Different Circles

But somebody did. Jake did. He put the end of the tube in his mouth and began to pick out small isolated solo notes on his guitar. The sound of a talk box played out over the crowd and they cheered loudly and enthusiastically when they heard it.

Motherfucker, Matt thought in amazement. Can he really pull this shit off?

Jake’s solo fragments became louder, longer, more shaped by his mouth, and the sound was impressive. The crowd was clapping to the beat again, obviously enjoying Jake’s efforts. He picked up the pace and complexity of his playing, going into an extended and quite complex solo that he shaped with the talk box into something unique sounding, something with power. Soon, his fingers were blurring up and down the fretboard again while he picked rapidly with his right fingers and moved his mouth and lips. The cheering grew even louder, starting to compete with the speakers for dominance.

He wound down the tempo of the solo until he was once again just belting out brief successive notes while the band just kept putting down the repetitive rhythm in the background. He then began to make the guitar talk by playing out single G-chord strings and shaping the output as if he were talking. The words he was forming were quite plainly the hook line of the song once again: “Flying high, flying highhhh, flying high up in the sky.”

With each repetition of the phrase, the crowd cheered even more. He kept it up for a little more than a minute and then transitioned back to the short series notes once again. He went through this as the band gradually began increasing the tempo and the power of the rhythm behind him. He followed along with the tempo increase, making his own vocalizations louder until they reached an apparently agreed upon point (Matt had been unable to pick up if there had been a cue given, if there was, it had been very professionally subtle) and Jake removed his mouth from the tube, stomped down on the effects pedal (that Matt now knew was the talk box) and began to rip out a closing conventional solo while the drums and pass pounded behind him and Bigg G hammered along on the piano keys.

The ending solo was completely original for this performance and Jake played it masterfully, with careful use of the whammy bar and multiple trips up and down the fretboard while finger-tapping the strings with his right fingers. The performance did exactly what Jake had undoubtedly intended: it showed that not only could he sing and play rhythm, he could shred lead and solos with the best of them. True, he was not as good at it as Matt Tisdale, but he was not really even trying to be. He was up there with the best of the best and he had his own unique style and sound that could not be accused of Tisdale imitation.

When the solo and the song finally ended in a flurry of drum and piano and guitar, the roar from the crowd was deafening, clearly the loudest heard tonight. The crowd stood as one, offering a standing ovation for the performance they had just witnessed. Jake accepted their accolades humbly, simply standing at the front of the stage, nodding and waving.

“Thank you,” he said into the microphone. “I hope you enjoyed that.”

And, as the cheering continued, the rest of the band came back out onto the stage—all except Kingsley’s bitch. They took their positions and launched into what Matt had to assume was the closing number of the set since they only had three minutes left in their allotment.

Jake closed out the set as he had opened it: with one of his hard-driving tunes: Ocean View, which featured two dueling distorted electric guitars gradually increasing in intensity and power as the tune progressed. Matt actually smiled as he heard the tune and did not bother trying to keep himself from tapping to the beat and singing along. Ocean View was actually what he considered to be the best of Jake’s solo tunes and, though he would never tell anyone and would never do it if anyone else was nearby, he often turned up the volume when he heard the song on the radio.

They played the song out well—the lead guitarist playing the solo for this one—and then finished up with a final flurry of guitar and drums that lasted nearly thirty seconds. Once the last note faded out, the crowd once again gave a standing O after Jake thanked them and told them good night. The entire band put down their instruments and stepped to the front of the stage. Kingsley’s bitch trotted out from backstage to join them. They linked arms and took a few bows before heading off the stage. The crowd called for an encore, but that was not to be. The show was on a timeline and Matt, as the headliner, was the only one who was allowed to give an encore.