“Monarchs soar on three?”I gave them a little smile, placing my hand on top of Bailey’s.
“I love it.”Lark shimmied before placing her hand on mine.“One, two, three—”
“Monarchs soar!”we yelled like goofballs.
I grinned back at my friends and only felt a little self-conscious as I settled behind my drums.
Okay, that wasn’t true… I felt a lot self-conscious.
Then I picked up my sticks, nodded at Lark and Bailey, counted down, and started the driving beat of PCD’s ‘Don’t Cha.’
All my nerves disappeared as I lost myself to the music.
There’d been so much debate on what would make the perfect setlist.We wanted upbeat dance songs.Lark had been adamant that ‘Don’t Cha’ was perfect to start with—since it was a burlesque-y song and we were playing Maison Publique.Personally it wasn’t my favorite song, and I saw a few rolled eyes, or at least I think I did—it was hard to tell with the stage lights.But as we transitioned to Taylor Swift, it felt like we had the crowd on our side.
Of course Lark’s bubbly personality easily won over anyone on the fence about us.After the first song, she introduced us to the crowd.
“And we have the awesome Bailey Butler on guitar.Give everyone a little wave, Bailey.”
I could see Bailey’s red cheeks from here, but she still gave them a wave.
“And on drums we have the amazing Alice Rose.Alice?”
Instead of waving I did a little drum call in response then waved my sticks.
“Yeah, Alice.”Lark fanned the crowd on before giving a little husky laugh into her mic.“I don’t know if you all know this about us, but the three of us have a little something in common.”
She drew the words out in her sexy way that I’d never be able to duplicate.There was a reason why Lark was our frontwoman.I swore she had the whole crowd leaning forward just picturing us all on a huge bed with a threeway dildo or something.
“We all work for the Tin Gods and have for a few years.I do backup vocals, Alice is their drum tech, and Bailey works merch.We met over a year ago on the road and bonded over our love of music and homesickness.Not to mention the fact that we were three girls on the road with a rock band.We didn’t have a lot of friends to choose from.”
“Screw you.”Bailey laughed.“That is so not how I remember it.You know you wanted to be my friend.I’m awesome.”
“Sure, sure, love.”Lark blew Bailey a kiss then turned back to the crowd and they laughed.“Anyhow, in tribute to our overlords, we’re going to play a Tin Gods song.Any Tin Gods fans in the audience?”
The crowd roared their approval.
I picked up my sticks, counted out, and then hit the opening beat of ‘Nowhere to Hide.’
It was all so magical.Lark had the crowd in the palm of her hands.They didn’t even mind when we transitioned to our original songs.By the second verse of ‘Lost Boys,’ the crowd knew the chorus and some were singing along.
I had the biggest grin on my face as we ended our first set.
“Thank you!”Lark beamed.“We’ll be back for our last set after a little break so don’t go anywhere!”
The stage lights went dark, and someone gave a little shriek.My heart raced before Lark’s bubbly laughter rolled over me, and I grinned again.
“That was awesome!”She squealed before tackle-hugging me out of nowhere.
I didn’t even have a chance to get off my stool.All I could do was hug her back.Then a third set of arms came around us as Bailey’s laughter warred with Lark’s.
“So amazing!I feel like I can fly!”Bailey laughed.
“Drinks on me!”Lark yelled in my ear.
I didn’t feel like drinking, but I let them pull me off the stage anyway.
We didn’t even make it to the bar.The second we got off the stage we were swarmed.Mostly guys crowded around us, all full of pretty compliments and offering to buy us drinks.We talked and laughed with them as we tried to make our way to the bar.
