Chapter 23: Bringing It Home

Inglewood, California

April 9, 2000

It was the third show of the tour, the final appearance at the Forum before Jake, the band, and the road crew moved onto San Diego for a performance on the night of April 11, which was also Laura Kingsley’s thirty-fifth birthday. The musicians were backstage, enjoying the last few minutes of their intermission break. They were sitting in a loosely organized fashion, all of them with sweat soaking their stage outfits, their IEMs still out, allowing them to hear the hustle and bustle of the crowd as they began to get anxious for the show to start up for the second half.

By this point, everyone was comfortable performing their parts. They had been tested by fire and they knew they could do their jobs and do them well. Even Massa and Tif, the rookies, had seemingly settled into their roles with a confidence they could only have dreamed about three nights before.

“You think maybe after the San Diego show we can do it?” Laura whispered in Jake’s ear, a clear note of hopefulness in her tone.

Jake smiled and dropped his hand to her bare thigh to give it a squeeze. Her skin was warm and clammy and he could smell her girly sweat. “Maybe,” he said. “We’ll have to involve Ryan in this little scheme though, and likely Chris as well.”

“Naturally,” she said with a shrug. “But they’re professionals. They won’t bat an eye at finding us a little place to be alone for a bit.”

“That is true,” Jake had to agree.

What Laura was referring to was her desire (or perhaps obsession would be a better word) to have sex with her husband while both of them were still hot and sweaty from a performance. She had a bit of a fetish for getting it on with Jake or Celia while they were in such a state, but she had never gotten to do it while she herself was in such a state at the same time. She was eager to make the experiment. So far, however, since they were local and things worked differently when there were no hotels or travel involved, they had not been able to nail down a place to engage prior to the post-show shower.

“I want you to eat my pussy out when we do it,” Laura whispered to him. “That won’t gross you out or anything, will it?”

“No,” he said, quite honestly. He was not quite at fetish or obsession level on this subject, but he did want to give it a go. The thought of it was quite arousing to him. “I’m looking forward to the experience.”

Meanwhile, six feet away, Tif and Massa were sitting together on one of the packing crates. Tif was in a black miniskirt for tonight’s performance, one that fell to just below her upper thighs. She had on black leather boots that came up to just below her knees. Her legs were otherwise bare as she refused to wear nylons anymore during a performance because they were too hot and made her legs too sweaty. She had compromised with Victor on this issue. She agreed to wear panties beneath the skirt if he would not harass her about nylons.

“Listen,” Tif whispered in Massa’s ear, “I need another dose of my ointment tonight. Are you going to be able to ... you know?”

Massa flushed at her words and felt a jolt of excitement surge through him. At the same time, a surge of blood headed south and began to stiffen his member a bit. He was dressed in a pair of loose-fitting white slacks that complimented his black button-up Pierre Cardin short sleeved shirt. The shirt was sweat stained in the armpits and on the back. His pants were loose enough that no one would notice the bulge in his underwear—as long as he stayed seated. Still, he had to resist the urge to reach down and shift the rapidly swelling organ into a more comfortable position. “Uh ... yeah, I think I can provide your ointment for you, Tif,” he whispered back to her, his nose inhaling the intoxicating odor of her fresh perspiration, his eyes looking at the glistening tops of her breasts. He really wanted to lick the drops of sweat off of the soft flesh there. He felt a little boldness push his shyness aside. “I might have to ... uh ... you know ... put my hands on your boobs again though. You know? To help me finish up?”

“Oh yeah, totally,” Tif said happily. “Whatever it takes.” She put her hand down and squeezed his thigh a bit. “You’re a good friend, Massa. I really appreciate you helping me out like this all the time.”

“What are friends for?” Massa returned, managing to put an air of selfless helpfulness on his face for her. “And ... uh ... maybe if you like ... uh ... took off your pants while you did it?”

“You think that would help?” she asked.

“I think it might,” he said.

“Okay,” she chirped. “Anything for the cause, right?”

“Right,” he said, his manhood now a virtual rail spike in his pants. It was a good thing he did not need to go out for the first post-intermission number.

Ray, Josh, Daryl, and several other roadies appeared when the clock ticked down to 4:00 until resumption. They had the IEMs in their hands.

“Almost time, boss,” Ray told Jake as he handed them over.

Jake nodded, took one last swig of his Gatorade, killing the bottle, and then took the IEMs from his guitar tech. He powered them up and then installed them in his lateral head orifices, cutting off the sound of everything happening backstage. He could still hear the crowd noise, though it was coming from the ears and not from sound waves traveling through the atmosphere.

Once everyone had them powered up and back in, Logan Myers spoke a few words into his headset microphone. A moment later, Bart Morgenstern’s voice sounded. “All right, everyone, I got three minutes ten until you go back out. Give Logan a thumbs-up if you can hear me.”

Everyone gave a thumbs up to Logan.

“All right then,” Bart said. “Looks like we’re ready to play a few more tunes out there. Let’s bring it home.”

Jake stood up and walked to the backstage door. He would go out there alone for the first three minutes and forty-five seconds. When the band rejoined him, however, he would not be singing one of his songs. Steph was going to step up and throw down her tune, How Did This Happen?, which was currently number four on the Billboard chart and finally starting to fall.

Ray came over and handed Jake his Ibanez acoustic-electric. He put it over his shoulders and Ray plugged it into the box in the small of his back. He patted Jake on the shoulder and Jake gave him a devil’s horn gesture in return. He then peeked out and looked over the crowd of eighteen thousand. The house lights were still up so he could see them clearly.

At 00:20 on the countdown timer the house lights dimmed down and the entire arena was plunged into darkness. The roar of the crowd sounded in Jake’s ears and he took a deep breath. Moving slowly, carefully, mostly by feel, he made his way out onto the stage and positioned himself at front and center, just in front of his own microphone stand, less than four feet before the six-foot drop-off into the clear area where the stage camera operator roamed. He had a guitar pick in his right hand and the fingers of his left hand slowly grabbed on F-chord.

“All right, Jake,” Bart’s voice said in his ears. “The spot is coming on in five, four, three, two, one.”

The single spotlight came to life, illuminating Jake with his red Ibanez in hands and temporarily blinding him. At the same moment, he began to play, strumming out a simple progression at first while the audience cheered. The progression soon became more complex, more technical, with more energy and tempo. He tossed the pick into the crowd at one point and began to finger-pick his strings instead, throwing down a riveting flow that traveled up and down the fretboard. The crowd cheered wildly as he played and clapped along with whatever rhythm he set. If there was one thing that Jake could do as well as sing, it was play the acoustic guitar. He wowed the crowd quite thoroughly with his solo.

Most of the solo had been rehearsed over and over again, but not all of it. There were some stretches of pure and simple improvisation in there as well. The last such stretch was toward the end. He played up and down, laying down whatever felt good as he passed the three minutes and thirty seconds mark. Behind him, he could sense, but not see, Steph, Lucky, Doug, and James moving into position in the darkness. And then Bart’s voice spoke in his ears. “They’re in place, Jake. Wrap it up at will.”

He wrapped up the solo, bringing his improv back into a rehearsed finale that was a flurry of strumming with middle and index fingers and fretting with his left hand. He gave one final strum and then held his hands high, listening to the cheers in his ears. They went on for the better part of thirty seconds.

Jake backed up and stood behind his microphone stand. He remained the only one in the spotlight. He pulled another guitar pick from the holder and grasped it. “Thank you,” he told the audience. “It feels good to just be all alone and playing with yourself sometimes, you know what I’m saying?”

Cheers mixed with laughter were his response.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s start the second half here. I think I mentioned earlier that Stephanie Zool, my lead guitarist for this tour, is also the lead guitarist and one of the singers for a little group called Brainwash.”

Another round of cheers erupted.

“She is pretty badass,” Jake said. “And she’s going to open up this half with one of the tunes she did on the latest Brainwash release. You might have heard this on the radio a time or two. It’s a tune that asks all of us a pretty fundamental, yet strangely unanswerable question. Let’s do this.”

Jake began to strum out the opening to How, as they called it. As on the recording, it started with a simple acoustic guitar melody. When it was time for Steph to put in the first secondary melody with her distorted Telecaster, another spotlight lit up, illuminating her before her own microphone stand. Once the two of them were lit up and the rhythm section began to back them and Doug began to throw down the piano fills, the stage lighting gradually came back up to full, showing everyone.

Steph began to sing in her smoky contralto voice. She sang of war and racism, of homophobia and killing in the name of God. She sang of intolerance of every kind, of greed and hunger. And she wrapped up each verse with a simple chorus line that was repeated several times in several different methodologies: “I want to know how ... how did this happen?”

Jake continued to play the melody of the tune on his Ibanez while Steph laid down the distorted secondary melody, the fills, and then a slow-tempo solo just before the third and final verse. They played more firmly, with more power through the third verse and the outro, where Steph simultaneously played out an outro solo while continuing to sing “How ... I want to know how ... just how did this happen?” and other variations of the line.

They brought the tune home with a complex interplay between Jake and Steph that transitioned back to the opening acoustic melody played alone while Steph repeated the very first line of the tune to close it out: “I’ve been on this Earth for a few years now, and I can’t help but notice that it’s way too loud. Is there any hope ... any hope for the future?”

The crowd cheered and Steph thanked them. Jake walked over to her and held out his hand up to her. She slapped him a high five. He then walked back to his microphone.

“Stephanie fuckin’ Zool, LA!” he shouted. “Does that tune kick some ass, or what?”

Another round of cheers. Steph took a short bow, a gratified smile on her face.

Meanwhile, Tif came back out onto the stage and assumed her position. Massa came out as well, now equipped with his piezoelectric violin that was run through a pre-amp and set for distortion. Laura trotted out with her alto sax. Ray came out and helped Jake switch his Ibanez for the black Les Paul. It was time to play one of Jake’s most popular tunes of his solo career. A tune that had absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

Doug got them started, playing out the four on the floor melody on the synthesizer. The moment the crowd heard the first few notes, they stood as one and cheered loudly. They began to immediately clap their hands to the beat. James and Lucky kicked in and Massa began to lay down the secondary melody on the distorted violin while Laura played some sax fills. Jake, his guitar idle for the moment, stepped up the mic. He stepped on the number three pedal so his guitar would be right when it was time to start playing it. He then began to sing out the nonsense lyrics to The Song. Much of the crowd sang along with him, all with their own variations of what they thought he was actually singing.

The first chorus came and Jake jumped in with Steph, the two of them blasting out a heavy-metal style riff backed by powerful drum beats as Jake and Tif sang out the nonsense and gibberish to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd.

Oh no! Ohhhhh no!”

As he bellowed out the final syllable of the chorus, he let his guitar go silent once again. The rhythm section decreased the tempo of their playing back to the primary beat once again. Steph went back to playing out fills instead of a riff. Doug and Massa took over the primary melody while Laura played secondary and Jake sang out the second verse. They switched it back up again for the second chorus and then shifted to an entirely different tempo and rhythm for the bridge. Jake sang out the bridge lyrics in an angry, emotional voice, unsupported by Tif.

That brought them to the solo. Steph laid down the blistering solo that Jake had composed for the recording, playing it out exactly as the studio version with only the variance in phrasing to differentiate it. Jake stood behind her and supported her with a simple, repetitive version of the primary riff while James stood shoulder to shoulder with him. Laura and Tif, who had no part to play in this part of the song, stood companionably next to each other and danced to the rhythm. Tif was now shaking a tambourine against her right hip to the beat. The sound the tambourine was making did not make it into her microphone and therefore no one could actually hear it, but it made for a great visual and it made Tif feel like she was contributing musically to the tune instead of just vocally. She had actually thanked Jake many times during the rehearsals for teaching her how to play the tambourine and he had praised her endlessly on how quickly she had picked it up, even calling her “a natural” at it on several occasions. This was not even untruthful since the purpose of the tambourine was to provide that visual and since Tif, in addition to having the voice of an angel, was a fantastic dancer and had an almost supernatural sense of rhythm.

The solo wrapped up and they returned to the primary melody again, with Doug, Massa, and Laura laying it down. This time, however, Steph kept up the strong, heavy metal guitar fills and Jake hammered out a distorted electric version of the melody on his Les Paul while he and Tif sang out the hook line over and over again in triplet.

From there, Steph, Massa, and Laura began to alternate solos, one after the other, each time getting more complex and technical. Between each solo, Tif and Doug would sing out “The song plays because I made it so” in unison and Jake would follow with “Know what I’m sayin’?” before the next solo would start.

They did this for three solos apiece, one more than on the studio version, with the last of each soloist being lengthy and complex. From there, they transitioned into the live outro, which featured all the soloists playing in unison while Tif and Doug continued to repeat the hook line. After a cue of Jake playing a chopped chord toward the end of the rep, he belted out one last “Know what I’m sayin’?” and everyone came to a halt, ending the tune.

Once again, the volume of the crowd’s cheers was somewhat muted by the IEMs, but the power and energy was not. They felt the appreciation and love washing over them as they smiled and took a brief bow. This was definitely one of the high-water marks in the set.

Not bad for a song I deliberately wrote to be meaningless, Jake thought as he walked up to his microphone and gave the crowd a simple “Thank you.”

Jake walked over to the drum platform and took a quick swig of his Gatorade and then set the bottle back down. He was once again freely perspiring, his heart beating at around one hundred and thirty a minute. Stage hands came onto the stage. Ray helped him switch out his Les Paul for the Ibanez again. Another roadie switched out Laura’s alto sax for her soprano. Yet another helped Massa switch back to his primary violin.

Jake walked slowly back to his microphone and stepped on the number three pedal once again. He pulled another pick from the holder (after each song he threw the pick he had played it with into the audience, as did Steph). He grabbed an F-major chord and strummed a few times. He then began to play the opening melody for Any Given Sunday, which, to this point, had not yet been played on the radio in the US. Only those who had bought the CD were familiar with the non-bootleg version of the piece, but apparently there were a lot of them out there because they cheered loudly when they heard it. Massa, Laura, and Doug, as they had done on Got Away, did their very best to approximate the sound of the Cypress High School Orchestra with their instruments while Jake sang of lazy Sundays spent getting stoned with his wife out on the deck and watching the seabirds and looking at the trees and listening to the crashing of ocean waves while enjoying each other’s company.

After finishing up Sunday, Steph, Massa, and Tif left the stage. Jake kept the Ibanez and Laura kept the soprano sax. It was time to play the song they had bought that sax for originally.

“This is a song from my first CD,” Jake told the crowd. “I made mention of it earlier and now it’s time to lay it down. It’s a song that many people have embraced as an anthem about partying in some South Pacific paradise, but that’s not really what it’s about. I wrote it about a low point in my life and what I was going through during that period of darkness. It’s also the first song that Laura and I worked on together and it was during the composition of this song in a little recording studio up in coastal Oregon back in 1991 that we fell in love with each other.”

A cheer came from the crowd as they realized what he was about to play. The song required Jake and Laura to begin playing simultaneously, so Bart gave them a verbal four count in their ears. When he reached one, Jake began to strum out the primary melody while Laura blew out the sweet secondary on her soprano at the same time. Lucky and James kicked in with a gentle rhythm while Doug laid down some piano fills. Jake sang his tale of isolation on the South Island of New Zealand, of drinking his days and nights away, of trying to forget the pain of loss and bury the memories of failure. Laura laid down her solo to the cheers of the crowd and they brought the tune home, ending it exactly as the studio version.

“That was South Island Blur, everybody,” Jake told them as he pulled Laura’s sweaty body against his for a hug. “Laura Kingsley laying down that soprano sax. Let’s hear it for her one more time!”

They heard it for her one more time. It would be the last of the show. Laura would not be involved in any of the rest of the songs of the set. She left the stage, Tif and Massa following behind her.

Ray came back out and switched Jake back to his black Les Paul. Steph trotted out with a Les Paul of her own, this one tuned to a drop-E configuration to produce a higher pitched melody for the next tune. It was Drive Time, one of the cuts from Jake’s second CD. It was not his most popular tune but it had enjoyed some decent airtime midway through the promotion period of the CD and was still occasionally played on the hard rock stations, usually by late night DJs or during request periods. It was a moderately hard rocker that had Jake switching between clean and distorted output throughout. The crowd enjoyed it as it had an addictive primary beat and featured some impressive guitar work by Steph and an impressive piano solo by Doug (a solo that had originally been composed by Cindy Archer).

As the cheers washed over them, Steph and Tif left the stage, leaving only Jake, Doug, Lucky, and James. Jake walked back to his microphone stand and looked down at the first effects pedal in the line. It was a special pedal that had a plastic tube coming out of it. That tube was taped to the side of the microphone stand itself and the end of it was tucked into a little pocket currently. It would soon be time to put that pedal to use for the first and only time in the show.

“This is a song from my second CD,” Jake told the audience. “It’s one of the deep cuts so it didn’t get much airplay at the time it came out, but it’s always been one of my favorites because it’s about one of my favorite things to do in this life: flying high up in the sky.”

The audience cheered loudly and Jake began to play the opening melody for I Am High. He played it more or less exactly the same as he had played it at the Tsunami Sound Festival, all eleven and a half minutes’ worth. He handled all guitar duties himself, the melodies, the riffs, the solos, proving to the crowd that he could hold his own as a lead guitarist and shred some serious chords. Much of the crowd had heard the TSF version played on the radio, but the vast majority of them had not been at the TSF and had not realized it had been Jake laying down the guitar for the tune and not a hired gun lead guitarist. They cheered loudly and appreciably and respectfully with each solo. And then, after Doug’s keyboard solo (“Doug Foreman on the keyboards! Doug Foreman!” Jake shouted out after it was done) when he pulled the little tube out of the holder, put his mouth on it, and stepped on the number one pedal, they went nearly insane.

He played out the talk box sequence to perfection—this had been the hardest part to perfect during rehearsals, both for the TSF and the Millennial Tour but sheer repetition had ingrained it for him—including the talking guitar. He then played out one last wide-ranging solo of nearly two minutes and then an extended outro that ended with yet another solo accompanied by pounding drums.

He received a standing ovation that lasted nearly three minutes once the song was complete. He bowed several times and then, when everyone begin taking their seats again, he returned back to the drum platform and chugged some more Gatorade while he caught his breath. Performing High took a lot out of him, particularly the ending. His heart was now close to a hundred and forty beats a minute and the sweat was pouring off his face and down his neck.

Steph, meanwhile, had returned to the stage, her red Telecaster in her hands once again. Tif was back at her microphone. Laura and Massa remained backstage. Jake walked back to his microphone stand, checked to make sure he was still on number three effects pedal, and then, without waiting for a cue, began to play out the opening for Ocean View. The crowd cheered loudly again—it was one of Jake’s most popular hard rockers—and he and Steph played out the dueling guitars interplay with a chemistry that was almost equal to what he and Celia had managed when they had first put the tune together. All four of the singers sang the choruses in harmony with each other (Tif without her tambourine because Jake had told her that it did not fit in with a hard rock number) and they wrapped it up with an extended playout of guitar solos, dual riffs, a piano solo, and then a combo off all instruments and voices in unison that finally came to an intense finale.

The crowd cheered. Jake and Steph threw their guitar picks into the crowd. Lucky launched his drumsticks out there to join them. Jake stepped back up to the microphone.

“Thank you, Los Angeles!” he shouted. “You’ve been great! We’ll see you the next time around!”

They left the stage one by one, Jake bringing up the rear and giving one last wave before he stepped through the doorway. The house lights did not come up. The stage lights remained lit. The show was not really over and everyone out there knew it. They began to cheer louder, stomping their feet and clapping in rhythm. Their voices cried out in unison: “More, more, more!”

The band stayed near the stage left door. They did not remove their ears. Jake, Steph, and Lucky did not put their instruments down. They just stood there, catching their breath a little, feeling the sweat dripping down, and watching the clock, which was now counting down from four minutes—the amount that had been budgeted for the encore break. Ray brought Jake a fresh bottle of Gatorade and he swigged from it. Laura walked over to him and put her arm around him, snuggling her body into his for a moment. It looked like a wifely display of affection, but it really was not. She just wanted to feel his hot, sweaty body against hers and inhale the odor of his exertional perspiration.

He gave her a kiss—a kiss that was a bit more than affectionate as well—and she released him. She flashed him a devil’s horn and he flashed one right back at her. She then returned to her seat on one of the packing crates. Already one of the roadies had taken her two saxophones and moved them over to an instrument gathering corner for when they started the teardown in thirty more minutes.

The clock ticked down and was soon near zero.

“All right,” said the voice of Bart in their ears, “y’all coming back out, or what?”

Jake looked at his musicians and gave a nod. He then turned and stepped through the stage door, back out onto the stage. The cheers erupted even louder as soon as they saw him. Steph, Tif, Lucky, and James followed him out and resumed their places. Doug and Massa stayed backstage for now.

“All right,” Jake told the crowd, feigning exasperation. “I guess we have time for a few more.”

With that, he began to play the opening melody for A Drop in the Bucket, one of the most popular songs from his third CD. Steph and the rhythm section joined in while Tif and Steph both sang backup. It was one of Jake’s tunes with no guitar solo, so they just ground through it and ended with the same outro and finale as on the studio version. The audience was very appreciative of the first encore.

Massa and Doug then came out to join them for the last two numbers. They performed Take A Good Look Around, also from the third CD and then, after the closing guitar solo and finale, Jake stepped back up to the microphone.

“One more,” he told the crowd, “and then we really have to get going. We got a gig to do in San Diego soon.”

The crowd cheered.

“This is a tune from my latest CD, a tune that seems to have grown on people, particularly parents. It’s a song that started as a melody I used to strum out for my daughter Caydee while she was still just a bundle in Laura’s belly. After she was born I added the lyrics, lyrics that are a reflection of the love I feel for the little life I helped create, that I’m helping to raise, and for the love that I see in her eyes when she looks at me. This is called Winter Frost.”

They played out what was arguably Jake’s most popular and beloved song of both the Intemperance and his solo era. The crowd were all on their feet as he sang it, most of them singing along, more than a few of them with tears in their eyes. As in the studio version, the song kicked into high gear after the second chorus, with both guitars going distorted and Massa backing off and ceasing to play the violin melody. Steph laid down a lengthy, technical solo that lasted several minutes and then Doug laid down a fast-paced keyboard solo, all while Jake kept up the backing riff on his Les Paul. They gradually brought the tempo back down. Jake resumed playing clean and Massa stepped back up to set the secondary. Steph went back to doing simple fills and Doug switched back to piano sound. Jake and Tif then sang out the final chorus, which brought the song to an end on a final drawn out note from Jake and a few more strums of the primary melody.

And with that, the show was really over. Jake threw one last pick into the crowd and set his guitar down carefully on the stage after spinning the volume to zero. Steph and James did the same. Jake spoke into his microphone. “And that’s really it this time, my friends. We’ll be back this way again.”