Bandwagon

shook his head. ‘No time,’ he said. ‘You’re not nervous, are you?’ He continued putting the amplifiers down near his guitar and cabling them up.

  ‘A bit,’ said Ben.

  Nutter climbed onto the stage and sat down behind his drums. ‘W-We could have a q-quick run through w-without the others,’ he said.

  Riff nodded. ‘If it’ll help,’ he said. ‘We’ve got time for one.’ He looked to Ben. ‘What do you fancy?’

  Ben considered this. ‘Could we try Ten Miles Up?’ he said.

  Riff picked up a guitar and fingered the strings experimentally. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to do the backing vocal?’

  ‘Please.’

  Nutter adjusted his position on his seat, then counted them in. Riff opened the number with a complicated guitar solo, somehow managing to make it sound as if he was playing Vid’s bass at the same time. He nodded his head as he played, looking down as if in deep thought before lifting his head to join Ben in singing the tune.

  Once more Ben was taken by how well the robots could sing – it was strange that robot bands were so uncommon, especially in the light of all the tone-deaf talentless humans who dominated the airwaves. He wondered if he sounded out of tune to his colleagues: Riff’s sensitive hearing could probably detect a fraction of a hertz shift in the singing of an earwig, although Ben suspected he would probably be too polite to tell it.

  They reached the end of the vocal part of the song and Riff continued with the solo for a few bars before playing a quick ending and silencing the guitar. Nutter, still drumming away in his own little world, eventually noticed they had finished and brought his drumming to an end with a quick drum-roll.

  ‘That didn’t go too badly,’ said Riff, replacing his guitar on its stand. ‘Does it help with the confidence any?’

  ‘A bit,’ said Ben.

  Riff nodded. ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better once we get going.’

  10

  The moth-eaten curtain that concealed the stage seemed, oddly enough, to give Ben rather more confidence. This, it seemed to say, is the quality expected from a venue like this. It didn’t make him feel more professional, but it made him feel less out of place in his amateurism.

  Perhaps also the beer helped.

  He sat with Riff and Nutter at a table in the bar, watching the minutes tick away to their debut. Nutter and Riff had been provided with drinks of their own, and Ben frowned as Riff toyed with his bottle. The word ‘Lube’ was spelled out in old-fashioned chromium letters on the side.

  ‘I didn’t think robots drank,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not strictly necessary,’ said Riff. ‘Just a social thing, really.’

  ‘Y-yeah,’ Nutter nodded his agreement. ‘I could g-give it up anytime.’

  It was an odd concept, really, Ben considered – providing consumer goods for something that was, in a way, a consumer good itself. But perhaps it wasn’t so odd: in many ways robots were almost people. And if mobile phones could now have the right not to be switched off without first being consulted, it wasn’t so far-fetched that robots should be given the means to relax. If, indeed, they could be other than relaxed.

  ‘Are you ready for this?’ he asked Riff.

  Riff spun his Lube bottle gently on its rim, gazing absent-mindedly up at the ceiling. ‘I’m always ready,’ he said. ‘I was built to be ready.’

  ‘I w-wasn’t,’ said Nutter. ‘I’m n-nervous.’

  ‘Why should you be nervous?’ said Ben. ‘You just have to hit the drums. It’s not as if you could miss.’ He smiled broadly.

  Nutter seemed to miss the joke at least. ‘Y-you t-think I’ll b-be alright?’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Riff. He looked around at the venue. ‘This feels different,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’ said Ben.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just that… that this is the first time I’ll play to a real audience.’

  ‘You’ve played for people before.’

  ‘Yes, to demonstrate what an instrument sounds like. And nobody listens at the Turret. This is different. This is actually a gig.’

  ‘Sort of.’

  A commotion from beyond the curtain interrupted their thread and the band looked up to see Keys and Vid emerging. Keys flexed the joints on all four hands as they approached. ‘Ready for the off?’ he said brightly.

  ‘Ben’s a bit nervous,’ Riff admitted, ‘but I think we’ll cope.’

  Concerts owe many of their traditions to theatre: the stage, the curtain and the proscenium arch were already firmly established when musicians moved out of the homes of the rich and privileged and into the lives of the masses. The theatre was both the obvious and the economical venue for popular music, or more accurately for music that might or might not prove popular – little was certain in those early days.

  Times have, of course, changed, and music is now significantly more popular than the theatres whose venues it originally borrowed. Surprisingly, however, although the venues have grown larger, they still differ little from their theatrical roots. The curtains have generally gone; the trapdoors are felt less than necessary, but the stage is still the raised dais which the seats all face, and there are still balconies and banked seats to afford people a better view.

  Perhaps it is that theatre provides the optimum configuration. There have, after all, been a number of attempts to host music in alternative venues. Concerts have taken place in the central plazas of cities, on massive river barges moored in docklands and even in space – where nobody can hear you hit a wrong note.

  Probably the most unusual concert of all time was one held on Saiph, where an attempt was made to hold a concert under the sea. The Saiphans, whose dominant species are amphibious, but whose fast-paced commercial society allows them little time to do more than take a quick bath every hour, were greatly excited with the prospect. It would, they felt, be getting back to their spiritual home. And the money was going to save the whales.

  It should have been a fantastic spectacle – and it was.

  It should have been a triumph for music and charity. This it failed slightly.

  It wasn’t that it was undersubscribed – far from it. Bands signed up in their droves, changing what had been intended as a two-hour ‘bath in’ to a three-day festival. The problem was that the recipients of all this love and goodwill weren’t actually consulted about the content.

  When the first notes of Lead Submarine’s set drew an answering chorus of whale song, the first reaction was delight on the part of the audience. It was like vindication for the spiritual cause. Unfortunately, the whales were not so much willing audients as music critics, and they quickly demolished the stage. Lead Submarine’s set was abandoned and with it the concert.

  Needless to say, the Saiphans have not repeated the attempt. What’s more many of Lead Submarine’s fans have begun to seriously debate whether animals that big and dangerous actually need saving, and if so from whom?

  For most races, the most adventurous concerts are those held in the open air at the mercy of the elements. Fans of these concerts maintain that good music is best heard when immersed in a good mud bath, and for those whose music is not quite up to standard, it can be extremely useful if your audience is unable to leave until the ground dries sufficiently to allow them to drive away.

  Ben was more worried that people would stay and listen to him perform rather than that they would attempt to leave. Standing behind the curtain listening to the chatter of their audience, he was shaking like a leaf.

  ‘New dance?’ Keys enquired as he sat down behind his keyboards.

  Ben shook his head.

  ‘Still nervous?’

  Ben nodded his head.

  ‘You’re going to have to open that mouth, you know,’ said Vid. ‘It’s rather hard to do songs in sign language – plays merry hell with the rhythm.’

  Ben took a deep breath. ‘I just didn’t think they’d all be looking at me.’

  ‘Not muc
h point them coming if they don’t. They can listen to music at home, after all.’

  Keys played absent-mindedly with his keyboard. ‘The trick is not to look at them,’ he said. ‘Keep your eyes on the back of the room and pretend they’re not there.’

  Ben took a deep breath. ‘I’ll try,’ he said.

  Vid looked around the stage appraisingly. ‘These amplifiers are a bit big, aren’t they?’ he said, pointing to the huge box to which his bass was connected.

  ‘Fairly normal for concert use,’ said Riff. ‘Just don’t stand in front of them or you won’t be able to hear yourself think.’

  Vid picked up his bass and plucked at the strings. There was a twang as the E string broke. The robot sighed and began to restring the instrument.

  ‘Supposed to be good luck, that,’ said Keys.

  ‘Why?’ said Vid.

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s just better that it breaks now instead of in the middle of a song.’

  ‘Nothing to stop it doing both.’

  His words decayed into absolute silence. Beyond the curtain was either an expectant hush or an absent audience. The footsteps of Ben’s aunt moving onto the stage suggested that it was probably the former.

  ‘Tonight we have an unusual act for you,’ she began. ‘It’s their first gig together so please be gentle with them.’ There was laughter from the audience. ‘Kindly put your hands together for Blood and Oil.’

  There was a round of applause and the curtain began to rise. Nutter began to play a steady beat on his drums and the other robots waited patiently for their cue. It was as the