Naylor stretched out long jean-clad legs and scratched his beard. “Sure you don’t want a chair?” When I shook my head, he chuckled. “I get down on the ground these days and I’m way fucking slow getting up. You look good. Still working out?”
“Some. Not as much as I used to.”
He stretched to his left and took a joint from the man beside him, inhaled a long drag, then blew out a smoke ring. The musky scent of pot suffused the air. Naylor turned to me. “Want some?”
“Can’t,” I said. “On parole. I could get drug tested.” Technically that was true, although my parole didn’t include routine testing. Still, it was better than him thinking I was too stuck up to smoke with them after all these years.
“Shit, yeah, forgot. That was fucked.” He took another toke.
The young woman to my left turned my way. “Did you really help Chaser Lost get their start? What’s Pete Lebraun like? He plays like a fucking god.”
“I’m going to open for them at Rocktoberfest,” I said, unable to help enjoying the thought. “Sixty fucking thousand people.”
“I’m surprised you’re here,” Naylor said. “Small Iowa potatoes like we are.”
“Parole,” I repeated as if that was the only thing keeping me from the kind of tour Chaser Lost was on right now.
The woman, who turned out to be Zena, the Nayls’ bassist, asked a technical question about the double neck guitar Chaser’s bass player sometimes used, and the music talk was off and running. We talked pickups and switching controls, sometimes detoured by the gossip their young drummer was fixated on, until it was time for our sound checks. Standing up on the rock, checking levels with the festival head tech out in the crowd, I felt strangely isolated and had to force a smile as I helped carry their amp back off. I gave Naylor the hundred bucks I’d offered to use the amp and speaker and the drummer joked that they could make a mint telling audiences Griffin Marsh played on their setup.
I laughed and wished that was true.
The first band had me digging out my earplugs within the opening three bars, but they weren’t bad. The Nayls’ drummer played along with an old pair of drumsticks on a clump of grass, headbanging away until Zena bopped his shoulder and told him to save something for their set. Naylor passed him a fresh joint. I felt old as fuck.
The second band was young, up and coming. They had something— lyrics that weren’t same-old, a few excellent riffs. I exchanged appreciative looks with Naylor and a bit of the old excitement rose in me. Hell, yeah, this was part of live music, hearing moments no one had recorded and massaged and packaged. “They’ve got a shot,” I bellowed, due to the earplugs, when they were done. “Gonna go check ’em out.” Naylor just waved me to it so I got up and headed across the grass.
The young guys were flying when I found where they’d set up, busy packing gear away but bouncing and high-fiving, eyes wild and grins wide. I hesitated for a moment, nostalgia hitting me like a freight train, before stepping close enough for them to see me.
Sometimes it was gratifying to be Griffin Marsh. The five of them hurried over to me, saying “Hey,” and “Are you really?” and “We saw you were playing later.” I gave them my opinion, at least the good parts, and the name of my last agent but one. She’d had more ethics than the last one, but worked out of New York and stuck to the East coast. Which was a long way from here, but if they used my name, she might hook them up with someone honest and local.
I hung out with them as the next bands played. Didn’t mind missing a front-and-center view of Duke butchering Black Sabbath. We talked lyrics and composing styles and which snackfood was best for finding the right words at four a.m., and I was sad when I needed to break it up to go hear the Nayls.
I preened a bit at the guys’ excited whispers behind me as I strode away, pretending not to hear. I’d given them my number. Bringing along Chaser Lost had been almost as much fun as performing, and I was proud of helping Pete. Maybe I could boost another hot group now. Maybe I could add to the legacy I’d leave behind in the music world, and give some promising young musicians a shot at the brass ring.
Naylor’s voice wasn’t what it had been, but he still could shred like a demon. The rest of his band was middle of the road, but I found things to praise. Then they were done and I fist-bumped and high-fived as they came off, leaving the guitar amp for me.
I walked out onto the flat stone top of the outcropping, careful not to trip on any cables. Been there, done that. They didn’t tape down well on natural stone. Guitar in hand, I made my way to the front of the stage area, marked off with tape, lights, and a low rail. In the meadow below, a thousand cell phones lit the dark like fireflies. I couldn’t make out individual people in the fading dusk, but the floodlights strung around the perimeter showed a decent crowd.
The event organizer stepped up to the mic and said, “Now, a special guest you’ve been waiting for. I don’t need to tell you more than his name. Iowa’s own Griffin Marsh!”
The applause and screams from the crowd fed me, making me feel ten feet tall. I plugged in, tested a note or two, then leaned close to the mic. “Hey there, Rock on the Rock folks. It’s great to be back to my roots. I’ve been all around the world and there’s no better crowds than right here in Iowa. What do you folks want to hear?”
I listened to the screams of “Bite This,” “Wipeout,” “Snow and Ice.” I’d figured this crowd would go heavy and that fit the set list I’d planned.
So I launched into “Wipeout.” Just me and the guitar, amped to hell and gone, and it was still a lot thinner sound than the bands that came before me. But I had the advantage that the whole damned crowd knew my songs. They sang with me, screamed the lyrics, stomped and pounded. I ran through crowd favorites, nothing deep or soulful here, and ended with “Snow and Ice.” They quieted for the last guitar solo and I let the notes scream out into the darkness, playing as well as I ever had in my life. Then I trailed the last chord off into silence.
The screams could’ve launched me into space. They wanted an encore but my throat hurt like a bitch and I couldn’t top that anyway. I said into the mic, “You folks are the best but I need to get my ass off this rock so the band you’ve been waiting for can set up. Don’t go away. Marsscape is up next.” Backing up, I found the case for my guitar and then helped Twisted Nayls schlepp their equipment off the stage section.
“You’ve still got it.” Naylor thumped my back as I coiled a cable.
“What do you mean ‘still’?” I grinned at him, though.
“Want to come party after?” he asked. “We got good booze, good weed, a little acid, cute groupies. Probably some guys as well as gals, if that’s what you’re into.”
“Sorry, dude, I can’t,” I said, although I wasn’t really sorry. The performance high I was on felt fragile, like a bubble that a gust of wind could burst. A bunch of youngsters getting high and trying to get laid would sure as hell pop it. “Got a ride waiting for me.”
“Shit, that’s too bad.” He held out a hand. “Don’t be a stranger. You know where to find us.”
“Yeah, I do.” I shook his hand, my fingers still buzzing from the strings. “Thanks again, a whole ton. This event was just what I needed.”
