I pressedthe earbuds into my ear, cutting out all the rest of the sounds from the outside.
I watched the excellent video of the group of us singing at the table. It was clear, clean and oddly enough, the sound was pretty damn good for phone video.
Unrehearsed, unprepared, unaccompanied, we sounded fucking amazing. Even Miranda’s little voice slipped in there perfectly.
It was only an hour and a half later, and there were close to twenty thousand views. There were a thousand comments on YouTube and who knew how many on Facebook and Instagram.
But I hit the replay button and listened again.
“That’s what we really sound like now?” I whispered. “It doesn’t sound like our first album at all.”
“This is beautiful,” Angela said.
“Perfect,” Hailey said. “Unscripted. Now when the critics say that it’s not you on the new album, we have this! It was perfect. Did you think of this?”
I shook my head. “I just wanted to sing with a little girl who was dying to sing with us.”
“God, you are precious,” Hailey said. “Just the best.” She scrolled through. “TMZ is saying this is a stunt. We’re going to have to release something that says it wasn’t.”
“On it,” Angela said. “I’ll post on the official social media accounts. I recommend that each of you do the same. Honest and heartfelt. Post the same thing on each of your favorite accounts, but don’t copy each other.”
Taylor had us squish together and he took a Snap of us to post. I didn’t like Snapchat. I was the Insta guy. Bryce liked Twitter best, Grant liked TikTok and Luis was the Facebook guru. It was all the majors right now.
I opted for a selfie I had taken with Lydia and Miranda as we were getting ready to leave. Angela had produced two tickets for Saturday night’s showing ofAidafor them and the picture was of two of them holding the tickets and all three of us hamming it up for the camera.
Met two amazing fans tonight who joined us for dinner and a song. Miranda and Lydia will be joining me on #Broadway! Tomorrow night for my live run as #Radames in #Aida. Wanna hear what we were singing about? Check out #UDLR4Lyf on YouTube. #Peace #Love #Light
And then I might have gone a little nuts with a few more hashtags. But it worked. We had asked the fan’s permission to repost their video on our official site so he wouldn’t get bogged down. We paid big money for good bandwidth.
ULDR: Hey, GigaMegaSweetSweet! We’re so glad you caught this moment on film. Is there anyway you’d let us post it on our channel with all credit and links?
GigaMega: Who dis?
ULDR: Austin from Up Down Left Right.
“Watch this.” Grant laughed staring at the message.
GigaMega: GET THE FUCK OUT NO WAY.
“Tol’ja.” He was chuckling.
ULDR: Need a pic?
GigaMega: Yes.
I flipped to selfie, and Grant leaned in giving me bunny ears while Taylor made some hideous face. It was the worst picture, but I sent it.
GigaMega: OMGHOLYSHIT. Yes! Yes! I can upload to my drive and you can share. I get links?
ULDR: Of course. Want tickets to a concert?
GigaMega: YES DUH.
“Apparently his caps lock is stuck on.” Taylor laughed.
ULDR: Cool. Leave your deets in the message here and our manager will get those to you.
GigaMega: I have to crush on you. You guys sounded amazing in there. You didn’t have a single instrument and just smashed it. Please, please tell me that’s your new sound?
