The Royal Albert Square. One of the biggest single venues in the world, never mind Britain. The people of Mind couldn’t have imagined anything remotely like this happening about 2 years ago, where they were just churning out demos for fun, whilst studying hard at Uni. By luck, someone found their demos and now look at them. “Okay. Games are over. By the end of this competition, that trophy is going to be in m- our hands.” said Aaron, with huge bags under his eyes. The stress of the competition was obviously starting to show, but he insisted that Mind kept going on. “Yup. Don’t forget, just do your best. Give those guys a good show, if we win, great, if we don’t, we’ll try harder next time around. Some of the most famous icons in the world are in that box there and we need to make a loud noise. To get this far is amazing anyway.” spoke Jason calmly. Although the last round, he stressed, he was much more relaxed this time around. He had seen the reactions they got and was adamant to use them to their ability.
As said before, among the crowd of fans, there were some of the most important figures in music. “I don’t think I can do this...” Harry jittered. “Don’t be a fool. They’ll love us.” Jason replied. The lights went down in the hall as the band made their way onto the stage in total darkness. They were cloaked in pitch black robes with the Mind symbol engraved in the arm. As the lights slowly rise again, cheers start to come out of the crowd, since they see the band and Jason’s unique hair poking out of his hood. However, all Aaron could focus on was the VIP box containing some of the biggest names in this industry. “Come on! Focus now, dude.” Jason said quietly to Aaron as the intro music, Gregorian chanting, was still playing. The intro music had now finished, and a drum beat played Mind into the opening song, which is ALWAYS
Divine Usurper, their biggest hit. The hoods had now dropped down, revealing their ugly faces. Jason had a creepy, yet pleased look on his face. Once Aaron had got into the song, he relaxed a little. Unfortunately, because there were seats, there was a lack of circle pits, but the fans who sold their mothers to be here were chanting anyway.
The song had finished and Jason went up to the microphone. “’Sup guys? Thank you all so much. We were really nervous about coming here! Anyway, hail to the VIPs in the VIP box!” as he said that, the crowd starting clapping and the band waved to them. They probably didn’t see. Anyway, as they prepared to go into the next song, the lights dimmed again. In that darkness, they went into an acoustic improvisation. After the improvisation, they switched to electrics again and the lights came back on in time for another song,
Lyophilisation (The Word and The Worlds). One of the most anthemic of their songs, it allowed time for chanting and hair flips. As the song came to its close, the lights slowly faded once again, but then they came into
Chromosome 13. The cloaks had now gone, revealing shirts and vests, but the song itself was rarely played at Mind concerts. It was one of the heaviest in their back catalogue and certainly one of the fastest. Headbanging was inevitable.
“We don’t usually do that one. Now, here’s something really special...” Jason said as they went into
Duelling Banjos from the film Deliverance. But instead of duelling with Banjos, they duelled with guitars, of course. It was a new thing, they just jammed and played guitar solos to the theme, but the crowd were still lapping it up. As they were clapping, the band relaxed a lot more and started to smile. Rather than end the jam when it was supposed to be ended, Aaron carried on with a monstrous guitar solo. You could tell that he was now in his comfort zone.
After that, they then played another single,
Cascade of Blood. “Sing if you know the words!” Harry shouted at the top of his voice. Rather than the normal performance, this one was sped up to make it more fun to listen to. Apart from that, there was nothing particularly special about that song. It just had happened to be Minds breakthrough song and was now a live staple. “Woo! That rocked! Now, here’s a little taster of The Aeronaut... if you haven’t got the leaked one already that is... this is
Winter Upon Us!” The song had a neo-classical feel and indicated that Mind was taking a more grown up approach for the next album. It was a stunning display of dazzling guitars, groovy drum beats and mesmerising bass. The vocals were pretty simple, yet also extremely effective. At the end of it, Aaron threw his shirt out into the audience, revealing a chubby pot belly. They seemed to like it for some reason...
“We’re going to REALLY look ahead now. Okay, imagine that you’ve gone past The Aeronaut, past The Cosmonaut... it’s our next album. Of course, we don’t know what THAT is yet, but we have a couple of songs we wanted on there from the beginning. You know, the only reason the story came along was because I was scared of my feelings, scared how people would react... but now I just have the urge to write constantly! It’s great! This is one of the songs that we think will make this album... This is
The Colour Spectrum.” Unusually, the song started with Jason on an acoustic guitar, in a psychedelic kind of way. The vocals hypnotised and it was all very weird for Mind. Then the lights boomed into action as well as a huge power chord from Aaron, which sent the crowd and the song back into life. Whilst Aaron set the main riff up and prepared for its doom laden chorus, Jason rapidly switched guitars and came back with a double-necked one. Then both of them played the heavy riff, with assistance from Robert on the drums. The vocals ranged from high pitched screeching to growling to beautifully clean vocals and then back again. It was a flourishing and bombastic song, combining all elements of Mind.
The song went on for a good 10 minutes before ending, and then Jason announced “We’re only gonna give a few more songs... this one is
Tasteless.” Once that had been announced, they went into the song with a full head of steam. It was performed almost flawlessly, with the improvised drumming adding a brilliant effect to it. The song was one of the shorter ones of the night, but lasted about 4 minutes. With no announcement, they then rushed into
Blasphemy!, which was one of their largest songs. It had medieval bits, heavy bits and melodic bits. The song was the first Mind song to reach the top 40 and a personal favourite of the band. To many peoples surprise, they had played a lot of songs from their debut. However, to finish it off, they ended with the epic
My Fall From Grace. For this one, yet again, Jason started on acoustic. Then, yet again, he went back to electric. The crowd were chanting along and having a wonderful time, it seemed. The end of it was a large guitar solo by both men, before wrapping the performance up and putting it to bed.
“Thank you again guys. Wonderful, wonderful time we’ve had here... probably our best performance ever! Raise your hands for Delta Tau Entertainment again!” Jason screamed before climbing down the steps and giving his guitar to a young fan. “Here ya go dude. You seemed to know all our words, so you can have this.” The fans eyes lit up, before Jason went back on stage and left.
Backstage, Mind were cheering, prepared to go out on the piss. “Yeah! I told you guys there was nothing to worry about. Believe me next time!” Jason said. “It’s not whether we had a good time though; it’s whether the judges did. Hopefully we did alright.” Aaron replied. “Stop being a pessimistic cock and just enjoy yourself! What can we do about it now? I though we were pretty good myself.” Harry snapped back with. But the thing is, they were all happy, and drunk on delirium.
Ah! I STUBBED MY TOE!
I see dead people...
Ah...ah...ACHOO!