Page 62 of Strum Me

Chapter Twenty-Two

Emily

The crowd grows silent. Even though they don’t know what’s coming, there’s something in the air that tells them what they’re about to hear is special.

I’m still recovering from my experience of hearing it in rehearsal this afternoon, but here in the front row of this small but atmospheric orchestra hall with a thousand hardcore fans behind me, I can’t wait to hear it again. I want to see it played how it was meant to be played, live and for as many people to listen to it as possible.

As customary, before the opening of any half of their show and encore, the hall and stage fall completely dark. The Rock Chamber Boys’ experience is a full body sensory one. The boys and their crew, their light manager, their backdrop, their décor—they know that every inch of this hall, space, and sound can be controlled to heighten their experience.

It’s pitch black and I can feel Hailey moving next to me on one side, and Hank, Sebastian’s nephew and assistant on the other. They’re watching through different eyes, having been so close to it and wanting to make sure everything runs as they’ve pictured it all these months.

I’m buzzing with such anticipation and excitement, it’s a wonder I’m not lighting up the space like a firefly.

I can hear their footsteps, and not for the first time I can’t figure out how they don’t fall flat on their faces in the dark. I guess it’s partly why they have nothing on stage but them and their instruments.

“And…now,” Hailey whispers to herself, and as if on cue, there’s a plucking of a cello string. A low bass note drives the rhythm deep. It echoes in my chest and takes over my heartbeat. I know it’s Sebastian, and I can imagine the concentration on his face.

Someone in the audience suddenly gasps, and I almost copy them when we see a single bright dot appear out of the dark, cast on the wall. It trembles, not quite moving, but not standing still.

Then as Jez and Brad and finally Marius join in, the dot grows slowly bigger, until it’s the size of a baseball.

It wavers there, like a shimmering light. Then as the notes from Brad’s violin buzz into life, so does the dot.

It’s a bee. A bumblebee. An insect made of pure light, dancing over the walls and ceiling of the hall. A soft ambient light fills the stage and we can only just see the band. But all focus is on the notes, the musical notes drawing a map of the bumblebee’s flight plan. Up here, bee, up here, the notes tell us, and he whizzes up to a crevice in the ceiling. No, no, down here, Brad’s bow sings to the bee, let’s hide down here.

I close my eyes and am transported from the room onto a rocking boat on the sea. This iconic piece of music from Tale of the Tsar Saltan is when the Saltan’s son is turned into a bee and stows away on the boat to the mainland to find his estranged father. It’s one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. And it takes more than skill and practice to play it well; it takes an instinctive feel for the instrument and the sound it creates to make a string of notes conjure the image of a frantic tableau. And not for the first time, it occurs to me the band—each and every one of them—has been touched by the hand of a musical deity.

I open my eyes again as I find myself almost dizzy, swaying along to the sea’s motions and the bumblebee’s movements. The piece is short and it’s coming to a climactic end.

Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum! Brad’s violin bee escapes the boat and disappears into the wind.

And then, without a breath of hesitation, Jez and Sebastian’s cellos soar to life. Bursting out of the restraint of the driving beat from the Korsakov piece, the sound swells like a twenty-foot wave, threatening to crash.

The boys have chosen Birdy’s “Wings” to combine with the bumblebee, and it is pure genius.

Birdy’s song is atmospheric and filled with a surging ache. It’s a song of hope but tinged with the darkness of life.

The stage floods with a soft pink light, then fades to blue, then purple, then retreats to illuminate the stage in a soft, sunlit glow.

The strings pull back and the spotlight falls on Cadence. She’s an angel in a shroud of white lace. Her hair is pulled to the side in a loose braid. Her fingers fall on each note, deliberate, fated to be there. She caresses the keys to play a single-noted melody. Birdy must have been channeling the goddess of melancholy when she wrote this piece, and Cadence is her confidante.

The addition of Cadence to the band for some of the pieces has been a game changer. For some epic songs like this it is undeniable—her female intuitiveness injects heart into the song, filling out those empty spaces between the strings. I am so proud to know her, even for the few days we’ve been friends.

I look around and the entire room is filled with wide-open mouths and closed eyes.

Brad’s sweet violin layers on top of Cadence’s piano, and it’s like voices were never needed for this song.

I can’t take my eyes off him. His blond bangs are matted with sweat, his shirt, pulled from the confines of his waistband where it was tucked in at the start of the show, is now drenched with sweat and clings to the expanse of his hard, strong chest. His bow strings are devastated, single threads pulled from one end, catching the light with their transparent silken ribbons. His eyes are closed, always closed, listening to every note from the four instruments around him, living in that audio sphere. In heaven.

I really can’t take my eyes off him.

And then, on cue, the single bumblebee light that has still been dancing over the crowd bursts into a trillion stars, mirroring the lyrics.

We lift up hands hoping to catch the fragments and we wave our illuminated cell phones screens in time, wanting to be a part of the star-studded ocean washing over us.

The music builds and builds, soaring as the guys become one with their instruments, and us with them.

And then suddenly, it is quiet.