Page 31 of Down Beat

TWELVE

Tabitha

“Go To War” – Nothing More

“It’s not going to be enough.” I grip my hair with one hand, resting my head in the hold. “I won’t win them over with this.”

Kendall groans from her spot stretched out on the sofa, one arm thrown over her eyes. “Just stop. Please.”

“Excuse me for wanting to not fuck this up,” I snap. “It’s not every day I get an audience that big, is it?”

Eight hundred and forty-three. Turns out Dark Tide have quite the super fan base, there.

“What have you got so far?”

I slide off where I’d been perched on the end of the kitchen counter, and carry my scratched and rescratched playlist over to her.

Kendall skims the names, mouth twisted as she reads. “This one.” She points to my third choice. “Is that the one that goes…”

I do everything I can not to grimace at the way she butchers the piece by trying to sound it out with her voice. “If we’re thinking of the same one, then yes.”

“Put it second to last.”

“Why?”

“It’ll make them think you’re winding down and then, bam! You’ll hit them with this one.”

I snatch the notepaper from her and mentally shuffle the songs. “I think you might have a point.”

“Babe. I haven’t hung around with you the past six years without picking up a thing or two about your music.”

She giggles as I crush her in a hug, and then pull back to read the list one last time. Kendall’s my rock. It’s crazy when I think back to the first time we met, how badly we couldn’t stand each other.

“I still think it’s flat,” I complain. “I’m competing with this, for crying out loud.” I dash over and retrieve my phone, smacking the passcode in to unlock the screen.

It still shows the YouTube video I watched over and over while Kendall showered.

She takes the device from me and hits Play. “For starters, they’re in a huge arena, Tab. They won’t have as many lights and fire and shit in that theater.”

I know she only tries to placate me, but I can see the same look in her eyes as I felt in mine watching Dark Tide perform their breakout song on the first stop of the tour: awe. All the light effects and pyrotechnics in the world can’t outshine Rey’s raw magnetism.

He draws you in to him by just being. The man could be bent over, thrashing out the chorus, or static while he serenades a softer verse. It doesn’t matter; you’re captivated all the same.

He’s what they call natural talent. Marketable material. He’s a promoter’s dream. No wonder the band blazes a trail through the rock world.

“What do you propose then?” Kendall hands my phone back, her lips set in a flat line.

I shrug. “That’s the problem; I don’t know.”

“Do you need a piece with more oomph? Something original?”

I level her with a hard stare. How in hell does she expect me to come up with an original piece in twenty-four hours?

“Okay,” she cedes. “Maybe not original, then.”

Although. My index finger taps my lips as the idea forms. “Maybe I can’t do completely original,” I say. “But I could do an original take on a favorite.”

“You mean make one of these old pieces more modern?”

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