The Bigg G show opened up with the first tune—Terrorize Me, off the new CD—at 7:30 PM that night. In addition to embracing the new ticket prices, G had also embraced the longer set in lieu of an opening act. He would play from 7:30 until 8:40, take a twenty-minute intermission, and then return at 9:00 and play until 9:50. Three encores would then take them to 10:00 PM. Neesh and Laura Kingsley were in the house, sitting in a special, roped-off VIP section just in front of the soundboard along with a few dozen family members and friends of the other band members and two large security guards. Jake himself was backstage when the show started. He was dressed in a pair of black slacks, a white dress shirt complete with a fashionable tie, and a pair of polished patent leather shoes. This outfit would go nicely with the formal prom-style wear that G and the boys would sport for the first seven songs of the set.
Jake watched as G and his band played their opening number to an enthusiastic crowd that was made up mostly of African-Americans, but with sizable minorities of Latin Americans and good old white boys and girls as well. At the moment, everyone seemed to be heeding Rodney King’s advice and were just getting along. No one in the audience except those in the VIP section had any suspicion that a very special guest would be appearing tonight. There was an extra microphone stand on the stage, sitting just to the left of G’s primary microphone stand. Two effects pedals were sitting at the base of it, one on each side. Jake knew that if he were in the audience, he would have noticed such a thing immediately and would have started to wonder what it was all about. But he didn’t think your average concert goer was that in tune with such details.
G ran through Terrorize Me, All the Way In (from his last CD) and then launched into his classic Down With It (the title cut from his first independent CD). The audience cheered wildly as each song was started, even louder when they were concluded. As Down With It was being played, Jake stood from his chair and began to stretch out a little. He would be onstage for the next number. Sitting next to his seat were his two guitars, the black Les Paul and the acoustic/electric Fender Grand Concert. Both had been sound checked, and their knobs and switches marked. As Down ended and the audience cheered loudly, Jake picked up the Les Paul and slung it over his shoulder. Bark Stevens, G’s primary assistant, came over to Jake and motioned for him to turn around, so his back was to Bark. Jake did so and Bark plugged a three-foot guitar cable into the wireless transmitter that was attached to the back of Jake’s belt. Jake then plugged the other end into his guitar. This would be his first time using such a device in front of an audience. It had worked fine in rehearsal, but if anything could go wrong...
As the cheers died down, Bark slapped him on the back, indicating that he was now live. All he would have to do when he stepped out was spin the volume knob on the guitar to full power. Everything else should already be copacetic. Jake nodded and stepped toward the stage left doorway.
“How y’all doing out there tonight?” G asked his audience. They blasted out applause and cheers that seemed to indicate they were doing just fine.
“All right,” G said. “Thanks for joining us on the opening night of our tour. It’s really an honor to be here in LA, playing for y’all.”
Another set of cheers rolled in.
“We’re gonna do a song off the new CD now,” G told them. “It’s the first song we’ve released for airplay, a little tune I wrote and put together with a good friend of mine by the name of Jake Kingsley—do y’all know my brother Jake?”
The cheers indicated that they did, indeed, know Jake.
“I guess you’ve heard of him,” G said with a chuckle. “Anyway, Jake and I got together last year on a little tune called Step Inside, which we’ll be performing later on in the set by the way, and people liked it so much that we decided to put something else together for this CD. I know they’ve been playing it on the radio this last week, and it’s kind of a fusion between the hip-hop that I do and the hard rock that my man Jake does. Have y’all heard it?”
They had heard it, and they seemingly approved of it based on the enthusiasm of their cheers.
“Fuck yeah!” G said. “Now ... obviously we put this set together with the intention of playing I Signed That Line in every show. My brother James here on the lead bass...” He nodded toward James Whitlock behind him. “ ... he plays a pretty mean electric guitar too and he’s the one who will be playing the guitar parts for the tune, as well as for Step Inside, during this tour.”
More cheers, which James acknowledged humbly with a wave and a nod at the audience.
“And my brother Fro over there on the second bass guitar,” G said, “has a pretty good singing voice and can belt out Jake’s lyrics like no fuckin’ tomorrow!”
“But tonight, however,” G continued once the cheers died down, “James and Fro are just gonna keep playing those bass guitars of theirs, because, you see, while they do a real good job of playing those parts just like Jake Kingsley would, it’s always better to have the real thing, isn’t it?”
The cheers began to wind up in volume as the audience started to suspect where he was going with this.
“Isn’t it?” he repeated. The cheers got louder, more enthusiastic. “Fuckin’ A right, it is. So ... with that thought in mind, why don’t y’all help me welcome up onto the stage, the one, the only ... Jake motherfuckin’ Kingsley!”
The audience erupted into the loudest cheers of the night so far, the decibel level deafening. Jake felt the power of those cheers surging through him. A smile formed on his face as he trotted out the stage left door and onto the lighted stage, stepping in front of nearly eighteen thousand people. He waved at them as he came out, guitar in hand. He then walked over to G. The two of them exchanged a complex handshake that ended with a fist-bump and finger slide (they had rehearsed this shake for nearly an hour after the sound check). Jake then walked over to the microphone stand with the effects pedals at the base. He spun the volume button on his guitar all the way up and then stepped down on the left pedal, which would give him distorted reverb output. Bark, meanwhile, had carried an electric piano out and set it up in front of G’s microphone stand before retreating hastily from the stage. G replaced the microphone in the holder and then took position behind the keyboard.
“All right, LA!” G said. “Let’s do this thing!”
They did this thing. G began to play the opening piano melody of I Signed That Line while Rickie played a soft, accompanying turntable backing. And then the main beat kicked in. The drummers and the bass players began to hammer out the rhythm and G began rapping out the angry lyrics. The audience clapped along with the beat.
The first chorus came. The beat changed over from a rap rhythm to a hard rock rhythm and Jake began to play, his pick hitting the strings with his right hand, the fingers of his left hand fretting his guitar in the three-chord riff he’d composed. The sound surged out of the speakers and Jake began to sing.