Long Nights' RP:
The stage is dark, the curtain is down and the roadies have just finished setting up Blake’s drum kit. The dwindling, but still plentiful early summer evening light spills over the hyped-up crowd. Blake sits down behind the kits and taps out the tempo for his band mates offstage. Ryan nods to Warren who in turn nods to Christopher and all three jump out from offstage at once playing the riff to Run Along while the curtain drops. The band gets mixed results from the metal-hungry crowd. Ryan begins to sing the song in his signature voice, pure and crystal clear, yet growling at the same time. When the band reaches the part that Act Of God sang in the recording, Warren pulls off a decent impression. This is what we do this for, Ryan thinks The pure excitement and fun that performing brings.
After the song finishes, a roadie come onstage quickly and gives Ryan a beer as they gather the fallen curtain and take it offstage. Ryan takes a swig and grimaces, “Bleh, Coors,” he says into the mic as he sets the beer on top of an amp. “Not even cold. It’ll have to do. How’re you all doing?!” He shouts to the crowd, bringing on monstrous cheers from the crowd. “Now you may be asking yourself ‘Now why is there an alt.rock band onstage if I came for metal?’ Really, we don’t know either. We just wanted an opportunity to perform in front of tons of people. However, just to appeal to you metalheads that refuse to give us a chance, we do have an old song that we used to play before we were in Long Nights. This is a song called I Wanna Hear You Scream from Culture Trash.”
The crowd once again gives a mixed response until Ryan begins to scream “I WANNA HEAR YOU SCREAM!” The band came in at “scream” with a fast punk riff. Ryan performs the song perfectly in perfect metal/punk style. The entire crowd is cheering afterwards as the band begins another song. This one starts out with Warren playing discordant chords and then with both Ryan and Warren playing power chords. Just before the lyrics come in, Ryan comes up to the mic and says “This song is called Creepy Ain’t It?.” While Warren plays the solo, Ryan and Chris run offstage in opposite directions. Ryan comes out with three giant bulging garbage bags and Chris wheels out an industrial size fan. Warren finishes the solo and pulls out a box cutter from his pocket. Blake begins a drumroll.
“Alright, now here we have 3 garbage bags full of slips of paper with a number 1-3 on them. There are 30000 threes, 200 twos and 10 ones. Anyone who gets a three gets a free copy of our album after the show. Twos get a copy of our album with exclusive extras. We DOUBLED the tracks, added live versions, concept art, the lyrics for every song, concert footage, interviews, and a coupon for a free copy of our album of demo tapes PLUS exclusive tracks from our new album Brightest Before Dusk.” This brought a huge cheer from the crowd, then he calmed them down. “Settle, settle; you haven’t even heard the best part yet. Anyone who gets a one gets an exclusive copy of the album and we’re taking out for drinks at the Dirty Bastard Hotel and Casino!” The applause and cheers were deafening. Ryan yelled to start the fan. The fan began spinning extremely fast, Ryan held the garbage bags out in front of the fan and Warren ran across to slash the bags with the box cutter. The paper flew out on the crowd like confetti, and people began to grab their slips. The band grabbed their instruments again and went back in to finish the song as the roadies wheeled the fan away.
Ryan looked out at the crowd, then at Warren. He ran up and whispered in his ear, but holding his mic up close to his mouth on purpose “I think these people deserve to hear you rap.”
Warren: “Yeah, but I’m not sure if they want to hear it.” He then grabbed the mic and turned to the crowd “DO YOU!” The crowd cheered at the top of their lungs and Warren laughed. He handed the mic back to Ryan and began to play a heavy, Beastie Boys-esque riff. The band joined in with a powerful sound that shook the stage. Warren looked out to the crowd, sober for the festival, with incredible clarity, watching as the crowd went crazy for the alternative band before them. Crazy Russians he thought. He then went into the rap. The crowd was going crazy and during the break, Warren put down his guitar and calmed them down temporarily. “ARE YOU READY!?” he screamed to the crowd. They screamed back and he screamed back “I CAN’T HEAR YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! ARE YOU READY?!” The crowd screamed much louder and the band went into the chorus again as Warren jumped into the crowd and began to crowd surf. Whilst the crowd played with Warren, the band repeated the ending until Warren came back.
After Warren returned to the stage and picked up his guitar again, the band immediately began another song, this one grungier and evil-sounding. Ryan began to sing with a growl in the back of his throat. The chorus came on and fire exploded from the front of the stage. After the chorus came an explosive solo that had the audience moshing in several areas. Right after the solo the lights all cut out at once. A clean, poppy guitar part cut in, contrasting with the former guitar. A spotlight began to shine on Warren, who was playing guitar like a pop-star until Ryan came in as well, then they were playing a punk riff. Warren began screaming his rap and the crowd screamed with him.
- - -
The band finished their set, and after they walked off, the crowd began to cheer for an encore. Warren and Ryan looked at eachother and nodded. Warren picked up his guitar and Ryan picked up an acoustic, they walked onstage without Chris or Blake and stared out into the crowd. The stage was dark except for two lone spotlights shining on the pair. Ryan began to play an acoustic intro in a minor key, different from the original song’s intro. The crowd was confused until Ryan said “Rest in peace, Nathan.” After he said that, it was clear that the song was Razorblades and Black Magic, and the crowd cheered. After the song was done, the lights went out again, this time covering up that Ryan was switching guitars and that the other members were coming onstage. When all was in place, the lights came on suddenly with the first riff as orange light and confetti fell from the stage. Roadies came onstage and began throwing giant inflatable balls into the crowd. Ryan screamed into the mic “OH LORD JUST GIVE ME ONE MORE NIGHT!”
SETLIST
1. Run Along
2. I Wanna Hear You Scream [Culture Trash]
3. Creepy Ain’t It?
4. Make Up Your Mind [Shut It]
5. Black Hole
6. Midnight Hour
7. Brightest Before Dusk
8. Fruit [Spasmatic Maniacs]
9. Collective Mind
Encore
10. Razorblades and Black Magic
11. One More Night