Chapter 7: The First Gig

May 18, 2001, Costa Mesa, California

We stood behind the black wall. If you were feeling generous you’d call it backstage. In reality it was more like a dark corner someone forgot to finish. Sounds filtered in from out there. Not loudly. Not loudly. More like the roar of the ocean heard inside a closed car. But you could feel it was alive.

Nova gripped her bass as if it were the only solid thing in the universe. Cayde had asked for the third time, “Okay, but are you sure My Board follows Crash Landing Romance?” Roxy didn’t say a word. She just sat on a folding crate and tapped her thighs with her drumsticks, keeping an unnervingly perfect rhythm.

I was staring at the setlist. Not because I didn’t know it by heart, but because I needed something to hold onto.

“It’s just a rehearsal,” I finally said.

“It just so happens fifty people will be there.”

Cayde laughed, way too loudly.

“Bloody hell, that’s supposed to be comforting?”

“Absolutely,”

I grinned.

“I can already feel the tension melting away.”

Then Eli stepped in, a can of cola seeming welded to his hand.

“Five minutes,” he said. He looked us over, then shrugged.

“So? Shit yourselves yet?”

I burst out laughing.

“That’s not even a question. Look at us.”

Nova glanced up at him for a second. Her eyes were empty. Not fear—more like too many thoughts crashing at once.

Eli grinned.

“It’ll be fine. Just… don’t quit halfway.”

And he was gone. Silence filled the corner. The kind that almost hurts.

Through the edge of the curtain I saw the lights. The shifting shadows. The people who were actually there—real, not just in our heads.

Then somebody called us on.

The lights hit us like slaps.

In the first song, everything was right. The riffs were tight. The rhythm locked in. My voice came through.

But then Nova began to disappear. Not physically, but inside. Her shoulders rose, her movements cramped, her gaze swept the crowd as if solving some invisible equation in her head.

I gave it a flourish. I jumped onto one of the monitor boxes—and mid-air, before my foot hit down, I swung my arm to the side.

The band froze.

The sound splintered in the middle of the room.

I landed. I staggered like an Olympic finalist—arms out, dead-serious face.

Then I pivoted to the mic.

“Ladies and gentlemen… the contestant Vexley Hawkins… uh… Vexley…”

Tilted my head, “listening” to the judges. I nodded.

“Yes… yes… I understand. So technically correct… but in the air a bit… uhh… desperate.”

I froze. I looked up at the imaginary jury.

“Excuse me?! Mediocre?!”

I pointed at them indignant.

“Sir, get yourself some glasses!”

Laughter exploded through the venue.

I moved on. I looked down at the crowd and without warning launched into an absurd, invisible guitar solo—as if the whole show were built around it. Hair-flipping that didn’t exist. Knee bends. Faces twisting into ridiculous grimaces.

Then I dropped to my knees and started moaning something horribly familiar, plasticky-happy pop lyrics—maybe the Barbie Girl chorus, maybe just a warped memory of it. Two lines. Then I clamped a hand over my mouth. Shit. I was busted. A look of caught-in-the-act panic flickered on my face. I slowly got up.

And then… I bowed.

Deeply. Slowly. Half the room was laughing, half bewildered, wondering what the hell this was. Bent over, I turned toward the band—just like four years ago at the bar, not mocking but some strange, stage-fright humility, like a performer thanking the crowd for sitting through a brutally bad act. I looked up, the same wonder in my eyes, and met Nova’s silver gaze dead-on.

Then I winked at Roxy, and the first chord of “I Live My Way” sliced through the silence like someone uncapping a world-sealed jar. I saw her inhale sharply, and Nova’s bass thundered back into the music at full force.

We sounded terrible. Honest. But nobody played with more heart.

Every second Cayde hunted the spotlight. Roxy’s drums raged like a beast unleashed. Nova finally stepped up to the mic set for her, and the moment her vocals hit, the room snapped together.

I… just went quiet.

—

Not outwardly—inside. That rare calm when there is no future, no past. Only the next fifteen minutes exist.

I sang. I screamed. I ran from one end of the stage to the other as if it were a stadium, not a wrecked club on the edge of Costa Mesa.

At one point on the lip of the stage I saw Eli. He was grinning, pointing at the crowd. The crowd was with us now.

When we hit the first chord of “My Board Is My World,” the place exploded: bodies thrashing, someone already flying through the air. And at the chorus… they sang. Not pretty. Not clean. But with us.

And in that moment all I knew was I wanted more. Louder. Longer.

Then suddenly it was over. No big finale, no slow wind-down. Just one last chord hanging under neon lights… then the tech waved us off. The next band’s gear was already lined up at the side of the stage.

Somebody in the crowd screamed, “One more song!”

A few joined in. But opening bands don’t get encores.

We waved and walked to the front of the stage. We were shaking, as if we’d exhaled the entire concert. Roxy’s eyes were wet. Mine too. Cayde and Nova held it together—either stronger or better at hiding it. We turned to face each other, pressed our foreheads together, and took a great collective breath, as if trying to both survive and memorize the moment. Then we threw our arms around one another.

“All right, move along—we’ve got to set up,” the next singer called with a half-smile.

Ten minutes later we were down in the audience, beers in hand—the only official pay we’d get. Then more drinks arrived from the crowd because “you guys fucking rocked.”

Everyone wanted to know what that bit was all about.

I just shrugged.

“No idea. It… happened.”

Four shots. Six beers. Two vomits.

Sometime around two in the morning we were in the parking lot, filthy drunk, still changing the world. Eli stood with us, the same cola can in his hand as always. A few guys swore it was the best concert of their lives.

And you know what? It was a good concert.

For a bunch of kids, it really was.