"Yes, Mr. Meyer?" she asked brightly, nearly drooling with excitement.
"As you can see," Meyer told her, "Jake Kingsley has decided to pay us a visit. Make sure that he and his guest never have an empty glass before them."
"No problem," she said.
"And, of course, their drinks will be on the house."
"Uh... that's not really necessary, Mr. Meyer," Jake said. "I appreciate the offer, but I can pay for our drinks."
"I wouldn't hear of it," Meyer said. "Just tell Cindy here what you want and she'll keep you supplied."
"In that case, we thank you," Jake said.
"Yes... thank you," Helen agreed.
"What can I get you two?" Cindy asked.
Jake ordered a rum and coke. Helen ordered a whiskey sour. Cindy promised they would be in front of them in less than two minutes. She disappeared, pushing her way back toward the bar. Meyer told them once again that if there was anything they needed, just say the word. After they thanked him again, he too disappeared.
The opening band for the night was something called The Low Road. They were slated to begin their show at eight o'clock. From the time Jake and Helen were seated until eight o'clock, when Meyer turned down the house lights and introduced the opening band, they were subjected to an endless stream of young fans who pushed and shoved their way into talking distance in order to score autographs or to just talk to Jake for a few minutes. One young lady, obviously three or four drinks past therapeutic alcohol level, actually propositioned Jake, inviting him to step outside to her car for "a little backseat welcome to Beantown".
Helen, who had been consuming whiskey sours as fast as Cindy the waitress could bring them to her, decided to express her disapproval at the young lady's suggestion. She stood up and stepped directly in front of the drunken youngster, her head towering nearly eight inches higher, her eyes glaring murderously. "Hello, McFly!" she said menacingly, knocking on the young woman's head with her knuckles. "Can't you see that I'm sitting right next to him? Are you really that dumb, or are you such a skanky slut that you just don't care?"
The crowd grew silent for a moment. Jake — who had politely but firmly turned down her offer — said nothing. The drunken young lady seemed to sober up in a hurry. She muttered something inaudible under her breath and retreated as quickly as possible. As soon as she was gone, laughter and even some applause erupted from the crowd. Helen was patted on the shoulder by dozens of women and even a few of the men.
"You go, girl!" she was told.
"About time someone put that bitch in her place," several others chimed in.
When The Low Road took the stage, everyone moved respectfully away from Jake and Helen, finding their way back to their own seats or standing positions. Jake watched the performance impassively, not particularly impressed. The Low Road consisted of four young men in their early twenties. It was obvious that they were heavily influenced by Motley Crue since they wore tight leather pants and open chest leather shirts. The lead singer had a mop of dyed blonde hair that was almost uniformly white. The guitarist, bassist, and drummer all had long hair that had been dyed jet black. They all had pentagram medallions on their chests. If only their music was in the same category as that of Motley Crue — a band that Jake actually liked and had seen live a few times — but they weren't even close. The singer might have had a good voice but it was impossible to tell for sure since the guitar and the drum levels had been cranked to almost ear-shattering range. Throughout the entire set, Jake didn't understand a single lyric that was put forth. And as for the guitar player, he was fond of repetitive, palm-muted chords that sounded suspiciously like poor imitations of Metallica riffs. His solos were simplistic, slow, and usually completely disassociated with the underlying rhythm of the song they were supposed to be enhancing.
All in all, Jake didn't think Intemperance was going to be in competition with The Low Road for album sales any time soon. Nor did the crowd seem particularly awed by them either. The applause they offered between songs was listless at best, a polite clapping of hands that would have seemed more appropriate at a golf tournament instead of a rock concert.
When The Low Road wrapped up their set and began disassembling their equipment from the stage, another surge of fans made their way to Jake and Helen's table. By this point, Helen was roaring drunk and in a foul mood. The very expression on her face kept most of the women from offering Jake anything but polite praise for his music.
At 9:30 PM, the lights went down once again and Meyer introduced Brainwash. This time, the crowd cheered wildly, all of them standing on their feet as the three men and two women of the band took the stage.
Jake had always believed in his heart that the way a band looked had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of their music. His first impression of Brainwash, however, as they settled into their places on the stage, was not a good one. They didn't look like a rock and roll band at all. They looked like exactly what they were: a group of ordinary, everyday teachers — a basic cross-section of the education profession — wearing jeans and pull-over t-shirts instead of teaching clothes. The lead singer was tall, with a little touch of beer belly, his dirty blonde hair a little longer than a professional cut, but not by much. Only the red and white Fender Stratocaster in his hands led any credence to his identity as a musician. The lead guitarist was a plain looking woman with short brown hair and just a hint of a masculine persona. She packed a black and white Hamer Standard guitar — an instrument that Jake knew was very high-end and had probably not come cheaply to her. The keyboardist — who Jake remembered was married to the male lead singer — was a tall, buxom blonde of farm girl proportions, slightly thick around the hips, with moderately large breasts. She had thick glasses perched on her nose and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The bass player and the drummer were both short-haired, accountant-looking types with glasses of their own.
"They look like the geek squad," Helen whispered to Jake, her breath heavily scented with whiskey.
"They do, don't they?" he agreed. "But did you hear the way this crowd cheered for them?"
Jake's initial impression of the band was squashed with the very first song they did. They did not introduce themselves or say anything to the crowd at all. They didn't even have the drummer give a four count with his sticks. They simply began to play. The keyboardist started first, playing a moderate tempo piece on the classic piano setting that came through the sound system crystal clear. She began to sing, her voice a nice, soothing contralto. After her first verse, the guitars kicked in, the lead playing a mildly distorted electric five-chord riff, the rhythm playing a strict acoustic sound. During the choruses of the song — it was apparently called Night Is Falling and Jake interpreted the lyrics to be about a mutual attraction between two people that only occurred in dangerous places after dark — the three singers belted it out in unison utilizing three part harmony. When the solo came, the slightly masculine looking lead guitarist played it to perfection, her fingers dancing knowingly over her fret board, her shoulders swaying easily to the rhythm. As Meyer had said, it was not quite up there with a Matt Tisdale solo, but it was pretty damn good nonetheless.
The next two songs in the set were sung by the male rhythm guitarist. He possessed a strong tenor voice and knew how to use it well. The first piece was a hard-rock tune called All The Way Down that seemed to be about the spiral of mistakes that led to utter failure. The second was called Going Out Tonight, which the singer introduced to the crowd by asking "Are there any single girls out there tonight?", which, of course, led to hundreds of squeals as the single girls chimed in. "This is one I wrote for you," he told them. He then sang a slow, mesmerizing piece, backed up by strong bass and repetitive drum beats, which spoke of the dangers and futility of looking for love in clubs and bars, describing the lengths men would go to and the lies they would tell in order to score with a single woman. It was a poignant and harshly realistic tune that seemed to Jake to be utterly weird coming from the mouth of such a nerdy looking man.