Dance Party

[Aiden Finnegan]

  “Yeah, I got it, Dimitri,” Aiden said dismissively to his assistant, fiddling with the head set he had to wear for this performance. It was annoying to wear the thing again after shunning it for so many years, but there was a strange comfort in donning it again. With a flourish, he had finally found the proper adjustment. “Just make sure Meera’s got the dancers ready and check in on Siobhan please. The wolves were temperamental this morning, I will not have them snapping at an audience member again. And tell her I don’t fucking care what the Wolves have to say on that matter.” Dimitri nodded at that last bit and ran off, disappearing behind a velvet curtain.

                “You ready for this?” Kyle Rice, Aiden’s ex-boyfriend and drummer of Blarney Stoned, asked as he appeared from behind to take Dimitri’s vacated spot.

                “Do you really care?” Aiden asked without looking in his direction.

                “Because of your fragile mental health? Nah. But if you fuck up, the band fucks up, so-“

                “Suck a chode, Kyle,” Aiden spat, “Make sure your shit is tuned. I don’t want a repeat of Glasgow.”

                Kyle scoffed and turned heel, walking off into the shadows. Aiden could hear him mumble to himself, “Fucking bitch.”

                Aiden allowed himself a smirk. This wasn’t a huge event they were playing, hell, the attendees didn’t even know they were going to be treated to the first live performance of the Blarney Stoned reunion tour. But Aiden had insisted they do it this way. This was how they started. Humble beginnings. Playing in bars and clubs, not stadiums. The timing seemed off, but why not now? The world was on fire and each member of Blarney Stoned seemed to be going through their own form of existential crisis. Aiden’s book had been a flop.

                There was nothing else for it. Now was the perfect time. So here they were, in a mediocre bar (which happened to have an equally mediocre dancefloor and stage) in the middle of Russia resurrecting their old career. There would be - what? one, maybe two hundred people, at best, out there? - they would have to do. The individual voice was a powerful thing in this age and a hundred individual voices (with the aid of the Net) would be enough power to give them the jump start they needed to relaunch their careers.

                Aiden gave himself one last look in the mirror and nodded. The DJ, whose name Aiden could never remember, started to fade out his bass-thumping song and a familiar tune began to emerge under the heavy beats.

                “You’re in for a real treat tonight, freaks!” The DJ shouted over his personal microphone, “Are you ready!?”

                Aiden strutted out onto the stage to all the pomp and cheer he had anticipated, decked out in full punk-rock splendor. His bandmates: Kyle Rice, Siobhan West, Niall Murphy, Maeve Walsh, and Liam Kelly appeared on different points of the stage and a moving platform slowly pushed the DJ to the back of the stage. The band started to play along with the track that the DJ spun. Aiden wasted no preamble and immediately launched into a punk-rock cover of one of his favorite songs from 2020.

                “I want your stupid love, love! I want your stupid love, love,” Aiden sang passionately, playing to the audience, “Now it’s time to free me from the chain, I gotta find that peace, is it too late!? Or could this love protect me from the pain? I would battle for you! Even if I break in two! Freak out, freak out, freak out, freak out! Look at me! Get down, get down, get down, get down! Look at me! Freak out, freak out, freak out, freak out! Look at me now! Cause all I ever wanted was love!”

                This was living. This was what he had been missing.