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"You know that song about video killing the radio star?" Dean asks suddenly, mid sentence in a brief interlude about his brother.
"Literally everyone knows that song, Dean." Rachel replies.
"That song nearly killed us!"
"Oh, Sam told me this would come up..." Rachel begins and then quickly covers her mouth with her hand.
"You've talked to Sam? Are you interviewing all of us?" Dean looks a bit confused.
"No, no, but I wanted to know what I was going to be dealing with going into this interview. No offense, but I've dealt with a lot of lying assholes in this business and I wanted to make sure you would not only tell me what I wanted to know, but that you'd also be truthful about it. I figured Sam would be the best person to ask..."
"You should've interviewed him for your book instead, he'd probably be a hell of a lot more interesting."
"Funny, that's what he said about you." Rachel crosses her legs and let's out a huff of air. "Now we're not here to talk about who's more interesting, tell me why that song 'nearly killed you'."
"I guess I shouldn't blame the song, more the genre it brought with it. New wave music killed rock n' roll and you'd better believe it."
"I'm sure there's many people who disagree with you."
"Oh probably, but half of them changed their sound just so they'd fit in! In the course of a couple years we suddenly went from one of the hottest bands around to a bunch of old guys - and Charlie - playing songs that nobody seemed to care about. In comparison to the new groups, we were just a bunch of homebodies trying to relive our glory days or some shit. When it really started to hit us it was 1984, I was 32 years old, Lisa was pregnant again, Sam was getting serious about his girlfriend Jess, Zeke was married, Charlie was soul searching for her soulmate, and Gabe was still being a dumbass. We were so out of our league in a time when it was adapt or die and punk rock damn near sunk us."
March 23, 1984
"Dean, you remember Gypsophila don't you?" Dean can recognize strain in Charlie's voice any time so when he looks up from his guitar he isn't surprised by what he sees. Gone are the beads, bell bottoms and tie dyed shirts, in front of him stands a grim looking woman all dressed up in leather and chains.
"It's Ivy now." The newly monikered ex-groupie sighs with the weight of the world in her voice.
"Long time, no see. You don't happen to like Joy Division, do you?" Charlie glares at him but he ignores her. "So did you like the show?"
"I think you played too much of your old stuff."
"A lot of it was off our most recent albums.."
"Oh, it just all sounds the same you know? Like you guys used to be so fresh and new and now it just sounds so dated." Ivy doesn't seem to realize how pissed Dean is getting and Charlie is nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot.
"If you're suggesting I should get a mohawk..."
"No, no, just write something...new...something cutting edge and relevant! Like the Soviet Union or the government's oppression." Ivy gets a spacey look in her eyes that is all too reminiscent of her hippie days.
"Yeah, I'll be sure to call you up when we title our next album 'Reagan is a dick'."
"I'm just saying, if you sounded more like H&H then we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"That was the biggest fucking insult to my career." Dean looks just as pissed about it now as he must've been back then.
"H&H was Heaven&Hell wasn't it? The punk band fronted by two guys aptly named Lucifer and Michael?" Rachel asks as she consults her notes.
"Yep, the onky thing original about them was their name. Play our albums side by side and you'll see where they got their inspiration from. Those shits took what made us famous and used it to make themselves famous and before we knew it, there was a whole Bealtes versus The Stones type compeititon going on. Except in that case, The Stones actually had their own sound whereas H&H were leeching their fame off of us." Dean fumes.
"They opened for you guys just once. Tell me about that concert, it was quite legendary."
"Well we knew having them open for us was a terrible idea but all the producers thought it was gonna be some big fabulous show. We had to do something, because we couldn't follow their act with our normal one, it just wasn't going to cut it. It was basically gonna be the same set twice except the first one was more metal and we were gonna be too old school for the crowd. At the last minute we decided to change things up a little, and yes we had been drinking a bit and were more than a little pissed off by the whole concert, so we threw all caution to the wind and just winged it. Zeke and Charlie brought all their guitars on stage and just rotated through them, Gabe got himself a gong and a set of bongos somehow, I think he stole them, Sam had his bass and a ukele, and I dragged Cas onstage for backing vocals. We didn't have a set plan but it somehow worked."
July 1, 1984
"Good evening, New York!" Dean calls out to the audience and is thrilled by the responding screams. It's comforting to know that their fans are still loyal to them despite everything. "Are you guys ready to rock?"
The screams this time are deafening and Dean can't stop the grin on his face as the lights dim and he turns to face the band. Instead of picking the mic up straight away, he looks over to Charlie and mouths "go nuts". She looks momentarily stunned but picks upnthenslack in an instant, replacing Dean's place in the spotlight and improvises a guitar solo on the spot. It takes Dean a minute but he realizes that she's weaving the melody of " Salt and Burn" into it and makes it back to his spot just in time for the opening verse. They continue a routine like this for the rest of the concert, with Dean giving each of the other band members their time to shine as often as possible without making it seem too random. And then for a few of their songs they change it up completely, trading their electrics for acoustics and going completely unplugged. Benny even brings out stools for them as the group gathers together at the front of the stage to play a much softer, but no less better take on some of the hits. It's during these that Dean runs back stage and drags Cas out, needing his gravelly voice to balance things out. It works beautifully but Cas seems awestruck by the fanfare he receives when Dean introduces him.
Cas is by no means a stage performer, he dislikes the crowds and hates when all attention is on him, but Dean finds a way to divert this by holding his gaze during their duets so that Cas doesn't have to stare into a sea of unknown faces and get nervous. It works, surprisingly, and he stays on stage playing the tambourine long after Dean tells him it's alright to go back into the wings.
They play for an hour longer than they're originally supposed to and their encore lasts five songs. When Dean finally thanks the crowd for coming out, he knows that this show has been something special for them. Thousands of hands are raised in the air, all held in either the devil horns or peace sign fashion. Getting an idea, he tells the crowd to hold tight for one more second and runs back stage, telling everyone he comes across to head out on stage and wait for his instruction. When he steps back out, he's joined by not only various roadies, sound techs, and a few security guards, but the members of H&H as well. There's a confused sort of cheering from the audience as everyone on stage sort of stands awkwardly and waits for something to do. Dean just smiles at them and picks his mic back up.
"I'd like to do one more song tonight, it's not one of ours but I think you'll know the lyrics. I sing to my daughter almost every night and I thought it'd be awesome if we sang it all together." Dean laughs slightly at the chorus of "awww"s that ripple through the stadium. "I'm going to dedicate this partly to the everyone standing behind me right now, because all of them work tirelessly on nights like tonight to make shows like these come together. They put their heart and soul into this business as much as any of us musicians do. Give them a round of applause!" Dean takes an appropriate pause to allow for clapping.
"Next, if you'll notice I brought out our very own opening act, Heaven&Hell who proved tonight that with a few more years of practice, they might actually be something worth listening to. I dedicate this song to that hope for their future." There's laughter amongst the cheers this time, and Michael and Lucifer look more amused than offended.
"To my own band, who have carried me so far in life, I dedicate this to you in hopes that we'll have many more great years together and will continue to make albums that sound just like our last!" Dean uses the pause this time to walk over to the piano and get his mic set up on it. He settles down into the seat and tests out a couple chords before turning his attention back to the crowd.
"And lastly, I'd like to thank each and every one of you out there in the audience for coming to our show tonight and supporting us for so long. I don't care if you've been listening to us for ten years or ten days, we love each and every one of you. So without further ado, here's the final song for the evening; a little unknown number by the name of 'Hey Jude'."
It's one of those moments that stand out in Dean's mind as being highly important. To some people it may not seem like much, but Dean knows he'll look forward to the day when he can tell his grandchildren that 17,000 voices joined his, and for just a few minutes any anger, pain, or sadness was dispelled as they became one massive family united by music.
And Dean hopes that one day, at least a few of the people in the audience will tell their grandkids that too.