Chapter 2
So, the eight girls have been working together for a couple of weeks now, working hard getting ready for the tour. They spent a couple of days visiting places to get themselves clothes for the tour. Top of the list was, of course, stage clothes - including those black and red dresses for their version of 'Gimme Chocolate'. Then they needed to get plenty of clothes for other public appearances: whilst on tour, as well as numerous TV and radio appearances, they would need to be 'seen in public'. One big issue when on tour is getting any clothes laundered, which is part the reason for needing so many.
They now have several 'joint' songs written: they have all enjoyed working together on the songs, and despite their slightly different musical interests, they have met nicely in the middle.
Linda had suggested another 'feature' for their show. They had already decided to do what they were calling 'Crew Karaoke', and the 'Solo Spot', but Linda, being primarily CJDL's bass player, came up with something called 'Linda's Bass Riffs': take the bass line from a well known song, like Pink Floyd's 'Money' and play it. In some cases she might be alone, on others two or three of them might join in. They had just been trying out a version of 'Ghostbusters', but were now taking a quick break.
Paula and Sanjay were there too: whilst the team would have loved to have got to know them better, when they were 'taking a break' was usually a good time for them to be filming the girls! But they slowly built a good relationship, the girls trusting the two to 'give them space' when they needed it.
"Hey, guys, just had a call from a friend of a friend." said Callum, coming into the music room. "It's a 'cry for help', and I have no idea if any of you are interested..."
"What's the problem?" asked Carol.
"South London College, our Alma Mater, is supposed to be putting on a charity gig on Thursday night, with a big headlining band, but the band's had to cancel. It's a fund-raiser, and without the band, they have no gig. So...."
"Yes, absolutely!" said Jenny without a second thought.
"Well, I wasn't expecting THAT. What does everyone else think? And the other question is, of course, who?"
The bands had decided that doing the gig would be good in so many ways: for a start, it would be interesting to see how fans reacted to their music. But the big win would be that they would get some great PR for not just stepping in to do the fundraiser, but for doing it for free (as long as the college paid for the PA system hire, which they got really cheap, as it was a charity gig!).
So, three nights later, all 8 of them are at South London College to perform, and of course, Paula and Sanjay are there to film. It won't be anything as clever as what they will be doing on their tour, but it's a great chance to simply play some of their new songs to a live audience, and see their reactions.
An outside sound crew was already lined up to provide and run the PA for the evening, so whilst the CJDL ladies would be using headset mics, they wouldn't have any IEMs, just simple foldback wedges, and no fancy intercom system. To be honest, the venue was a LOT smaller than where they'd be playing on their tour, so if there was an issue, they could probably just shout across the hall! The existing support band had already warmed up the audience: whilst the crowd had been promised a suitably major replacement headline band, they had no idea who it was. Yes, there had been rumours, but apart from the sound-check, the 8 girls had kept out of the way. Also, there was only one set of instruments on stage: Erin had decided that she would be ok using Dianne's electric drums, there was Jenny's keyboard, and several on-stage amps for the piano and guitars, which they would all use.
As I said, a very different stage line-up compared to what they would be using on tour.
One of the student organisers went onto the stage. "So, as you know, our original main band had to bail on us, but we have managed to get a replacement, which I'm sure you'll enjoy. So please welcome.... actually, no, they said not to, it's a surprise!". The crowd applauded politely, assuming they were about to be entertained by some second or third rate band who had stepped in at the last minute.
All of the girls were dressed surprisingly plainly, jeans and so on, and little makeup. Linda walks onto the stage by herself, picks up her guitar, and starts to play the bassline for 'Ghostbusters'.
"Who you gonna call?" she asks, and a few of the audience reponded with 'Ghostbusters!'. "Come on guys, you can do better than that!" She does it again, and more people join in. Next, Dianne walked onto the stage, sat at her drums, and started to play along. "Who you gonna call?" they ask again, and get an even better response from the crowd. They played together for a bit, then Jenny walks on, and starts to play the main melody on piano, followed moments later by Carol coming on, and playing her guitar with them. As the song finished, the crowd shouted a final loud "Ghostbusters!", and applauded, but it was clear that a few of them hadn't actually worked out who they were.
"Good evening everyone, I'm Jenny, and you won't believe quite how good it feels to be up here again! It's been a while!" said Jenny. "And if you've not worked it out, we're CJDL. We got a 'call for help' 3 days ago: as you know, we're getting ready to do a big European tour, so this is actually a great chance for us to actually try out some of our new songs!". There was another big cheer.
"So, I'm Linda," said Linda, taking over. "The other day I just started playing that bass riff, and the others joined in the fun, so that's why we just played Ghostbusters for you! Dianne?"
"Right, yes, our new album come out next week, and we're going to play you a few songs from it. Don't worry, we'll also be playing you some older ones too...". They played a couple of the songs from their new album, getting reasonable feedback.
"Ok," said Linda, "this is gonna be our new single: it also gets released next week, along with the album, but let me tell you a tiny bit about it. Who knows the 'Golden Dragon' Chinese restaurant in town?". There was a big cheer. "Great restaurant! So, I went there a bit ago with a few friends... actually friends I met HERE, at college. Yes, in case you didn't realise, all four of us in CJDL came here, and did music, although these guys were actually in the year above me. Anyway, I'd not seen my friends for a while, and while we were waiting for our food to arrive, I started getting ideas for a song. That night I stayed up well into the morning writing it, although, as these guys will not tire from repeating, I did manage to fall asleep! It's called 'Friends'!"
The song went down a lot better than they thought. Whilst not yet released, the radio stations were starting to play it, so it was likely their audience had heard it. Next they played a couple of their older songs.
"So, this tour we're doing..." said Dianne, "... anyone got tickets for it?" There was quite a cheer. "Well, we're not doing it alone. Whilst there won't be a support band, we're going to be sharing the stage together for over 3 hours with Northern Girls... come on, give them a big South London College welcome....". The four Northern Girls came on stage, and CJDL left. Without an introduction, they launched into their first song, quite a rocky one, which the audience seemed to like.
"Hi everyone! You're the first audience we've ever played to in England. In Europe in fact! I'm Taylor, let me introduce the others to you...". Northern girls played a couple of their older songs as well as a couple from their new album. "You know, CJDL aren't the only one about to have a new single out, this is our new single..."
As the crowd's applause died down, Dianne came on stage with Paige. Paige was pushing a tombola drum on a small trolley. "Ok, so you all know that tonight is a charity fundraiser, and we thought that we should help thing along as well. As you came in, you saw Paige, selling raffle tickets, promising a few prizes. Can our models please come onto the stage?" Jenny and Carol came on, wearing old CJD tour t-shirts and hoodies, whilst Linda was sporting one of the first trial batch of new 'Eight Girls with Braces - Orthodontic Tour' t-shirts. They also had a few extras in their hands. "Most of these are old CJD stuff, but Linda is wearing one of our brand new 'Orthodontic Tour' shirts: whoever wins that will have the first tour t-shirt! And if you're not into T-shirts, then we have the plectrums and drumsticks they've been playing with tonight! But when they are all gone, we will have 2 extra, rather special, prizes for you... tell you about them shortly. Oh, forgot to mention, the girls have signed all of these items for you! Ok, so Taylor is going to start to pull out tickets for the clothing: if you win, come and make your choice. When the girls are naked..." there was a big cheer. "Ok, so when the girls have run out of t-shirts and hoodies, we'll then draw the 2 tickets for those special prizes.... Taylor?"
Taylor put her hand in the box, and pulled out a ticket, passing it to Dianne. "I must admit, I've never done this before," confessed Dianne, "this is a first! This one is a GREEN ticket, number 73...." There was a shout over at the side. "Ok, come on up and choose your prize..." Over the next few minutes many happy students came up and made their clothing choices, with one guy going for the drumsticks and plectrums.
"Ok, just 2 prizes left! And maybe it's time to tell you what they actually are. We have two pairs of tickets to one of our performances on our up and coming tour. And you know how hard THEY have been to get hold of! Hey, Erin, I think we need a couple of drum-rolls for these!" As Erin did a drum-roll, Taylor pulled out another ticket. "It's a RED one, number 234!". There was a huge scream at the back, as a girl realised that she'd just won a pair of tickets. "Come on up, and have a word with Paige, to organise your tickets!". A girl with long brown hair came up on stage, smiling and waving her arms: like the 8 pop-stars, she also had braces.
"Of course, what we forgot to mention is that, not only will you be getting VIP tickets, giving you some rather nice seating, we'll organise a 'meet and greet' with you too - we'll sort out the details later on. So, one final ticket from the drum please.... drum roll? ... and Taylor?" "And the final ticket is another RED one, number 8!". Another scream, and this time a couple came up on stage, both very happy. "Ok, if you guys go with Paige, she'll get all your details, and give you the statutory 'ticket voucher' that you can use to show off to all your friends! Ok, Paige, do we know how much we actually raised tonight?"
"Well, I was amazed how rich and generous many of the students have been: we set the price of the tickets at 2 quid each, we had quite a few people buying 5 at a time, and a few even splashed out for 10: so thank you everyone, and I believe the grand total is... hey, I think we need another drum roll!". Erin did another drum roll for Paige. "We made just over three thousand pounds!"
"Wow, well done, everyone, give yourselves a big round of applause..." <applause> "Hmm, what do we think girls, rounding it up to say... four thousand between eight of us would be a bit stingy, so how about we make it up to FIVE thousand?". Another big round of applause. Two thousand quid split between them was only 250 each, so not a huge amount, and not forgetting that it was tax-deductable!
"Right... time to get back to the music. Hey, I can see some of our old CJD tops being worn in the crowd?" asked Jenny. "Ok, this is one of our earlier songs...". For this song, like they planned for their tour, Northern Girls acted as CJDL's backing band, after which Northern Girls left CJDL on stage to play several more songs.
"Ok, time for the last song, it's a version of one of the songs we'll be singing on tour together with Northern Girls, it's just that we don't have the two sets of drums and enough guitar amps, so Northern girls will play, and we'll all sing...."
Minutes later, the eight girls left the stage to cries of 'more, more...'. After a minute or two break, CJDL went back onto the stage to a huge cheer. "Anyone here know any classical music?" asked Jenny, now standing at her keyboard, with a whistle around her neck. "Back in the late 1800's, Peter Tchaikovski wrote the Nutcracker Suite.". She played some of it on her piano. "Then, in the 1960's, it was converted into a pop song, and it sounds like this!!" Jenny started to play 'Nut Rocker'.
Over the next 3 minutes, the girls played their instruments, then as Jenny blew the whistle, they moved around, although the music never actually stopped. Whilst Jenny was back on her keyboards at the end, Carol was on the drums, Linda was playing lead guitar, and Dianne was on the bass. As they played the final notes, the crowd errupted, And the four Northern Girls came onto the stage: all eight of them stood at the front of the stage, with big smiles showing their silver mouths.
"Give it up for CJDL!" shouted Taylor. As the applaused started to die down, Linda shouted out "and for Northern Girls too!".
The student who had introduced them came back on stage. "Well, what can I say? We just had CJDL, Northern Girls AND Eight Girls with Braces performing for us: ladies, thank you all SO much for tonight, which I know you just did for free. We've raised a stupid amount for our charities, and that raffle you did, definitely the icing on the cake.. very thick icing too! Yeah, thank you!"
"Hey, completely our pleasure, it's been quite amazing to come back here: as Linda said, it's not that long ago that she was down there in the mosh-pit, cheering the bands up here - of course, we three were never really 'mosh-pit girls'! And it's been good to do something nice to support your charities. And hey, I guess we'll be seeing some of you guys on our tour: I hope you'll enjoy it!" The eight girls stood in a line, holding hands, and bowed, taking the applause.
