Center Stage
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 17
We weren’t playing a music-specific venue for our final show. Instead, they’d put us in the arena usually used for a professional basketball team, which held twenty-five thousand people, more than even the Hollywood Bowl held. The setup was similar to that of the Times Square show, where the center was a stage with people seated all around and a path to walk out from a ‘backstage’ area that was where the teams prepared when they played games there.
I’d gotten there fairly early, but the place was already filling up and it looked to be a good crowd. This would be my largest show so far, at least if I only counted the ones where I was headlining.
Strangely, I wasn’t nervous. Maybe I’d done enough of these shows that it had become routine. As I had with every show, I first went to find the stage manager and go over that weekend’s sets. Every venue had its own little quirks requiring cue changes, lighting changes, or slight alterations to the staging, and I’d quickly found that it was helpful to know what those were when I was doing my sound check. Especially if it was staging changes. Being on stage before the performance, seeing where everything was going to be, and knowing how it was going to work without the screaming fans, bright lights, and pressure to play was helpful.
Since this would be a performance ‘in the round’, as the stage manager called it, I guess meaning there were people on all sides of us, there were some small changes on where I needed to go and where the mics would be set up. My entry would also be a little different, as I couldn’t just pop out from the wings when it was time for my duet with Dexter. The walk from the back area was pretty long and took almost a minute, most of which would be through groups of fans, separated by some rope lines and barricades.
It wasn’t difficult and it only took about twenty minutes with the stage manager to go through the changes.
As I thanked her and was about to head out to start my sound check, she said, “Hey, just one more thing. We’re totally sold out, so be prepared for it being pretty crazy tonight. Actually, I think they oversold it.”
“Really? Ohh ... great,” I said.
She waved me off and headed to talk to the next set of performers. We’d had good crowds every stop on the tour and had sold out several of the venues, including the Hollywood Bowl, but none of them had held this many people. We were a good seven thousand above the next-largest venue on the tour. In fact, only the Times Square show had been bigger, but I still didn’t count that since I’d gone on so early in the show.
While it was possible for us to sell out a larger venue, selling out in Los Angeles was much easier than selling out in Atlanta, for whatever reason, so the fact that we had, made me think maybe Quinn’s plan had worked.
Not that I would really know until later tonight. Quinn had kept me updated on the social media push and how it was going, but it was all kind of vague numbers that didn’t really mean anything to me. While I hadn’t exactly forgotten about it, I’d basically pushed it out of my brain by the time I’d landed in Atlanta, not giving it much thought until now.
I gave a shrug to no one in general because it didn’t really matter at the moment. It wouldn’t change how I prepared for my set, which I needed to start doing. I headed toward the stage to do my part of the sound check and was just at the place where I’d open the door to walk out through the pathway to the stage when I heard two people arguing just outside the door. That was one of the biggest things I’d learned on this tour. Musicians lived for drama. I’d had enough of that in my life and didn’t particularly want to walk through a fight, so I paused, stepping aside so they wouldn’t see me and make it weird.
It wasn’t until I stood there for a few minutes that I realized who the voices belonged to. It was Julie Jackson and Vince Fiore, and they were really going at it.
“Get off your high horse, Vince. You’ve been pulling me down ever since I came on the tour.”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m at least supposed to be here. You’re some washed-up has been still living off your one big moment like five years ago. Your album sold, what, four thousand copies?”
“At least I had an album. You haven’t done crap. If they hadn’t had to call you up from the minors, you’d still be playing open mics at coffee bars.”
“Well, I’m playing now, and they signed me, so someone must think I have something to offer. Just stay out of my way,” Vince shouted.
I could hear him coming toward me about a second before the door slapped open, giving me nowhere to run. He paused for a second as we made eye contact, but he didn’t say anything before continuing to storm off.
“Hit your marks, and I will,” Julie shouted after him.
A moment later, she came through, also stopping when she saw me. She didn’t continue walking, however.
“Charlie, just the person I wanted to see,” she said, as if I hadn’t heard everything.
The fact that she was still trying this fake nice act, after I’d already made it clear I could see right through it, was pretty amazing. But we were on our last stop, so getting into a fight with her certainly wasn’t worth it.
“What do you need?” I said, fighting very hard to keep my tone neutral.
“I finally got my producers to get off their asses and push my new album forward again, and I’ve got this great idea for a duet for the two of us. I can’t guarantee it will be the title track, but it will be in a good spot for sure. With my career on another upswing and yours starting to pick up, this is a great opportunity for both of us.”
I couldn’t tell if she’d bought into her own marketing or if she was just trying to sell me on the idea in hopes of using me, but either way, there was no way I wanted to collaborate with her.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m gonna have to pass,” I said. “I’ve got some stuff lined up after the tour that I need to focus on.”
The look on her face told me the second possibility was right. For a second, she was annoyed, but she pulled it back under control fast.
“Are you sure? You won’t get another shot like this and you’re about to lose your spotlight. This is your one chance to build on the momentum you’ve built here.”
“Maybe, but yeah. I’m sure.”
“Your loss, I guess,” she said, all trace of her fake sincerity gone.
She lifted up her nose and just walked away, following the path Vince had taken. I put them out of my mind and went on stage to do my sound check, happy to just be able to focus on my job and what I needed to do.
After the sound check there was a chunk of time where I couldn’t really leave, but I didn’t have anything else to do. I found myself wandering around the “backstage” area just checking out what was happening, and ended up at Dexter’s dressing room.
Normally I would have left him alone, since he usually had his door closed when he was there but not performing, but today it was standing open, so I stopped at it, leaning on the door frame.
“Last one,” I said.
“Yep, it is at that. It’s been good, being up on stage again.”
“What do you mean, again? Didn’t you have a tour like a year and a half ago?”
“Yeah, but nothing since then. You’re telling me you’d settle for a tour every two or so years?”
“Yeah. Okay. You have a point. You should be out there more often though. The crowd loves you.”
“I know I might come off as a putz every now and then, Charlie, but I am a little self-aware. I don’t have the juice to carry my own tour anymore. At least not at a level that wouldn’t be an embarrassingly large step-down. It was good riding some coattails, though.”
“Come on. You played Madison Square Garden. You don’t have to ride anyone’s coattails.”