“Great,” Edgar said.
They ran through another song, sounding amazing, and then they were done. It was our turn. They moved their gear to the back of the stage, making room for us to set up in front of them, and as Socks and Edgar began lifting our amps up to the stage, I found myself standing next to Jamie, one of the guitarists.
“How was your drive up?” he said, grinning at me.
I smiled back. “Not bad. Took awhile. Are you guys going for food now or anything?”
“I think we’re gonna wait for you guys. Check out your soundcheck, and we can all go grab food if you guys feel like it,” he said. He pushed his blond hair behind his ears in what seemed like a nervous gesture.
“That sounds good,” I said. He was still smiling at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back, but now there was going to be an awkward silence. I could feel us careening towards it. “Well, I guess I should get up there,” I said, and climbed onstage.
Turning back, I saw Billy whisper something to Jamie, who then punched him good-naturedly in the arm, and they both looked back at me and smiled, then walked to join the others at one of the tables. For some reason that filled me with a stupid good feeling, and I smiled to myself. Jamie was pretty cute.
We started our soundcheck and launched confidently into “Skinner,” one of our newer songs that we hadn’t performed at the last show. Everything seemed to go smoothly for us, and after we’d finished, the Torn Bowel guys clapped and whistled. The sound guy seemed happy with it, and so were we. Because we were going on first we left our gear set up.
We all went to a sushi place a few blocks away and got a big table together. It was a really good atmosphere, everyone talking happily. I got a seat next to Fern, and Jamie sat on the other side of me.
I hadn’t had sushi before, and Fern helped me pick something from the menu that didn’t sound too scary. As the dishes started arriving, I eyed everyone else’s choices of weird, nasty-looking slimy fish slices and was glad I’d chosen my cucumber and rice rolls.
“So you guys are from Keeleford. I’ve never been there. What’s it like?” Jamie asked, lifting a wet-looking piece of raw salmon to his mouth.
I told him about our city, how small it was, how dull. It had been okay when I was a kid, with the river downtown and the trails on the outskirts. He’d grown up here in Port Claim and told me about how he’d enjoyed living by the lake, how he and his friends camped in the forests beside it, and about how the city had grown and good clubs were starting to crop up. A better place than Keeleford to start a band, I guess.
At the other end of the table, PJ, their drummer, started telling a story about how last winter over the holidays they’d booked a two-week tour across the country, had driven in their van through the snow, almost froze to death, didn’t spend the holidays with their families, and barely anyone had shown up to any of the shows so they’d lost all their money. It sounded pretty depressing to me, but they were all laughing about it, so I joined in too.
Socks was completely in his element, goofing off and telling stories of his own about bands he’d been in. Even Edgar, who was usually pretty quiet, was happy and chatting. I mainly sat and listened without offering much, but it was great. Such a far cry from the attitude we’d gotten from Heathenistic Bile. I wondered which was more common: snobby assholes or friendly people, when it came to musicians. I wanted to talk about Paul and his cronies, figuring that was a pretty funny story I could bring up, but at the same time I wasn’t sure if Torn Bowel knew them or were friends or something, and I didn’t want to look like a jerk.