The Spotlight

Chapter One

ONE

I’m about to do The Thing.  The Thing where I jump through the air and disappear.  I count the seconds until I do this thing, because it means the show will be over as soon as I’ve jumped from the high-riser down into the carefully concealed hole at center stage.  It’s the only thing that stops their screaming and tears.   

I get ready to lead them into the last song, the big hit.  I look at the piece of tape at the base of my microphone stand that says PORTLAND (MAINE).  I slowly sweep the room with my eyes, a trick that makes everyone think I’m looking at each of them.  I can’t see any of their faces at all because of the spotlight that is pointing right at my eyes.  It seems like there is always a spotlight blinding me, no matter where I go.

“I have been all around the world and I’ve never heard an audience like tonight in PORTLAND!  This must mean we are in….”

I pause here.  The pause is necessary.  Another trick.

When I was fifteen I recorded my second album.  This was the one where my voice changed enough to sound kind of grown up.  Being fifteen, I had a stupid fifteen year-old concept for the album, which was also shaped by a team of hit songwriters with bad hair dye and suspiciously wrinkle-free foreheads, who mostly called me "bro" even though they were too old to call anyone bro.   They thought it would be cool to call the album The Big Leagues, because this was supposed to be the one that made me a household name.  They said that a lot. “You’re gonna be a household name, bro!”

“I said this MUST mean we are in…”

I can do this. I can think and perform at the same time.  I’ve done this so much that I could do it underwater if I had to.  I can look out and smile, or offer a hand to a girl in the front row and think about how what I really want is French toast. 

Tonight I feel almost out of my body, watching the Max Martin on stage breathing hard and encouraging the audience’s screams, while the 16-Year-Old-Max-In-My-Head is raging at the Fifteen-Year-Old-Max-Martin, because he is the one who designed a set that looks like a baseball stadium.   It’s totally schizo in here.

The stage is definitely my fault.  There are big inflatable baseballs and bats.  Jumbotrons like the ones in sports arenas. The band is playing in what is supposed to be a dugout.  The risers look like stadium seats.  My microphone is at home plate. I mean, what was I thinking? Oh right, I was fifteen.  I’m beating up a fifteen year old kid. 

“PORTLAND, MAINE…”

Why not just give it to them and make them happy?  Why do I have to be so miserable?  Why can’t I find a way to enjoy it the way they enjoy it?

 “…we are in…THE BIG LEAGUES!”

I hear the four clicks in my ear.  I have a monitor inside my ear that completely blocks out all of the crowd noise.  Want to know how they do it? They pour something that feels like melting rubber all the way into your ear canal and you sit there waiting for it to harden.  Then, when it’s hard and out of your ear, they work the wire through this perfect mold and it wirelessly connects to the sound board.  These monitors block out everything but the music in my ears.  I can’t hear the audience no matter how loud they scream. 

The clicks lets me know when the track is starting, and also play back exactly how my voice is sounding in the arena, with all of the instruments added too.  Except, because we're being really honest, what is coming into the arena tonight is going through a few processors first because I am sucking lately.    It’s show #212 in two years and this is the only way to make me sound perfect. Perhaps you've heard of Autotune.