“It never gets old,” my father said.
I looked over at him and gave him what I hoped was a smile, but I was so nervous, my face felt weird, like Play-Doh, so I couldn’t be sure.
He smiled back, so obviously my expression was passable. “When I was your age, I wanted to be them,” he said, nodding toward the stage where the guys were playing the opening bars to their last song before the encore.
That statement got my attention. “Really?” I asked. “I thought you always wanted to be a producer.”
He shook his head. “Nope. I wanted the rock star life. The fame, the girls.” He grinned sheepishly. “Mostly the girls, honestly.”
“Dad!” I leaned into him. “Don’t say that to your daughter.”
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
I glanced out at the guys, who were totally killing it, and then to the crush of girls down on the grass in front of the festival stage. They looked like they were ready to stampede the stage if the security barrier gave way. “Fine, but don’t let the boys hear that. They’ll think you’re a hypocrite.”
“I know,” he said, rubbing a palm over his cheek. “It was different then, though. It’s a much faster life these days; it’s so much easier to ruin lives. Social media that can ruin a career in literally seconds with one tweet. Not to mention the pressures are worse now. Drugs are stronger, there are girls looking for big payouts from paternity suits...” He sighed. “Anyway, it wasn’t in the cards for me to be on stage, but looking out at them,” he paused and we both turned to watch the guys before he went on, “This is so much better. I love making stars way more than I ever would have liked being one.”
“You are my star,” I said as his arm came around me and he hugged me into him. It was corny, but it was true. Also, in the business, he really was a star—Tony Capri was known as the best of the best.
“I love you, Nessa,” he said, planting a kiss on the side of my head. “You’re a good kid. I’m so glad you came on the road with us.”
“Just remember you said that,” I said.
He looked over at me. “What does that mean?”
I swallowed and gave a little shrug.
He frowned, his expression going from confused to wary. “What? What did you do?”
“You’ll see,” I said in a tiny voice.
“Vanessa...”
The song was coming to a close which meant the cat would be out of the bag soon enough. “Just watch,” I said, jutting my chin toward the stage. “You’re not going to want to miss this, are you?”
As the guys held the final chord of the song, a roar went up from the audience. I couldn’t help but grin as they took their bows and then jogged off the other side of the stage into the wings. They grabbed bottles of water and toweled off their sweaty faces while the crowd below applauded, cheered and chanted “Wiretap, Wiretap!”
After about thirty seconds, Dad gave the guys the signal and they ran back out to the stage, taking up their instruments again to play the encore.
We’d decided against doing the unplugged songs for the festival set, so they’d saved Brooklyn Girl for this last tune.
Graeme stepped to the mic stand. A hush went over the crowd as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Thank you, Portland!” he said in his charming accent.
Dave and Andres did a couple of power chords, ramping up the energy as the crowd roared.
“We loved playing for you and appreciate you coming out to see us. And thank you for making our song Brooklyn Girl such a hit already. So with that in mind, we saved the best for—”
He broke off in confusion because the crowd had suddenly gone from nuts to insane as Eddie, lead singer for Zen Garden led his band out onto the stage, tiptoeing up behind Graeme.
Eddie held his finger to his lips, but the audience just continued screaming and whistling until he came right up to Graeme, put his arm around him and leaned into the mic.
Graeme’s eyebrows went up high on his head as he looked at the long-haired rocker next to him. It was pretty funny seeing the two of them together—they couldn’t look much different from each other.
“So,” Eddie said with a grin, looking sideways at Graeme, doing a great job of making it look like none of this was planned. “We heard you guys like playing our songs.”
Of course he was referencing that night when Wiretap had done the Zen Garden cover.
“You might have a good tune or two,” Graeme said with a cocky shrug.
“You’ll get your turn,” Andres said into his mic. “We’re not done here.”
“Oh really?” Pete, Zen Garden’s badass guitarist said, leaning into Dave’s mic. “Maybe we should show you how it’s done?”
Predictably, the crowd somehow took the cheers up a notch. Or ten. Then broke out into laughs when Mark, the band’s drummer, dramatically walked out toward the drum kit with a stool held over his head. He put it down right beside Darren’s and nudged the Wiretap drummer over so the two of them were side by side. They jostled each other a little and even Dad was laughing at their showmanship that seemed so natural.
Darren even did a big harrumph move that earned him a ton of laughs.
“So what were you just about to play?” Eddie asked.
“Brooklyn Girl!” The crowd shouted before Graeme got the chance.
“Right then,” Eddie said in a fake British accent that earned him an eye roll and head shake from Graeme. “Brilliant, let’s do this. Brooklyn Girl!”
And then the nine of them: the five guys from Wiretap and the four from Zen Garden, busted into the song like it had never been played before. Even Dad had been a bit worried about it since the two groups hadn’t had a chance to practice together, but you’d never know it watching them now.
We never would have been able to predict the way Eddie and Graeme’s voices twined together as the lead singer for Zen Garden took the harmony.
“I don’t know whose idea this was,” Dad said, turning to me with wide eyes, “but it was a damn good one.”
“It was Sandy’s,” I said, looking out into the crowd and easily finding her on the sidelines, videotaping the show. One of the members of our crew was with her, acting as her security detail to make sure she didn’t get jostled in the crowd.
“Remind me to thank her later,” Dad said and then turned back to watch the band.
I did the same but a moment later he returned his gaze to me. “Wait a minute. What was...” he shook his head. “Was I supposed to be mad about something?”
Crap. I thought he’d forgotten.
“Just watch the show,” I said casually.
He lifted an eyebrow but when he couldn’t stare it out of me, he sighed and returned to watching the band.
When the song was over, the guys took their bows—all nine of them—to the thunderous applause and wolf whistles from the crowd.
“Wiretap!” Eddie yelled into the mic. “Everyone go buy their album!”
“Cha-ching,” Dad said with a laugh, as even he clapped along with the thousands of fans out on the grass, though maybe for a different reason.
I laughed, but didn’t take my eyes off Eddie because of what was coming next.
The Wiretap guys all waved at the crowd, took a few more bows, and even threw a few kisses before they started to make their way off the stage.
Eddie watched them go and I was suddenly worried he wasn’t going to do his part when he then looked out to the sea of fans, leaned into the mic and said, “You know, I do kind of like playing other people’s songs sometimes.”
“Don’t worry,” he said to the audience as I exhaled in relief. “You’ll get a full set of our stuff, but I sort of feel like playing something...I don’t know...old school.”
As he said that, Ted started strumming on his guitar and I glanced across to the other side of the stage as the Wiretap guys were just about to leave the backstage area. Except in that moment, Dave’s entire body stiffened and his head snapped back to look out at the stage. He recognized the song, even from those few opening notes.
His face went blank and I had a moment of sheer panic, worried he was going to be so very angry at what I’d done. He would know this was my doing, I had no doubt.
“I don’t know if you all will remember,” Eddie said into the microphone as Ted kept strumming. “But there was this amazing band back in the day called Legion Thunder.”
A huge roar went up at the mention of Dave’s grandfather’s band.
A wide grin spread across Eddie’s face. “Yeah, I thought you might know them. Even though it’s been a while, you don’t forget the greats, do you?”
I felt eyes on me and shored up my courage to look across the stage at Dave. He was looking at me, his head tilted as if to say, “What the hell is going on?”
Yep, he totally knew it was me. I just smiled back at him and shrugged, waiting for what would come next.
“Well, you may not realize this, but we lost a member of Legion Thunder recently; Strutts Dempsey, a true legend, if ever there was one. But tonight, you got to witness part of his legacy with his grandson, Will Davidson.”
Eddie took the mic off the stand and stepped backward on the stage until he could see into the wings where Dave was standing, his guitar still slung over his shoulder, his mouth agape, a forgotten bottle of water in his right hand.
“Hey, Will,” Eddie said. “Why don’t you put that water down and come play Moonbeams in Her Eyes with us?”
Dave seemed to be frozen to his spot.
“C’mon, man,” Eddie laughed. “Don’t make me come and get you.”
That worked, causing Dave to take a swig of the water and come out of the wings and back onto the stage.
“You know the song, don’t you?” Eddie teased as he returned his mic to the stand and motioned for Dave to take center stage.
Dave finally smiled and swung his guitar back around before, without a word, he moved to Eddie’s mic and started playing the song. The song that had made his grandfather a household name.
The other guys joined in, playing along with the song’s opening and then, like he’d been waiting his whole life to do it, Dave opened his mouth and began to sing.
I’d heard him sing before, but not like this. Not with his voice thick with emotion and heart, singing for his grandfather and, though maybe he didn’t realize it, singing for himself. If I’d had any doubts about going through the trouble of putting this plan together, they dissolved in that moment.
“This is what you did, isn’t it?” Dad said from beside me breaking the spell of watching Dave sing.
Not wanting to miss a second of Dave’s performance, I reluctantly turned my head to face my father. “He said he wished he could have played on stage with his grandfather. I couldn’t make that happen, but I could do this.”
He nodded and looked back at Dave for a second before asking, “Why didn’t you do it with our guys?”
I gave him a sheepish look. “Because there was no time or place to rehearse. Also, this is only half of the surprise. I needed to keep it all a secret or it wouldn’t have worked.”
That earned me another wary look. “Half the surprise?”
“Um...trust me?” I asked.
Dad obviously wanted to watch the performance too, because he just muttered, “I guess I have to,” before he returned his gaze to the stage.
I let out a relieved breath, though I knew I wasn’t completely off the hook; if he or Dave were going to really get pissed about what I’d done, it would be about the second part that was still to come.