Bandwagon

by Andrew Fish

in order to think and he wasn’t convinced that the noise was supposed to make any kind of sense in itself.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ben continued. ‘I just feel that people are looking at me and, you know, they’re thinking “who’s the jerk who can’t play?” – do you know what I mean?’ he looked at Nutter and this time the robot realised that an answer was expected.

  ‘Y-you’re the singer,’ he provided.

  ‘Anyone can sing.’

  ‘B-but you sing g-good. M-most people s-sing l-like a l-lottery winner.’

  Ben gave Nutter a sideways glance. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They only h-hit the right n-notes by chance.’

  They were interrupted by a bleeping noise from the floor in front of the stage. Nutter looked down to see an indignant looking vacubot prodding at his feet.

  ‘I think it wants to clean there,’ said Ben.

  Nutter nodded. ‘L-let’s go and s-see the others,’ he said. He stood up, carefully avoiding the robotic cleaner. The cleaner, clearly less certain about its safety, pulled back to a cautious distance.

  They found Riff loading the last of their equipment into the museum van. The inside of the van was neatly arranged, with the drums in individual boxes towards the front, whilst the other instruments were laid out down the sides. Riff placed the box of Vid’s spare bass strings next to his guitar then climbed down from the vehicle. As the van door slid quietly closed he turned and noticed his colleagues watching patiently.

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t just leave the stuff here,’ said Ben.

  ‘It’s museum property,’ said Riff.

  ‘Who’s going to miss it? It’s not as if anyone ever goes round the museum, is it?’

  ‘That’s not the point. It’s still museum property. The owners wouldn’t want them to go missing.’

  ‘And they wouldn’t object if they knew you borrowed them for gigs.’

  Riff considered this. ‘I could tell them that I was trying to increase interest in the museum,’ he said. ‘Talking of property,’ he added, ‘where are Keys and Vid – they ought to be getting back.’

  ‘T-they already went,’ said Nutter.

  Riff nodded. ‘Keys gets nervous about staying out late,’ he said.

  ‘Why does he go out then?’ said Ben.

  ‘It’s something he enjoys. People accept nerves for that – why else would people ski, watch horror movies, or eat fast food?’

  Ben sighed and sat down on the van’s back step. ‘Isn’t it going to be a problem though,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, I mean, when we’re playing some big stadium on the other side of the world. How’s he expecting to get back in time to open the store then?’

  Riff made a show of checking the lock on the van. Ben watched him earnestly. Eventually the robot turned. ‘Who said anything about playing stadiums?’ he said.

  ‘I thought that’s what we were trying to do?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t you want to?’

  Riff shrugged. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Besides, you can’t even look at a few dozen people, how are you going to cope with thousands?’ He strode round to the front of the van and opened the door. ‘Can I offer you a lift?’ he asked.

  Ben shook his head. ‘It’s OK, we’ll walk,’ he said.

  The streets were almost deserted as Ben and Nutter strolled through the city centre. Nutter was nodding his head to some half-remembered rhythm, whilst Ben walked beside him lost in thought.

  A binbot emerged from a side-alley, busily cleaning up the litter from the first wave of nightlife. By the time it had finished its designated area, it would be throwing out time for the pubs and the little robot’s job would begin all over again. Ben watched the bot, wondering whether it had enough intelligence to get bored. Did it dream of breaking free from its dull existence and taking up a new career? Perhaps it wanted to clean up leaves in the park?

  A cat, skulking under a bench, gave a loud squeal as the bot almost swept it up. The creature attempted to scratch at the automaton, realised the gesture was futile and bad for the nails, and darted out of the square. The bot continued with its sweeping, its movement taking on an air of triumph, as if at least one small ambition had been fulfilled for the evening.

  ‘Where do you see us going?’ Ben asked Nutter.

  ‘W-what?’ Nutter seemed surprised, as if he too had been caught up in thought. Preposterous for a drummer, Ben knew, but he repeated the question. ‘Where do you see us going?’

  ‘The p-pub, then home,’ said Nutter.

  Ben kicked at a stone, which span off across the path. ‘I meant with the band,’ he said. ‘Do you think that it’ll just be a matter of playing gigs at Café Igneous until we all get bored and decide to pack it in?’

  ‘D-don’t know. Is that what you w-want?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Ben. He stopped and looked up at the trees. ‘I mean, I suppose I never thought I’d actually get good, but now… now I want to get somewhere, to get out of my old job and do something different.’

  ‘What’s w-wrong with y-your job?’

  Ben sighed. He could have explained about the mindless tedium of professional nitpicking, about endlessly worrying whether a company would try to sue him personally because of the stress bought about by a lawsuit for which he had done the research. He could have told the robot about the irritatingly friendly photocopier, which would ramble on about the weather and how busy the office was, whilst consistently producing mirror images of your documents because it wasn’t paying attention to its work. He could even have mentioned the coffee percolator, which always seemed to be empty when it was his turn to make the coffee. Somehow, though, it didn’t seem important. ‘It’s crap,’ he summarised.

  ‘Ah,’ said Nutter, giving a passable imitation of the office lift, which always wanted to know about your problems so that it could bring you up spiritually as well as physically on the way to the office.

  ‘Do you suppose Riff meant it when he said that he wasn’t interested in playing stadiums?’ Ben asked.

  Nutter shrugged noncommittally. ‘D-don’t know.’ It was clear if he did, he wouldn’t say. Ben decided to change the subject.

  ‘Do you think I should try facing the audience next week?’

  ‘Do you w-want to?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do they look like?’

  ‘Humans,’ Nutter replied, as if this covered everything. ‘They all l-look the s-same to me.’

  12

  When one views the rise of stadium rock, it is easy to come to the conclusion that pop culture evolves backwards. Logically, one would expect that in music’s formative past, there would have been fewer performers and less musical diversity, leading to greater attendance at the few public concerts. Similarly, in the days before theatre, one would assume that concerts would more usually been held in the open air.

  Perhaps it is the perversity of the music establishment, but the facts seem to be the exact reverse. Hundreds of years ago, musicians were patronised by only the very rich, meaning that they generally played to very small audiences. Then, music went mainstream and was played in small theatres. Now, large groups of people gather in huge stadiums, fields, aircraft hangars etc to see their favourite artists.

  Researchers have speculated that, assuming the current boom in new bands and live venues continues, after a few hundred years everyone will know at least one performer and will live within a mile of a regular venue, yet nearly everyone will travel halfway across their world to a reasonable sized island to see a specific act perform – regardless of weather, wars or other disasters.

  A casual observer might suggest that the reason music has developed in this way might have something to do with improved amplification. It would, after all, have been unreasonable to expect a wandering minstrel to play to a stadium of forty thousand people with only a lute and his own voice, unless he was expected to wander round every s
eat in the course of the gig.

  Researchers, however, concerned to keep their grants for themselves, have come up with a more sophisticated theory – that of the conservation of talent.

  Talent, so the theory goes, is a finite resource, spread across the universe like fine white satin. When we are born we receive some of this talent. We might not do anything with it, but it stays with us until we die then is returned to the cosmic bedsheet.

  Of course, we don’t all get the same amount: random variations and genetic quirks mean that some people are more likely to be born with talent than others, resulting in an imbalance which leads to a small number of highly successful artistes and a lot of dullards. Despite this, however, there are many dullards who believe they have talent themselves, and they will generally emulate, imitate… basically steal from the trailblazers.

  The theory shows, by virtue of some extremely complex mathematics8, that over time, in accordance with the theory of genetic propagation, there will be an increasing number of talentless wannabees and a decreasing number of highly talented and successful acts. Eventually, you will reach the point where everybody thinks they can play, but there is only one band worth listening to. Some people believe that this band has already broken up.

  Whatever the truth of the matter is – or indeed isn’t – one of the major problems of stadium rock is the inability of people who are any distance from the stage to either see or hear what is going on at the front – even with good amplification.

  In music circles this is not a significant problem – if