Chapter 19
Theo
From the start there’s something different about this show.
It’s not just the size of the crowd or their untamed energy.
It’s the band. There’s a charge. All night Hannah slings words like knives, Kenny pounds the drums like he’s exorcising demons.
Even Ripper looks more focused, almost nervous, like he knows something’s coming.
Bowie knocks my shoulder. “They’re on fire!”
He goes back to dancing, which any other day would’ve made me smile, because Bowie’s a ridiculous dancer, all flailing limbs.
Even the crew members who don’t have places to be have gathered to watch, drawn by the force of what’s happening onstage.
Bowie’s not wrong: the audience is absolutely frothing, on the verge of moshing. But something’s making me uneasy.
I look at Hannah, who’s got her poker face on, playing an old song off College-Educated Idiots, fingers flying over the strings.
How she can go from the angry, messy woman at Caesars Palace to someone capable of this absolute beast of a performance is a mystery.
As her manager, I should be relieved she can pull a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
But instead, I have this insane urge to walk onstage, gather Hannah in my arms, and turn my back on the audience.
Like she needs shielding. My instincts must be misfiring.
I massage fingers into my jaw to relieve the tension from clenching. Thank god the Saints are at the end of their set list. They’ll do a song or two for encore, and then we can wrap Vegas and put this town in our rearview mirror.
The lights dim, signaling the end, and the crowd groans. The bros in the front are the loudest, booing, and even though I know it’s technically a compliment, the hairs on my neck prickle.
I turn to Bowie. “Have the team start packing so we can leave fast.” He nods.
A spotlight finds Hannah. She kicks the mic stand closer and grips it. “Vegas, we have one last song for you.”
The booing turns to cheers.
“It’s a new one. I hope you like it.”
I turn to Bowie, but he’s already shaking his head. “I have no clue what this is.”
Two more spotlights flicker on, one for Ripper and Kenny each. The rest of the stage is dark. Eerie. Hannah shrugs off her Jazzmaster and walks to Ripper, who shrugs off his bass. They switch guitars. The crowd screams louder.
Bowie grips my bicep. “Is she letting him play lead?”
I press my hands to my mouth. The world has stopped making sense. The crew members Bowie instructed to start packing haven’t budged. They’re glued to this mystery as much as we are.
The band waits until the noise dies down, uncharacteristically patient. Then Ripper, now lead guitar, plays the first chords of a song I’ve never heard. It’s fast, sharp, defiant. He’s taunting the entire venue.
Hannah looks across the stage and meets my eyes.
My adrenaline spikes, my body vibrating with the notes that come crashing through the speakers, the words she sings into the mic slicing under my skin: “My soul is gone. Your words mean nothing to me. My heart is wrong. Your help means nothing to me.”
“Not to me,” Ripper and Kenny intone, and then Kenny comes crashing in with the drums.
The words are stark, but the bandmates’ delivery is unbothered. They’re the class stoners, middle fingers raised when the teacher turns his back.
Ripper speeds up his pace, and the stage lights start flashing. Hannah lets go of the bass to twist words into the mic. “Fuck sorry, I absolve myself. Sick in the head, yeah, I need some help. So sorry for bein’ myself. Look at me, better get the belt.”
It hits me like a punch to the chest. She hasn’t spoken to me since the pool bar. But now she’s talking back in the loudest way possible.
The minute she sees I understand, she returns her gaze to the crowd.
Bowie shouts against the onslaught of sound. “Hey, man, I think this song’s about you!”
I nod, dazed. She’s written a protest song, and she’s feet away, screaming it through the mic, through Ripper’s bass, leaning toward the audience like she’s bearing down against a tidal wave, some mighty crush.
“Listen to that guitar!” Bowie yells.
The song’s pace escalates. Kenny’s drumming becomes more fevered, Hannah’s voice climbs, her words ripping into shreds the instant she sings them.
They’re feeding their defiance to the crowd, which is going crazy, not just jumping but thrashing.
It’s not just the bros in the front anymore: hundreds of people fling against one another, knocking shoulders.
And the intensity of the song is only increasing, flooding the auditorium like a contagion.
Hannah sings the chorus again, punching her bass with each word, then lifts her hands, making a show of not touching it, and suddenly all the lights sweep to Ripper.
In the spotlight he chews his lip, and his fingers go from warp speed to mind-melting, traveling up and down the length of the neck like a goddamn prodigy.
“Oh, shit,” Bowie yells, jumping like he’s down there in the mosh pit. “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit.”
Kenny’s unleashed, a beast going wild on the drums, and Hannah’s back to the bass, nearly as fast as Ripper.
Suddenly the stage lights start flashing so fast they’re strobing, and we can barely see through them.
The band appears in illuminated flashes, one freeze-frame of their hands flying, one freeze-frame of their hair and sweat spinning everywhere.
The whole place descends into anarchy. The bros in front rush for the stage, the moshers in the middle for the metal towers around the amphitheater. They pull and shake them.
“They’re going to tear this place down!” Bowie shouts.
Jesus. “Where’s Diehard?” Dillon Diehard, the tool in charge of booking, is going to annihilate me.
“Holy shit,” Bowie crows, pointing over my shoulder. “Look!”
I follow where he’s pointing. A man climbs the tower, beating his chest and waving down at the mosh pit. It’s Dillon fucking Diehard.
The song is still escalating, wreaking chaos, and in the fury of noise and lights I can barely think straight.
The whole auditorium is filled with the sounds of Ripper’s unearthly talent, and Kenny’s soul, and Hannah’s anger.
I think she’d tear apart the world if she could.
I can’t do anything but let the song beat at me.
No matter her issues, her talent is undeniable—the raw power of it shakes the auditorium’s foundations.
Kenny’s drums finally start to slow into a steady pound, but Ripper’s still going a mile a minute, and as he does Hannah pulls his bass over her head.
I know what she’s going to do the moment before she does it, but still it floors me to watch her smash the bass into the stage, her violence timed with Kenny’s drum beats.
The whole venue goes crazy as the instrument comes apart, metal pieces flying, and when it’s nothing but fragments, she tosses the neck and walks offstage.