Bandwagon

place, eh?’

  Ben nodded. ‘Have you ever played here? Professionally, I mean.’

  Riff shook his head. ‘I’ve played the odd open spot, but I’ve never really gigged before. It never used to be that kind of place – more of a club than a concert hall.’

  ‘Why did you suggest it, then?’ Ben watched the robot for any sign of expression. Riff’s face may have been metal, but he managed to convey a great deal with the movements of his mouth and the lighting of his eyes.

  The robot shrugged and his eyes dimmed slightly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I guess I just thought we’d be welcome here, being robots and all.’

  ‘And the new manager? Does he like robots?’

  ‘He knew what he was buying into. Hard to change the image of the place that much.’

  ‘What do you suppose will happen if we don’t get the audience? Will the manager let us have another gig?’

  ‘Never met the guy personally. I gather he used to run a gambling den downtown before he got busted – now he wants to run a legitimate business. I imagine that’ll make him a bit wary – there’s less money when you go straight.’

  ‘Great,’ Ben muttered and took a swig of his beer.

  ‘I don’t suppose he’d give up on us after just one gig, though,’ said Riff. ‘Anyone who runs a place like this would know that it’ll take a few gigs to build a following. If you change every unsuccessful act after one gig, you’ll run out of acts in a few months.’

  ‘But you said he hadn’t run a place like this before,’ said Ben. ‘What if he doesn’t know that?’

  ‘He’ll treat it like a game of cards, I’d imagine. You don’t throw a card away because it’s not immediately useful – you have to watch how play develops over a couple of rounds.’

  There was a commotion from the direction of the door and Riff looked up to see Keys and Vid arguing with the bouncer. He got up and strode confidently over.

  ‘Problem?’ he said.

  The bouncer scratched his head with his artificial arm. ‘I was told nobody was to come in until five minutes before curtain up,’ he said. ‘Excepting you guys and the regulars, of course.’

  ‘These guys are with us,’ said Riff.

  ‘They’re in the band?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  The bouncer looked the two robots up and down. With the odd set of his artificial second eye, it was hard to tell what he was thinking – if, as a bouncer, he could. Eventually, he seemed to reach a decision. He stepped aside to let the robots past. As he turned back to the door, Riff put a hand on his shoulder. The bouncer turned round instinctively and Riff released his grip.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trav,’ said Riff. ‘What do you know about the new boss?’

  Trav scratched his square jaw thoughtfully. ‘He seems alright,’ he said. ‘He’s kept on most of the old staff, anyway.’

  ‘Most?’

  ‘He sacked the accountant. Said he had an honest face.’

  ‘He’s not trying to go straight, then?’

  Trav frowned as if his boss’ past was not supposed to be common knowledge. His expression melted in the light of Riff’s stern gaze. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘It’s not that’s not goin’ straight, just that he he knows a bent accountant when he sees one. Why did you want to know?’

  ‘We were just wondering what would happen if we don’t, you know, pull in the numbers,’ said Ben.

  ‘Well…’ Trav began.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ said Vid.

  ‘We don’t?’ said Riff.

  ‘No. It’s amazing out there.’

  ‘How so?’ said Ben.

  ‘They’re queuing down the street. That’s why nobody’s being allowed in yet – the bar isn’t big enough to hold them all.’

  Ben looked slightly confused. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure they aren’t just going to the strip joint round the corner.’

  ‘Not unless they’re the entertainment and the Sultan of St Bruno’s in town. Most of them are girls.’

  ‘They could be – you know,’ said Ben, beginning to wave his hand in an effeminate manner (and inadvertently telling Riff that he was available in the language of Procyon). He stopped abruptly, not because he knew what he had inadvertently said, but because he suddenly realised that being effeminate was the normal state for a woman and not limited to those who appreciated the quality in other women.

  The gesture had lasted long enough. ‘If there were that many gays in this city, the population would have halved in the last ten years,’ said Vid. ‘Trust me, they’re lining up to see us play. Unless you have another act on later,’ he added to Trav.

  Trav shook his head. ‘Just you guys tonight. I hope you can entertain an audience as well as you can attract them, ‘cause the boss is gonna want to see them numbers regular, if you know what I mean.’

  14

  There were a number of noticeable differences between the stage at Café Igneous and that at The Turret. Riff noticed quickly that he could no longer tell where Nutter was standing by the squeaking of the floorboards – something that was reasonably important if you didn’t want to be bumped into when leaving at the end of the performance. It was also larger, however, allowing the drums to be set up further away so as to avoid this eventuality.

  Riff was busily running cables to the huge speaker stacks at the edges of the stage as the other band members approached. Nutter, adjusting his drum seat and looking slightly lost in all the space, noted their arrival, however, and greeted them.

  ‘How are you finding it?’ asked Vid.

  ‘It’s rather b-big.’

  ‘You won’t notice once the lights go down.’

  Nutter nodded. ‘I was j-just w-wondering what those sp-speakers at the front are f-for.’

  Riff looked up from his wiring and nodded toward the small speakers at the front of the stage.

  ‘They’re monitors,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t see a p-picture in t-them. And aren’t t-they facing the w-wrong way?’

  ‘Not that kind of monitor. These are to play our music back to us.’

  ‘So that we r-remember it?’

  ‘No, so that we can hear ourselves play it. Mind you,’ he added, looking at the sides of the stage, ‘it’ll take an extremely loud audience to drown out these stacks.’

  ‘Loud?’ said Ben.

  ‘Let’s just say that if these were at max and a gnat farted in front of microphone, you’d hear it in the street outside. These go up to a hundred and one.’ He walked over to where his guitar was propped on a stand.

  Nutter leaned over to Ben. ‘H-how m-much do normal s-speakers go up to?’ he asked.

  Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A hundred perhaps.’

  The robot counted on his fingers for several seconds. ‘That’s only t-two l-louder,’ he said.

  ‘One, I think you’ll find,’ said Vid.

  ‘Oh, ye-yes, I forgot to carry the s-seven.’

  Vid and Ben exchanged glances. ‘Maybe you should count us in instead of him,’ Vid suggested.

  They were interrupted by a sonic blast from the speakers as Riff strummed his guitar. The sound resonated around the room, shaking Ben until he almost fell over. They looked to see Riff adjusting the volume downward. Something in the set of his shoulders suggested a grin.

  ‘One louder?’ he said.

  ‘One hell of a lot louder,’ said Vid.

  ‘It’s probably logarithmic,’ said Ben.

  ‘L-log-a-what?’ asked Nutter.

  ‘Logarithmic. Where were you dragged up?’

  ‘I’ve h-had all my m-maths p-pummelled out of me. I c-can’t remember any of it.’

  ‘That must have been painful,’ said Vid.

  ‘N-not r-really. I c-can’t remember h-how to be h-hurt either.’

  ‘When you’ve quite finished maths for the insane,’ said Riff. ‘We’ve got a show to do.’

  ‘Is it that time already?’ Vid’s expression rad
iated innocence.

  ‘We’re on in ten. We’ve got to get the curtain down so that we can get it up again.’

  ‘Why d-don’t we j-just leave it up?’ asked Nutter.

  ‘It’s a little thing called showmanship.’ Keys waved to the robot in the control booth. ‘If you don’t raise the curtain, people don’t realise that the show’s begun and they’re liable to keep talking amongst themselves.’ The curtain began to lower gently from the ceiling and Keys took his place behind his keyboard.

  ‘Why do people go quiet when the curtain goes up?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Probably because it’s been hiding what’s on the stage from them and they’re interested to see what they’re getting,’ said Keys.

  The curtain reached the floor, leaving a tiny margin of light showing underneath it. ‘Of course,’ Keys continued, ‘the disadvantage is that it hides the audience from us, so we don’t know what to expect either.’

  The art of making a big entrance is a complex one and as such is not something which should be attempted by an act in the early stages of their career: there’s nothing worse than sliding halfway across the stage on your knees, eyes closed and arms outstretched only to find that the audience has gone home and you’ve only yourself to entertain. Nervous newcomers will often stand behind the curtain, waiting for it to rise and trying to gauge the size of the audience based on the level of crowd noise. This is made somewhat harder by the curtain, which is usually thick enough to muffle most of the sound, but reasonably experienced entertainers can usually garner a ballpark estimate by careful listening. The more experienced entertainers can, of course, simply call the box office from their dressing rooms and ask how many tickets have been sold.

  The band stood poised and ready to play – they’d already