Forza Forte

Read the Room

Lucas finishes tidying up the shop before going to his room. He takes a deep breathe before going through his clothes and picking out an outfit. He hesitates to himself and tries to pick something else out before slamming the clothes onto his futon. He looks at his phone to text Astra, but again hesitates. Lucas finally decides to pick out a T shirt with cut up jeans and black and white sneakers. He grabs his guitar and head towards the door. He notices the goggles sitting on the counter with a small card from Sunny that says:
"Good Luck! You might need these."
Lucas puts his hand on his face and thinks to himself before deciding to grab the goggles and he leaves the shop. He walks around the city and heads towards Parliament Rock. When he arrives he notices the bouncer who asks, "name?" Lucas smiles and says, "Lucas Lane." The bouncer looks at a clipboard and nods his head before marking two red X's on Lucas's hands. He makes his way inside to see the rest of the group posted up near the bar. They're all drinking and he takes a seat next to them. "Aye my friend, how you feeling? Excited for your first performance," Paora says super cheerfully. Lucas does a small smile, "yeah I'm definitely ready to get this over with." Shanice looks at him and squints her eyes before Liam says, "I hope everyone's ready. The other band should be starting anytime now. Just try to focus on the crowd and try to get an idea of what type of sound they want to hear. If we can feel them out it'll help us out when we perform." Everyone nods at Liam before they're interrupted by the cheers of the big crowd in front of them. They notice five guys come on stage dressed in all black with crazy colored hair. The lead singer smiles at the crowd and there's a big cheer. "That's Donnie Adkins. God he's such a smug punk," Liam says with a mad look on his face. Shanice laughs, "I don't know I think he's kind of cute. Like in a confident way." Lucas is zoning out but focuses in when he hears Donnie start to introduce the band. Lucas can feel the crowd shift and get hyped as the drums leads into the intro followed by guitar and keyboards. Lucas squeezes the goggles in his hand before taking a deep breathe before putting them on. He focuses on the band and starts to notices an orange aura come from the band. Lucas squints as he sees the aura blast in an a quick rapid rhythmic pattern onto the crowd as if it was signaling them. Everyone gets super excited and more people gradually bangs their heads in sync. Lucas tries to think to himself why is the aura orange and how he can use it to his advantage. After the song everyone claps and cheers before Donnie thanks the crowds. "We're going to squeeze in one more quick song if that's fine. It's a crowd favorite," Donnie says cockily before laughing. Then immediately a hard guitar chord hits before Donnie says, "I heard a knock on the window the other day!" Liam gets up and stands looking, "fuck I should've known he was going to play this." Lucas looks at Liam before looking back at the band. The orange aura fizzles into a more blue aura and the crowd starts to move and sway together. Some people in the crowd were singing along with the band and overall felt like a more intimate song compared to the previous one. Lucas looked into the crowd and noticed key people the aura is connecting with while others didn't have any aura on them. Those people were looking at their phones or kind of looking around. "Serves them right. You can tell they did that song for their fans specifically to vibe to. You're going to lose the crowd if they don't vibe with it, but it's more intimate with people that know them," Liam says with his arms folded. Lucas focus from Liam back to the crowd. "Yeah I think I actually get what you mean," Lucas says before the band finishes. Everyone cheers for them before getting off stage. People in the crowd continue their conversations while some head towards the bar. "I think we can go set up now," Paora says before everyone follows behind him. Lucas takes off the goggles and let them rest around his next while everyone sets up their instruments. Lucas starts to connect his guitar to some amps when Shanice gets close to him. "Hey Lucas are you okay?" She says while she takes her bass out of its case. Lucas eyebrows raise and he says, "of course I am! Better than ever. I'm just ready to get this over with." Shanice smirks while putting her bass over her neck, "it's okay to be nervous Lucas. I was the same way when we first played here." Lucas feels relieved knowing Shanice thinks he's only nervous about the show. "Yeah? I appreciate that. I think I'll feel better once we actually play." Paora is screwing the drums together, "that's the spirit! You got this no pressure at all. It's a good first practice show of many you know?" Everyone finishes setting up and Lucas gets in front. He looks back to see Paora and Shanice smiling at him. Liam nods his head while Lucas nods back. Lucas takes a deep breathe before facing the crowd.