Chapter 20 These Are the Places You Will Find Me Hidin’ #2
Not that I want it to be. It was hard getting gigs at those places; most of them want you to send proof that you’re worth their time (live performance videos, streaming links, bio, social media handles so they can check follower count and engagement, a list of past experience, plus an inquiry message that's basically a job application cover letter).
“Why did we bring my guitar?” I ask. “I can’t play here.
Not unless I tell them who I really am.” Fame’s the only thing that would get this place to make room for someone at the last minute, except Harmony’s got me wearing this inconspicuous shirt and beanie, so that can’t be the plan.
“If you want me to be Chad Hipster, they’re not going to let me onstage. ”
“Actually, I had my assistant book you as James Eckhart.” When I give her a skeptical frown, she adds, “Your mom’s maiden name, right? That’s what Wikipedia said.”
“And I suppose you’re Marie Murphy? Or are you supposed to be, like, my manager or something?”
“I can perform with you if you’re too nervous to go on alone,” she teases, “but otherwise, this is all about you.”
I glance at the building through the car window. God, it’s been so long since I’ve set foot in a place like this. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to set foot in a lot of places without feeling like I’m on display. How the hell did Harmony pull this off?
“What did you send them to get me in?”
“Three thousand dollars,” she says.
“What?!”
That’s not much money to her, but still.
“I also had to guarantee that at least a hundred people would show up for you alone, which my assistant Jenna’s boyfriend arranged—he’s in social media marketing, so he knows how to drum up a lot of interest in events.”
“Harmony …”
She tilts her head. “James …”
Who is this woman?
I scoff. “You. Are. Insane.”
“I know.” Harmony pops the trunk. “Get your guitar.”
The second we step in, the temperature shifts—humid with body heat, yet cooler somehow because of the brick and concrete.
A woman’s voice rings out, accompanied by the banjo player to her right and a man with a harmonica to her left.
The main floor isn’t packed, exactly, but it’s full, and so are the upper levels, where people stand next to railings on either side of the open center.
Steel trusses span the width of the ceiling, coated in chipped paint that works for the aesthetic, while industrial fans rotate slowly.
The stage sits at the far end, a wooden platform with corrugated metal panels on its front. Neon letters display the venue name behind it.
Harmony and I approach a booth where a staffer asks if we’re performing (since I’m holding my guitar case). Once Harmony tells him who I am and he looks me up, he provides us with special wristbands and directs us to a hallway that leads to the green room.
Inside the hallway, the music dampens. Bare, caged bulbs cast yellow splotches of light to guide us on until we reach what was probably a large storage room once.
Now it’s filled with sofas and stools and performers warming up.
Vocal scales and plucked strings clash with the music vibrating through the walls from the stage, but that doesn’t stop anyone.
We find an empty corner and I take out my guitar to tune it, still thrown by the fact that I’m surrounded by strangers and they’re all ignoring me.
Is that really all it takes? A beanie and a change of clothes?
I guess this isn’t exactly the demographic that would recognize a country singer, so that probably helps.
It throws me even more that no one notices Harmony—at least not for who she is.
She’s one who’d be recognized by people no matter what music they normally listen to.
A couple of guys smile at her and one asks her name but she tells him “Marie.”
She sticks close to me, which seems to make them think she’s taken, and I can’t say I mind.
Apparently I’m on after the next act. I’m surprised to find my nerves buzzing in a way they haven’t for years now, like I’m starting over for the first time.
“What am I performing?” I ask Harmony. These types of venues don’t usually require a setlist, but maybe she had something specific planned for me.
“Whatever you want. Whatever you can fit into twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes. Pretty standard for a showcase act (I didn’t see signs for a headliner). That’s five or six songs. I should be able to come up with that many covers; I know plenty off the top of my head.
For now, I hum a few notes to warm up my vocal cords, and get my fingers flexible and deft.
In no time, the stage manager tells me, “You’re on in five.”
My adrenaline spikes.
Why the hell am I nervous?
Harmony gives me a reassuring smile and says, “You’ll be great. You always are.”
We go wait in the wings as the current performer ends his set. The audience claps and he says “thank you” into the mic before stepping off.
After a nudge from Harmony, I walk onstage and gaze out at the room and its shadowed rows of bodies.
The people applaud me as well, in a polite and welcoming manner but without the enthusiasm they might have for someone they recognize.
The glare of the stage lights keeps me from picking out too many details, like facial expressions or rough numbers as to how many people there are.
I clear my throat and go up to the mic. “It’s great to be here. I’m … James Eckhart. And I’m going to start with a cover of ‘Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise’ by the Avett Brothers.”
Another smattering of applause.
I flex my fingers and then play the intro—something I arranged myself once for fun, because this is normally a piano song—for about fifteen seconds before I come in vocally with “‘There’s a darkness upon me that’s flooded in light …’”
Little whistles erupt from the crowd.
The acoustic sound in a small venue like this takes me back, like returning to my old high school after having been graduated for a few years. How does it feel so familiar and so foreign at the same time?
During the next couple of lines, I’m stiff while I play, trying to find my footing again. It’s only when I sing “‘If you’re loved by someone, you’re never rejected,’” and I happen to look over at Harmony, that I begin to relax.
She’s watching from the wings with her hands clasped, grinning.
I keep going, progressing through the beloved song like second nature.
At ‘There was a dream … and one day I could see it …” people even sing along.
Not in the loud, screaming way they do at my concerts, just softly, like you’d imagine they would to join someone else who was playing guitar at a campfire.
I finish strong, and at the end, the applause is louder. Warmth floods my chest like it always did when I could feel these little crowds responding well to me.
You’d think being more famous now, with bigger crowds chanting at me and belting out my lyrics all the time, I’d be plenty confident, but it’s easy to blame the excitement on anything besides me.
It’s like a football game; a lot of spectators don’t care that much about the sport, they’re just in it for the community and the thrill and the noise.
Sometimes I think maybe people don’t care about me or my music that much, they just want to drink beer and dance with their friends and sing something they know at the top of their lungs.
This feels different. More intimate. More … sincere.
Next, I do a cover of “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez, and then “Down in the Valley” by The Head And The Heart, leaving me only about seven minutes of my twenty-minute time slot, and then I get an idea.
I play a quick (less than two minutes) “Song for the Asking” by Simon and Garfunkel, and when I’m done I say, “For this last one, I’d like to invite my … uh … girlfriend … Marie … to join me.”
Harmony perks up, but warily, because of course we haven’t practiced anything together (although she did offer to sing with me) and it’s a gamble that I’ll pick something we’d both know well enough to perform as a duet.
Except it’s not a gamble—at least not a gamble that we’d both know it.
It is a gamble that it won’t give us away.
She arrives at the mic and waves at everyone.
“I know this might be a little too mainstream,” I say, “and not the genre you’re used to, but … I’ve written a special arrangement that I think you’ll like. We’re going to sing a cover … of ‘Lip Sync’ by Riff Hurley and Harmony Sonora.”
Harmony gives me a wide-eyed look and clutches the mic stand like she might fall over if she doesn’t hold on.
The audience murmurs for a moment but ultimately cheers for us to begin.
This is a version I created when I had to practice for the demo, not knowing I was going to debut it at Coastal Hearts with Harmony, before my producer gave it the country layers.
This version is slower, more pensive, and fully acoustic.
And for once I’m going to perform it as me, in my preferred style—no twang or drawl, no pandering to Riff Hurley fans.
The fact that everyone here thinks I’m someone else is beside the point.
It’s a hearty strum at first that builds, until it mellows again for the vocals. All the beats are still there, all the right chords, so Harmony is sure to know her cue regardless of the changes I’ve made. I smile to reassure her.
“‘I know the music and the words,’” she sings, “‘it’s nothing that I haven’t heard’ …”
For all her nerves (I’m guessing) she doesn’t falter. She gets through her lyrics with her usual skill, her smooth alto. I strum harder for emphasis on certain words.
And then we go into the chorus. Our voices blend like never before, because neither of us is holding back. I even slap my hand over the guitar strings to silence them for a few seconds on “I just act, I don’t think” so that our harmony rings out in isolation.
Everyone cheers while we hold the notes on “thiiiiiiiiiiiiiink,” which I punctuate with a forceful strum to pick up the pattern again for “Your lips on mine like the missing link.”
People take out their phones and turn on the flashlights, forming a small sea of glowing dots that undulate.
I sing my lines, we kill it again on the second chorus, and by the bridge, we’re both singing right in each other’s faces without shame or discomfort.
Her voice fills my ears and my voice fills my throat and for an instant I wish this is how it could always be—me, a nobody, and Harmony without the pressure that crushes her daily, just us and the music and no one to answer to.
We sing the closing cadence and applause overlaps the sound of the chord.
Harmony and I don’t break eye contact.
I’m going to kiss her. Seriously. I’m going to do it. I’ll do it and she’ll know I mean it. She won’t have any reason to think it’s for anyone else’s benefit because no one here knows we’re us.
She doesn’t seem to have any intention of drawing back, so I tilt my face down to meet hers. Her lips are a breath away.
Just go for it.
“You’re a minute over!” the stage manager calls from the wings.
We both flinch, the spell broken.
The next act (a girl with an autoharp) is already stepping out.
Dejected, I follow Harmony off the stage.
At the very least, we seem to have gotten away with our ruse—and this ruse was so much better than what the label made us do.
If I wasn’t one hundred percent in love with Harmony Sonora before, I am now.