off just before the last word, letting it fall like a stone into the second of silence before the ovation.

“Thank you!” Thekla yells, but her mic’s cord must have gotten twisted up, because she needs to adjust it for a moment before her tapping palm registers again. “Thank you!” she repeats. “We are Legendary! Good night, Ringside!” And she turns around, bright and beaming. “Fuck yes, you guys!”

Sion is staring at her. God, don’t start this again, she thinks, but he just nods and unplugs his guitar.

“That went about the best it could go.” Kell swings out from around the drum kit. “So whatever comes from Mister Warcry out there, no fucking regrets, yeah?”

“No regrets,” Evan confirms.

Thekla digs into her gig bag and pulls out her glasses, pops them back on and lets the world beyond the stage come into focus. “Did you guys see Conna out there?”

“Yeah, dude.” Kell pats her pocket. “She’s blowing my phone up. All caps, lots of emojis, she’s trying to organize an afterparty. Are we into that?”

“I am if you guys are,” Evan says.

“Same,” says Thekla.

“First things first.” Kell looks furtively around at Sion, who’s packing up his pedals. “We need to find a private spot to make out for like five minutes.”