On
the terrace outside, Griffon tuned up doggedly as the traffic sped by along the
dual-carriageway. His recent acquisition of an electronic tuner barely seemed
to make the process any less laborious. As he adjusted his capo and twiddled stubbornly
uncooperative tuning pegs, navigating the murky microtonal waters between D
sharp and E, his mind was on the gig ahead. As usual, he felt under-rehearsed
and under-confident, worried about fluffing his words and muffing his chord
changes. Armed with only an acoustic guitar and without a band behind him to
bolster the arrangements, he often felt exposed. There was nowhere to hide when
things went pear-shaped, which they frequently did. That said, experience had taught
him what to expect from this venue. A third of the audience would spend most of
the set chatting away to their friends. Another third would be mostly texting.
Of the remaining audience members who at least gave the impression that they
were listening, Griffon wondered how many were actually paying him their full
attention. He consoled himself with the thought that whatever he sang and
played, it would always be filtered through the senses of each listener and
experienced uniquely. That was the great wonder of art, he mused
absent-mindedly. It was as if each individual had his or her own personal
frequency, just like a tuning fork. What resonated perfectly with one person
left another completely unmoved. Griffon sometimes thought of his songs as a
mirror held up to the world – or even the wider cosmos – reflecting back what
it saw before it in words and music. What got reflected back was unpredictable.
Sometimes it was beautiful and magical. Sometimes it was ugly and cynical.
Sometimes it was hazy, kaleidoscopic or fragmented. Compounding this filtered
reality, each member of the audience carried their own mirror, cracked, flawed
and imperfect, which refracted and distorted the original image, often to such
a degree that it was barely recognisable. That seemed an inescapable, but oddly
reassuring reality.
‘Hey.’
Griffon glanced up and glimpsed Megan as she sashayed past him and disappeared
into the gloom of the bar. The coolly polite response to Griffon’s support set would
almost certainly be in stark contrast to that elicited by Megan. Megan was the
one the crowd had come to see. When Megan sang, everyone suddenly sat up and
listened - as if a magic spell had been cast upon them. Phones would be hastily
put away. Conversations would abruptly tail off. Megan possessed the kind of
charismatic stage presence that held the audience’s rapt attention. There was
something about her voice that demanded to be heard. It wasn’t power per se,
although she could certainly summon enough steel when she needed to. Neither
was it pureness, even though her voice had a distinct fragile, crystalline
quality. It wasn’t exactly a sweetness or a roughness or an earthiness. It was
somehow all of these qualities at once, her voice modulating effortlessly
between subtle emotional nuances. Megan’s voice melted hearts. It seemed to
resonate with everyone’s different frequencies at once – as if she was able to set
a myriad tuning forks vibrating simultaneously. As if she could bypass the
sense filter and mainline straight into the bloodstream. Meanwhile, her fingers
struck the piano keys with a sureness and deftness that Griffon could only
dream of matching on his own instrument. Megan had the X factor in spades. And
no matter what happened, she always managed to surf the waves that threatened
to drown other performers. Griffon recalled an acapella set one night that had
floored the audience after the bar’s keyboard had been inexplicably loaned out
for the evening. A sore throat only added an alluring huskiness to her voice.
And Megan had just the right putdown to subdue the occasional heckler: ‘Look at
the tits on her.’ ‘Yeah, and they’re not the only tits in here tonight, mate!’
The
bar was slowly filling up. It was time for Griffon to go on.
