Show Night

Show Night

Setting: Backstage At The Surf Shack
Date: August 30th, 2013
Time: 6:32 PM PST
(Point of View: Franky)

-----------

“This is gonna be the weirdest concert ever,” Cadence remarked to me as we looked out to the crowd.

“I know, right? There’s you, with a sort of pop sound, then there’s us, with a rock-ish sound, then there’s Brady and Mack, with their beach music...” I shook my head. “Jeez...”

“At least we have common ground,” she said. “We can combine our styles to create something cool. Surf music, on the other hand...” She groaned. “I can’t believe I’m just realizing now how weird this is gonna be.”

“I’ve been thinking about it all week...”

“Wish I thought of it beforehand.”

“It’ll still be fun, just weird.”

“They’re on first, right?”

“They meaning who?”

“Mack and Brady.”

“Yeah. They’re on first. With a bunch of other penguins from the cast of their movie.”

“They have other penguins?”

“Yupppp.” She sighed. “This is gonna be rough.”

“Hope not. When are they on?”
“Quarter of seven.”

“They should be back here. Where are they?”

“Still getting ready... The girl with the really big hair needs her hair to be perfect or she refuses to go on.”

“Drama. I’m starting to wish it was the Ultimate Jam.”

“So am I... where are Rocky and Cece when I need them?”

“Dunno.”

She groaned, leaning her head on my shoulder. I nodded.

“Okay, I’d really love to hang out with you right now, but my band needs me,” I said with a grin.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. See you later?”

“Yeah, bye.” I kissed her quickly on the cheek and started towards Stompin’ Bob, G-Billy, and Petey K in our little corner of backstage.

“Yo, lover boy. Got you sunglasses?” G-Billy said.

“Sunglasses?” I cocked my head. “For what?”

He handed me a pair of black sunglasses. “For swag, that’s what.”

I raised an eye at Stompin’ Bob. He shrugged, and I put them on.

G-Billy nodded in approval. “Good boy.”

“What am I, a puffle? Good boy, want an O-Berry?” I said with a grin.

Stomp grinned, and G-Billy and Petey K laughed.

Someone who was backstage came over to us. He was a brown penguin with slick brown hair and a collared white shirt, wearing brown pants and shoes that kinda looked like Petey K’s.

“Hey, guys.” He had the annoying voice of someone very full of himself. “I just wanted to say good luck.”

“You, too...” I said uneasily.

“Oh, I’m Tanner.” He held out a flipper. “From the movie?”

“Uhm, hi.” I shook his flipper. “Nice to meet you...”

“I’m surprised you don’t know me. I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Ahhm... yeah... Well... we’ve gotta warm up, so...” I waved at him awkwardly.

“Oh, right. Well, bye.” He winked, then sauntered away.

Petey K grabbed G-Billy. “Hug me, bro.. he winked at me.”

“It’s okay, Petey.” G-Billy pat his head. “It’s okay.”

They let go of each other, and Stomp reached into his pocket. “Where is it.. where is it... where’s our pitch pipe?”

“Uh-oh.” I dug into my pockets. No pitch pipe. “Where did you last have it?”

“Over there--” he started, turning around, then let out an annoyed sigh. “Damn it...”

“What?” I asked.

“Brady has it.”

“I’ll get it.” I waddled over to the Teen Beach Movie group, who were all gathered by the stage entrance happily. Brady was playing with our pitch pipe, apparently oblivious to the fact that it was ours.

“Brady, can we have that?” I asked, crossing my flippers.

“Hey, Franky!” He waved. Cadence gave me a ‘good luck’ look from where she was standing by the curtain. I grinned.

“Uhh, hi. Can we have our pitch pipe back?” I said.

“We’re using it,” Brady replied. At the same time, a girl next to him said,

“Oooh, who’s that?” She was teal, with dark-brown hair and a red polka-dotted dress.

“That’s Franky,” said Mack, grinning.

“Hi, Franky. I’m Lela.” She giggled to the girls around her. I held out my flipper to Brady, who was holding the pitch pipe.

“Can we please have that? We need it,” I said.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and the band...”

“Give me a minute.”

“Brady!” I was getting impatient. “C’mon, dude. We need the pitch pipe.”

Brady grinned and tossed the pitch pipe to me. “Fine, fine.”

I waddled away, rolling my eyes as I brought it back to the guys at the other end of the room.

“They’re so annoying,” I complained, blowing into the pipe.

“I know, right? C,” Stomp said, as we hummed a 4-part C chord.

“D,” he continued. We did this all the way up the scale and back down again. One of the girls from the Teen Beach crowd was clapping excitedly.

“Leave us alone...” I muttered as we started the next part of our usual warm-up.

Once we warmed up, I joined Cadence near the curtain again and the Teen Beach crowd went onstage. We watched from our spot backstage, and the guys watched on the other side of the stage.

First, Mack and Brady introduced them. Then they sang one of the opening songs from the movie where they all danced on the beach with surfboards and stuff while Mack and Brady watched them from the side. (They weren’t in that one.) Next, they sang that biker song where Brady goes all weird and Mack watches them all like they’re crazy. (“I agree with Mack,” Cadence said to me.) After that, Lela had a solo with some backup singers and sang a really, REALLY cheesy song. The next song was about boys and girls and who likes who (really weird). Mack and Brady had a solo after that one, then they did a finale number and left the stage.

“That was...” I said when they were off the stage. “... weird.”

“You think?” Cadence straightened her headphones. “Do I look okay?”

“Yeah, you look great.”

“You sure?” She tugged on her blackish-gray shirt nervously.

“You look great, Cadence.” I fixed her scarf, which was crooked. “Good luck out there, okay?”

“Okay.” She grinned, then put her flippers on my cheeks and pulled me in. “I’ll see you in 45 minutes.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.” She kissed me.

“Have fun.”

“Will do.” Winking, she waddled onto the stage, not letting go of my flipper until the last second. I waved at her, grinning. She put her golden microphone on the stand and took a deep breath, jumping up and down as she waited for the curtain to open.

A minute later, it did. The crowd went crazy as she waved at all of them.

“Hey, party penguins! How’s it goin’?” she asked, taking her mic off the stand and waddling to the front of the stage.

The crowd cheered in response.

“Ready to party?” She held up one flipper and snapped it. The track to ‘The Party Starts Now’ started playing. It gives her an intro when she sings it live so she knows with note to start on.

“Hope so!” She grinned, then started singing. I watched her, smiling. She loves to perform, and I love to watch her perform.

Cadence’s setlist went like this-- “The Party Starts Now”, “Bring It”, “For The Record”, “Stronger”, “All Over The Floor”, “Not Over Yet”, “That’s Me”, “Waiting”, and “All In”. They were all original songs off her album that came out in June.

The crowd loved her. She talked to them in between songs, and when she finished, they cheered really loudly. At the end of her last song, the curtain closed and she jumped for joy.

“Yess!” she cried. I went out onto the stage and hugged her.

“Great job,” I said. “You were awesome.”

“Thanks! But it’s not over yet.” She let go of me and dragged my keyboard that she had used in a few of her songs over to me. “You guys are the best part.”

I grinned. “Thanks.” Turning my keyboard on, I played up and down the scale twice, then adjusted my volume and turned to her.

“So I never got to ask you... what’s with the sunglasses?” she asked.

“They’re for swag,” I said. “And ‘Party In My Iggy’.”

She laughed. “Oh, okay.”

“Hey, lovebirds!” said G-Billy, who was sitting behind us on the drumset.

“Ah!” Cadence jumped. “When did you get here?”

“I stalk,” he replied.

“We both do,” added Petey K, who was standing with his guitar to G-Billy’s front right.

“Creepers...” I said, fixing my microphone stand as Stomp waddled out on stage and plugged in his bass.

“Creepers, indeed,” G-Billy said.

Cadence hid behind me. I laughed.

“Ready for this?” Stomp asked.

I nodded. Cadence was fixing her mic stand next to me. G-Billy hit his cymbal and cried, “Yeah!”. Petey face-flippered at him.

Suddenly the curtains started to open. I jumped. “That was fast...” I muttered. Cadence grinned.

“Hiya!” I said into my mic. The crowd went nuts. I started playing the opening of “Party On”, one of our latest songs. Cadence sings it with us.

Our setlist was: “Party On”, “Top Of The World”, “Even If It Kills Me”, “Anchors Aweigh”, “Avalanche”, “Better Days”,  “Not A Day Goes By”, “Gotta Have A Wingman”, “Round And Round We Go”, and “Party In My Iggy”. Some of the songs have Cadence in them, but others don’t.

The whole thing took about an hour and 15 minutes, because in between songs we do some pretty random and ridiculous things. One of these things was seeing who had the higher voice, me or Cadence. I won.

When the show was over, we said goodbye to the crowd and headed off the stage as the place started clearing out. The show had lasted almost 3 hours, and it was late. We packed up and started heading home. The Teen Beach Movie cast had left about halfway through our set, which was rude, because we sat through theirs despite the cheesiness.

Cadence and I wound up outside the door to my igloo that I shared with the guys. They had gone inside a few minutes earlier.

“I had an awesome time tonight,” I said, grinning. “Did you?”

“Yeah, I did.” She smiled. “Thanks for being in the show.”

“No problem. Thanks for letting us.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Listen... do you wanna just stay here tonight? The guys really don’t care as long as we’re not keeping them up.”

“Why would we keep them up? I’m exhausted...” She yawned.

“Alright... c’mon.” I opened the door.

“You’re sure they don’t care?” she asked as we went in. The kitchen was empty.

“I’m positive.” I closed the door behind us and led her into my bedroom, turning off the kitchen light.

She shut the door to my room behind her. “Hey, Lily,” she said to my yellow puffle Lily on the bed.

Lily looked disappointed. She gave me a look like ‘her again?’.

I shrugged at her, and she jumped off my bed into her puffle-bed.

“She hates me,” Cadence remarked as I kicked off my purple high-tops.

“She doesn’t hate you. She wants me to herself,” I said.

Cadence laughed, pulling off her own black-and-white sneakers.

I waddled to my dressed and opened a drawer. I pulled out an old light-blue t-shirt and replaced my hoodie and shirt with that. Then I put on a pair of white sweatpants and put my jeans I’d wore all day away.

I stretched. Cadence had taken off her headphones + wristbands and put them on my nightstand. Now she was standing there awkwardly looking at me.

“Here.” I grinned and tossed her my white t-shirt with the orange penguin on it. “Hopefully it doesn’t smell too bad.”

She held it up to her beak. “It doesn’t.”

“Good.”

She changed out of the gray-black shirt with the purple undershirt, and put my t-shirt on instead. She tossed her scarf on the ground and crawled into my bed. “Ahh...”

I got in next to her. “I’m so tired.”

“Same here.” She laid down, and so did I. I turned off my lamp and she rolled over, wrapping her flippers around me. I put mine around her waist and kissed her softly good-night.

“I love you,” she said.

“Love you, too.” I smiled.

“Night, Franky-wanky,” she said with a yawn.

“Night, Cadence...” I murmured, blushing and closing my eyes.

----------