Chapter 11

Carl was the first one in the barn the next morning and nearly had his drums all set up when Billy arrived with a bag of donuts and a cup of coffee. He sat down and watched Carl do his thing. Karina stepped out of the sound room having just hooked up the wires to the stage monitors and began moving them back into place for rehearsals. A mega-watt smile spread across her face when she looked up and saw Billy sitting there.

“God morgen søvnig hode, sov du godt?”

“Ja, det gjorde jeg og deg?” Billy replied absentmindedly.

Karina jumped up and down like a little schoolgirl while clapping her hands. “You remembered!!!” Her elation flagged a bit when Billy’s enthusiasm didn’t match hers so she got back to the business at hand.

“These monitors are a pain, but I guess we have no choice, huh?”

Without thinking, Billy replied “In-ear monitors are much better, I can’t wait until they get invented.”

Karina stopped in her tracks and her head snapped over towards Billy. “Excuse me?”

Billy snapped out of his trance and looked towards Karina after first checking out Carl. “Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud, never mind me.”

“Just sit there and relax. I’ve got everything covered, but it will cost you a donut or two. Those things are just sinfully good!” she replied.

Billy went back into his trance-like state, staring into nowhere. Almost as if on cue, the three sisters entered as the last electrical connections were hooked up. They had an energy about them that was infectious and it helped jolt Billy out of his funk. Despite her good mood, Janneke gave Billy an awkward smile.

He stood up and addressed his singer. “Jan, I’d like to have a word with you. Outside.”

She grimaced as she looked at her two sisters and reluctantly dragged her feet as she made her way towards the exit.

Billy’s arms were crossed despite not wanting to come across as angry. “You went from nearly being incapacitated by anxiety to very relaxed last night right before we went on stage. May I ask how that came to be?”

Janneke’s shoulders slumped and she couldn’t look Billy in the eyes. “I ... uhh...” The words were not coming out and Billy just stood there patiently. “Some guy approached me and asked if I needed help with my nerves. He gave me a funny little cigarette-like thing and told me it would help. He was right, it did.”

“What about New Years Eve? Was it the same guy?”

Janneke’s eyes went to the ground and her shoulders slumped. “Same guy” she whispered.

“That was pot, Janneke. Marijuana, weed.”

“Yes, I know. It is very prevalent in Amsterdam.”

“Well, I enjoy the occasional hit like any anyone else would, but you can’t rely on that stuff to help you perform whether it be on stage or in life. If you require something to get you high or drunk in order to perform, it’s not going to end well. There are many artists that would tell you that if they were still alive. When it comes to this band, you need to stay away from it. I know you guys don’t have much money, how are you paying for it?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “He just gives it to me, says he likes to hear me sing.”

“You don’t typically get something for nothing. At some point, he will ask you for something and I’m willing to bet that price will be a little higher than you’re willing to pay.”

Her head was still down in embarrassment. “I’m very sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Billy took Janneke in his arms and kissed her forehead: “You did a great job last night. I’m proud of you. I’m just looking out for you.”

Janneke twisted her way out of his arms “I don’t need you or anyone else taking care of me.” Billy was shocked at her sudden and extreme change in mood.

The band spent the next hour and a half talking about and analyzing the performance when Tiffany popped her head in with a smile on her face. “Great news, guys. The promoter for the Battle of the Bands was at the contest last night and said you could have an extra ten minutes if you want it.” Beth looked around excited and asked “What songs should we add to the set?”

“I have two that I really want to do after what happened last night” Billy said without really thinking. Janneke’s head shot around and in an icy tone said: “What do you mean ‘after what happened’?”

Billy spent the next fifteen minutes explaining how Cindy cornered him and Carl injected a few observations of his own.

Doortje asked: “Why is it that so much goes on around here that we don’t know about?”

“You’re on a ‘need to know’ basis” replied Billy, “Let me worry about things and you concentrate on the music.”

“I politely request ‘Kill That Bitch’” Janneke said with a conviction they’d never seen before and nobody knew if she was being serious or not.

Everyone chuckled and Billy replied: “I’d love to, but two things: 1) we aren’t ready for that song and couldn’t be ready in a week and 2) I don’t think the audience is ready for that song. We don’t want to get a bad reputation so early in our career. May I suggest ‘Bye Bye Beautiful’ (Nightwish) and ‘Romanticide’ (Nightwish)? Janneke, at the end of ‘Romanticide’, you are going all the way to the top of the register with a banshee-like scream. They won’t know what hit ‘em, there’ll be no doubt you rule the singing world.”

“With an iron fist? I’ve always wanted to rule with an iron fist!” she asked hopefully.

Billy chuckled, “OK, one iron fist coming up.”

An evil smile slowly spread across her face. “I’m in. I can’t believe I want to show her up so badly. It’s not like me!”

Doortje spoke up: “Its about time, sis. You’ve been a doormat since you got here, you need to start standing up for yourself!”

“OK, it’s settled ... We’ll add those two to the setlist. One more thing: Doortje and Beth will start doing more background harmonies to increase our tapestry of sound.

They both replied “We will?” in unison.

“Also, I’m working with some kids from the school orchestra on a future song. Just FYI.”

Carl tilted his head much like a dog does when it hears something interesting. “FYI? What does that mean?”

Before Billy could kick himself for using another 21st century colloquialism, Beth blurted out: “It means for your information.” She immediately cringed and Billy’s head whipped around to look at her so fast he felt lightheaded for a second. All she could do was shrug her shoulders.

“Where’d you pick that up from? Never heard it before” asked Carl.

“I just made it up” Billy replied nervously hoping Carl would let it slide.

“Then how did Beth know?”

“She, uh, probably heard me use it before or is a really good guesser.”

Billy wrote down the setlist on a chalk board and set it up for everyone to see. Once everyone was in their place and they were ready to begin, Janneke interrupted the four-count into the first song. “Uh, what do I say in-between songs? It’s hard enough to sing in front of everyone, but talk to them? What if I get disconjugated?”

Billy and Carl exploded in laughter and the girls to a lesser extent. “Uh, do you mean discombobulated?”

Janneke’s face turned beet red.

“It’s OK” Carl said. “I apologize for laughing so hard. Don’t worry about it. You have my permission to laugh at me if I ever say anything wrong in your language!”

Janneke smiled, but the red in her face was not going away very fast. Billy added: “KISS”

It was Beth’s turn to cock her head. “KISS? The band? I swear, you talk so strange most of the time.”

“Actually,” Billy continued. “It means a lot of different things to different people, but I see it as: Keep It Simple & Short. Since it was brought up, we’ll use them an example, in the first two KISS Alive albums, Paul Stanley says a lot of nonsensical things between the songs. It sounds cool if you’re not really paying attention, but were you to read a transcript or break it down, you’d wonder what drugs he was on. Scratch that, Paul is a genius at making mundane things sound really interesting.”

Janneke’s eyes shot to the ground.

“Not that I think you will, but don’t get political or social, just think professional. ‘I hope you like this next song’ would be fine. Maybe a short blurb about what it’s about or how it came to be. Remember, they are not here to hear you talk, just sing.”

It was Carls turn to laugh this time. “Like I really know what half of these songs are about,, dude. I just go along because it sounds cool and is fun to play.”

Beth saw her opening and added, “No, you are a caveman and banging on things is what you do! You go along because it gives legitimacy to your urges.”

Carl comically held his hands over his heart and feigned a heart attack.

Billy knew he had to stop this in its tracks because Beth loved to playfully rip on Carl so he continued thought process with a slightly rounder voice: “Don’t worry, I’ll help you think of something to say for each song if you want.”

When practice was finished, Janneke pulled Billy aside privately “Thank you for your encouragement last night while we were playing. Beth told me you guys had a plan to replace me if I chickened out. Did you really think I would?”

“My gut told me you would be there but this was too important not to have a backup plan. Last night was a defining moment for everyone in the band, we stepped out there despite whatever fears or insecurities we might’ve had and executed when the pressure was on. We both know you are made out of tougher stuff than what you thought and now we know for sure!”

She leaned over and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for being you and all the things you’ve done for me and my sisters. It will not be forgotten.”

The band members weren’t quite rock stars at school the following Monday, but they did get more attention than they were comfortable with, although Carl loved it, especially the female attention. Janneke avoided eye contact with most people and tried to always be with one of her sisters in an attempt to be unapproachable or deflect attention. Cindy and her cohorts repeatedly reminded everyone that SHE won the contest but nobody bought it except her sycophants.

Lunchtime had an unknown guy approach Billy: “Hey man, I saw your gig the other night and you guys sure were groovy. That’s a real interesting sound you have, I’d like to pick your brain some time. My name is Zack Wylde and I have a band entered this Saturday, hope to see you there. Good luck, man” and then he walked off.

The band practiced for three hours every night leading up to the contest. Monday through Wednesday were dedicated to improving the technical part of the performance. The notes and timings had to be spot-on and the sound had to be perfect. Thursday and Friday were dedicated to working the gig as a whole which included choreography, talking to the crowd, transitions and ending the set. It was basically the entire set end to end over and over.

Stage presence and talking between songs was something Janneke feared so the decision was to limit what was said and focus on the music. Not many people come to concerts to listen to the band talk a bunch of crap, anyways. Since it was an outdoor venue and space wasn’t much of an issue, Billy was going to experiment with some subwoofers he’d been working on. In addition to wowing the crowd with musicianship, he wanted hearing doctors to be booked for the next several weeks. They would be the third to last band to perform, so there wouldn’t be enough darkness for a full visual light show. The girls would wear their black leather dresses and the idea was for Janneke to change into her white dress for the last song, but from an execution standpoint, it just wasn’t possible since there was nowhere for her to change nor was there enough time between the songs. Maybe they’d figure out wardrobe changes at a later time but right now the focus would be execution.

Billy, Carl and Karina arrived as early as they could in order to schmooze the soundboard operators and make sure their sound equipment would be placed in the correct positions and wired properly without having to work around a lot of other people. It was a good thing Tiffany was able to arrange their inclusion into the setup process. Most bands at that time could care less about the technical aspect and just wanted to plug in and play. Billy had many suggestions during setup and it only took thirty minutes to earn their trust and respect. In a bit of a selfish move, he made sure they were the only band to use the extra speakers and subwoofers he installed. No use making others sound better since that worked against them.

The competition was better than expected and there were some truly talented individuals, but each band as a whole had some major weakness that made them look amateurish. The order in which bands performed was ruled by a vague merit system. The better, more established bands typically played towards the end so being a brand new band and having a prestigious slot towards the end was viewed as a breach of protocol by the other bands. They did not appreciate being bumped down the totem pole by an unknown band.

The Oceanborn members were supposed to meet an hour before stage time to have a team huddle and make sure everyone was was mentally ready to take the stage. Janneke was nowhere to be seen and nobody could remember having seen her recently.

Zack walked up to Billy and shook his hand again. “Hey, what do you think? You getting nervous?”

Billy replied “I’m more nervous that everyone isn’t here at the appointed time.”

“Dude, this is rock-n-roll, let it slide. You’ll be fine.”

It was at that point it hit Billy. ‘Zack ... Zack Wylde... ‘ “Hey!” Billy blurted out unintentionally, “You’re the guitarist for Oz...” and then abruptly shut up.

Zack looked at him funny, “Guitarist for who? Ozzy? Like, who wouldn’t want to be? Ain’t gonna happen because Randy Rhoads was made to order for Ozzy. They are a perfect pair.”

Billy was mentally kicking himself once again. This knowing the future stuff was harder than one would think. “Hey, never mind. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wish you luck.”

They shook hands again and Zack wondered off. The minutes ticked by and just as Billy was about to start making set adjustments, the girls showed up with Janneke in tow. She had a “don’t care attitude” and Doortje made a sniffing sound while nodding her head towards her older sister to let Billy know what was going on.

The lights went out as the preceding band finished their set and the roadies took to the stage to make the necessary changes for Oceanborn. This being a low budget presentation, there were no curtains hiding the stage activity between bands so there was no hiding what went on. Billy went out to make a cursory inspection to confirm everything was configured properly. He made a few hand signals with Tiffany in the soundbooth and returned from whence he came.

Upon receiving his cue, Carl tiptoed his way up into the trap set and the crowd had a minor surge in noise as they saw movement on stage. Peeking out from behind the drums while he twirled the sticks between his fingers, he figured there must be several thousand people out there which was a good turnout for these events. The appearance of Doortje and Beth onstage ignited more excitement from the crowd. Billy and Karina were poised at the rear of the stage ready for the count-in and Janneke wouldn’t make her entrance until a good minute and a half into the song. Karina was poised to take over as lead vocalist should anything unexpected happened, such as Janneke not appearing as planned. The clicking of the high hats signaled the start of ‘Dark Chest of Wonders’ and Billy started the intro. Doortje positioned herself close to the drum riser so Billy could move around the stage unencumbered. Near the 50 second mark, Beth went into her keyboard intro and Tiffany expertly adjusted the mix so the keyboard was the primary auditory focus. The drums had a steady beat and the new subwoofer’s were doing their job assaulting the audience which caused Tiffany to give a thumbs up sign knowing nobody onstage would see it. Unknown to Billy, the front row of the audience momentarily staggered backwards a few steps when the subwoofers kicked in, but they were back at the security rail in full force enjoying physical sensations they’d never felt at a concert before.

Without looking, the band knew when Janneke walked out because the audience amped up the rowdiness even more. She looked stiff as a board from fright but her voice was nailing it. Both Billy and Doortje would occasionally walk up to her and let their presence be known in an effort to loosen up the terrified singer which worked to a very small extent. The extra vocal parts from Karina, Beth and Doortje were sounding good and all hoped the complex harmonizations would be well received by the judges. Normally, in these cases, you never know if the judges just want to rock or if they have some kind of appreciation of music, but when Cindy is involved you have to assume something underhanded will occur.

As the last chord died down and Beth transitioned into ‘Bye Bye Beautiful’, Janneke stepped up to centerstage in the full illumination of the spotlight and said “I’d like to dedicate this next song to a certain girl at our school, you know who you are...” Beth and Billy shot each other a double take as a big frown came over Doortje’s face. This was not expected or even suggested but they moved forward regardless. Inwardly, Billy’s stomach was knotting up knowing he had to nail not only the forceful guttural vocals but wanted to project a little bit of craziness while doing it. It was a good thing nobody there had ever heard or seen Marco (Nightwish bassist) sing because it would’ve put Billy to shame, at least in Billy’s eyes. If it had been darker, he would’ve had a floor lamp shining upwards to give the spooky shadows on the face, but you gotta work with what you got. Janneke and Karina had worked with him for hours to get the necessary throaty reverberation to have the desired effect and he wasn’t fully confident he could pull it off. Janneke slinked into the shadows to await her cue while Beth held on to the airy, churchy ambient sound effects with her right hand while her left hand was on a second keyboard played the lead-in. Janneke made her way back to center stage doing a little dance to the beat and settled in next to Doortje as the first verse began. With only the keyboard, bass and drums accompanying her, she held the audience captive with each note until all four girls harmonized the “everything in ruins” part which gave Billy goosebumps nearly causing him to miss his mark.

Since the song was simple from a sound engineers’ perspective, Tiffany took the time to study the crowd’s reaction to the music. She often wondered why rock music had such a strong reaction in people but was starting to understand why. Billy stepped up to the mic and Tiffany deftly slid his level to the desired setting and he let it rip with everything he had, forgetting about wether he could pull it off or not. There was something about being in the moment that allowed people to turn off their insecurities and just perform and this was one of those times for Billy. Janneke was timidly moving around the stage pointing to various people in the front row to acknowledge their presence and even Doortje was starting to bebop to the rhythm. When the ‘bye bye beautiful’ part came around, the girls unexpected harmonization surprised him for a second until he realized how good it sounded. His eyes shot over to Doortje and she returned a toothy grin along with a shoulder shrug. That was something they had never done in practice so he made a mental to talk to them about it later.

The background vocals for the second chorus again caused goosebumps to wash over Billy’s arms. Just when everything seemed to be going great, disaster struck during the “how blind can you be, don’t you see” part, simultaneously, Janneke and Billy were hit by several eggs. She took the brunt of it on her upper torso and stomach, but Billy got nailed in the throat and the face causing him to stumble backwards momentarily missing a few notes until he was able to get his bearing back. Karina expertly switched to cover his vocal part while walking up to where Janneke had been standing and was nearly run over by her slightly younger half-sister fleeing the stage in a panic. By the time Karina got there, Billy was back on his vocal part which allowed her to pick up Janneke’s mic and put it back onto the stand.

Tiffany was appalled to see the eggs flying thru the air and was able to back track them to see where they had come from. She saw a maelstrom of movement in the crowd and watched it long enough to see Cindy and a few of her friends pushing frantically thru the crowd. The third chorus hit and Karina expertly took up Janneke’s lead vocals but that meant they would not be able to do the new harmonies anymore. It wasn’t the cleanest transition, but you can’t train for these things and the fact they didn’t stop in train wreck fashion was testament enough to their courage and professionalism. By the time the song ended, the scuffle in the crowd had subdued a few people were being led away by security. The hurt in Billy’s soul made the final scream of the song even that much more authentic.

Billy stood there feeling ridiculous for a second with yolk and egg shell splattered all over his face and running down his shirt. With a big smile, he stepped boldly up to the mic and said: “I guess the yolk is on me, huh?” and the crowd erupted in laughter. “Please give us a second, our brains seems to be scrambled a bit” which caused another round of laughter. Janneke came back onto the stage wiping herself off with a towel and the crowed cheered loudly for her. She tossed another towel at Billy and walked up the mic she had abandoned moments before. Janneke’s dress cleaned off OK since it was leather, but there was still some egg in her hair not to mention the sticky feeling of where it had been on her arms and legs. She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts while she looked at each of her bandmates. The stage fright was now long gone, at least for this night. The look on Beth’s face was of pure hatred and even Doortje had an uncharacteristic frown.

Janneke addressed the crowd, “I’d like to thank my bandmates for covering my unscheduled absence. I don’t think you’ll find many musicians who can adjust as quickly as they did in the manner they did. Please give them a hand!” The audience roared in approval and Janneke continued, “Since we seem to still have all our limbs and appendages unlike Humpty Dumpty here <pointing to a broken egg on the ground next to her>, I think we will finish what we started, shall we?” Her accent was heavier due to the trauma she just experienced.

“Be careful of falling objects...” she said and turned to Beth who started the intro for “When Angels Fall” (Beyond the Black) and then something very un-Janneke-like happened, she stepped up to the front of the stage and starting leading the crowd with a fist pump yelling ‘HEY’ to the beat. Though he never said anything about it, Billy knew this next song was a little risky as he expected some to scream “devil music”. When his growling part came, he used more of a low gravel voice due to the fact the fans probably weren’t ready for a full growl. The guitar solo was fun to do especially when Doortje and Karina joined him front stage to start some playful shenanigans. All in all, it was a good song, but not their best. Adjustments would need to be made or it would be dropped, but that was for another time.

The only intro for ‘Romanticide’ was Janneke yelling out “Are you ready to rock????” After she repeated it a few times, Billy started the intro and Janneke began windmilling her hair. Doortje and Karina joined her center stage but Billy’s hair wasn’t long enough so he hung out in the short haired section of the stage. The funny thing was seeing people in the crowd trying to mimic it with results not quite being what they intended. A few crashed into each other and others fell down, but they had fun doing it. Janneke really belted out the “tell me why” part while Carl nailed the ultra-fast double bass kick tempo. He had some concerns about being able to play this song live because the bass drum part was so demanding but he stuck with it and it was paying off. Many songs have a part here or there that can be tough, but this song was difficult throughout because of an nearly excessive bass drum beat from start to finish. Billy had warned him to make sure his legs were conditioned and it was saving his chops at the moment.