Chapter 5: Now That's What I Call A Gig

"You sure this is the right place dude?" Kyle asked; looking up at the quite wide building that now stood right in front of the four boys.

"Yeh, that's what it says on the card. Club S9X, South Park. This should be the place." Stan replied.

The club which was positioned just next to a hill was quite big in size. It was about six o clock, yet the sky still gave off a strange blueish black glow. Spotting Marcus standing near a back door on one of the sides of the building, the four boys made their way over to him.

Marcus was chatting to a few of the other professional DJs who had also planned to play at the club after he had finished his set. The DJs that Marcus stood with were an odd bunch of characters. While most of them were normal, there was always the odd one who had his different opinions; expressing them greatly in a seemingly stupid and ridiculous voice and tone. But like Marcus, they all had their own tastes and styles to not just music, but life in particular.

To put it in better terms, they were all in a world of their own.

Marcus walked off; walking towards a double door on the corner where he was told to enter. However, he was stopped in his tracks by the four boys; whom he was pleased to see here.

"Hey boys, glad you could make it. So, your parents let you come to a place like this after all huh?"

"Errrrr….yeh." Stan replied; looking down at the floor as he spoke. Marcus knew he was hiding something. He smiled and replied back.

"Alright, honestly, raise your hand if you lied to your parents about where you were going." The four boys looked at one another and eventually all raised their hand. Marcus laughed in a positive mood.

"Ah well, don't worry. If you get in trouble, I'll be happy to take the blame, trust me."

Kyle looked at the metal box that Marcus had grip of.

"Hey what's in the box dude?" Kyle asked.

"Oh this? Inside are all the vinyls I've brought for the gig."

"Vinyls?" Kenny asked; eventually breaking the silence that he had been stuck in for quite a while.

"Yeh, vinyls. You know those big black discs with a small hole in them."

The boys were still puzzled by what they were. "They're like big black donuts."

At which point the four boys all nodded; confirming that they finally worked out what they looked like.

Suddenly, the double doors behind Marcus flew open and out popped a member of the club's staff. "Excuse me, Marcus, you're on in 20 minutes, so you better make yer' way inside now."

"Alright, cheers dude." Marcus picked his box up again. "Well, I better go and set up. I guess I'll see yer' inside the building. Hope you enjoy it. Later guys." Marcus entered through the double doors at which the four boys made their way towards the entrance of the studio club.

15 minutes had passed. The four boys had made their way inside the building and were now standing right at the front of the crowd. There were about three thousand people inside the building. Luckily, the four boys were given access by the studio to move right to the front row in the centre. Whether the staff were just being kind or they were just doing it because they were kids was still unsure, but it made no difference.

"Woah, ever seen anything like that before?" Stan spoke. The four boys looked up at what was now right in front of them. About 20 metres away was a wall of digital screens; all combining to make an even bigger image on the screens. And within the centre of the combined screens was a hole where the DJs played their sets. It wasn't too high to look up at but it was still at a high level; given the fact that there were about 100 digital screens all together formed in a square shape.

"Yawn, god this is sooooo boring!" Cartman spoke.

"Cartman, it hasn't even begun you stupid fat-ass!" Kyle shouted.

"Shut up Jew; don't ever call me a fat-ass!"

"He's only saying the truth Cartman." Stan replied; at which Kenny laughed.

But before any of the boys could continue speaking, the lights went out and suddenly, all the coloured lights on the large room's edges all turned on; all facing towards the DJ's platform. The over-head speaker began talking.

"Welcome everybody to Studio S9X. And now for our second set of this fantastic evening. He's come all the way from London, England and is here to play one of the biggest DJ sets he has ever played in his entire sixteen year life. Yes, you heard me; he's only sixteen years old, so let's give him a huge cheer. And now, guys, girls and all you drunken f---ers in the building, will you please welcome………Marcus Kane-Bridge!"

At this point Marcus was absolutely nervous. Walking up a bunch of steps hiding behind all the screens, Marcus revealed himself to the crowd. Everybody including the four boys cheered as he appeared within the DJ box in the centre of all the digital screens. Marcus stretched out his arms to show his sign of greeting the audience and immediately placed his metal box on the nearby table. Setting up all the DJ equipment, he quickly picked out his first vinyl record of the night and placed it on a deck. The light all focused on the centre point. Everybody could see that now, Marcus was wearing a dark green short-sleeved shirt with a huge font graphic written all over it saying 'South Park'. With his long-short hair swishing and swaying back and forth all the time, Marcus began to scratch on the vinyl; causing thousands of people to cheer.

And then……it began. With a cool drumbeat going, Marcus had started his DJ set. Tweaking the mixer's buttons and knobs slightly, Marcus blended his first playing track perfectly into the intro drumbeat. Smiling as he did so, Marcus began his set. Making any effects and sounds come into play whenever he thought it suited best. Throughout the gig he would change the emotions on his face. Always he would either be expressing a face of enjoyment of the music; usually doing some kind of light dance or whatever, or he would express a face of seriousness and concentration; knowing that one mistake or slip-up in this set would be very bad indeed.

The digital screens all around where Marcus was all combined together to show some kind of weird digital animation or graphic that suited the type of music and tempo being played.

As for the music itself, Marcus played a wide variety of music ranging in different categories of dance; house, acid, techno, trance, electronica, chill-out etc. But like he said before, Marcus never played any of that hard-core Ibiza-style rubbish. Unfortunately, this writer can not say any of the names of the music tracks due to legal reasons, but it was of a popular kind. It ranged from the nineties music to the music that was playing nowadays.

And just like everyone else, the four boys were loving the music being played; jumping up and down to the beat of every tune. (knowing that they were all pretty crap at dancing anyway) Now and again the digital screens would link up to the camera that was at Marcus' side. Knowing this, Marcus would write on some of the vinyl packets and show it to the crowd through the camera. It was especially with written comments such as 'Are we havin' fun yet!' that made the crowd yell in delight and postivity.

If only every bit of detail could be written about what was going on. Only then would you have realised just how f---ing brilliant this party of a gig was.

An hour passed and the crowd were still loving what Marcus was doing. Marcus' head was slightly sweaty and some of his front hair was starting to stick to his forehead. But he kept going and was loving this just as much as the four boys; whom after an hour were still jumping up and down to the music. Surprising as it may sound, they were loving the music being played. Who would have thought all four of them enjoyed this kind of music so much?

Marcus held up another vinyl packet which had written on it: 'A little treat for you all; a track made by yours truly! Enjoy!' He opened out the packet, placed he vinyl on a deck and began to progressively bring it into playing. It was a very medium paced party tune; that took some time to get to the real beat. And suddenly, the lyrics to tune began to play:

"The Sound of Colo……The Sound of Colo……The Sound of Colo…… The Sound of Colo……The Sound of Colorado……The Sound Of Colorado……The Sound of COLO…RA…DOOOOOOO!"

The track quickly then broke into a huge big-beat party track with nearly every possible type of sample being used in the tune; drums, bass, cymbals, electronic sounds etc. The crowd loved it and were dancing to it like crazy. Marcus smiled; realising just how much the crowd loved the tune. He began to clap to the tune; at which the crowd copied. The tune broke down to a calm sound, but began to build up again to the final big beat part of the track. Again, the lyrics came again:

"The Sound of COLO…RA…DOOOOOOO!"

Suddenly, the huge beat of the track came back and Marcus started punching the air with his right fist to the beat of the music.

And finally, as the gig drew to a close about 20 minutes later, Marcus played the final track of his DJ set; at which the crowd cheered and whistled. Marcus stood there; clapping the crowd back and beginning to mime the lyrics to the track that was playing. Beginning to pack all his records back into his metal box, Marcus started tweaking the mixer once again. And as the final drumbeat came, Marcus decided to mess around with the sounds. Adding loads of effects; repeat, echo, flanger, lowering the pitch and then finally causing to overlap and repeat itself, the crowd finally applauded as the drumbeat began to fade away. Marcus pulled the mixer levels down and stood back up; clapping the crowd. And 1 hour and 28 minutes after he had begun, Marcus' DJ gig……was over. Picking up his vinyl box, Marcus disappeared into the darkness behind the digital screens and the crowd began to make their way out of the large studio room; even though that more DJs were scheduled to play.

A few minutes later outside the building, the four boys began to make their way towards the path next to the main road where they awaited Marcus to meet them.

"Woah dude that was f---ing sweet!" Kyle shouted in complete joy.

"Totally, I never expected it to turn out that cool." Stan replied.

"I guess it was OK." Cartman spoke; causing the mood to die down slightly.

"WHAT? How can you say that Cartman? You were enjoying that just as much as we were."

"Yeh!"

"Yes, but it just didn't have ENOUGH cool music in it."

Kyle looked slightly annoyed at what Cartman had said.

"You're a douche Cartman."

"Hey, shut the f--- up Kyle! I'll say what I f---ing want you f---ing god dam Jew!"

But before either of them could say anything, their attention was drawn to a large crowd who cheered as Marcus walked past them out of the building and into the cool surroundings of outside. Marcus; rubbing the sweat off his head made his way to where the four boys were stood.

"Marcus; you kick ass when it comes to doing what you just done. That was totally sweet!" Stan spoke.

"Yeh!"

"Thanks guys. I haven't done a gig like that for about nine years. So I'm glad my skills didn't turn up all rusty in there."

"WHAT?" Kenny shouted in shock.

"You mean you did things like that when you were……" Stan began to work out what 16 minus 9 was using his fingers. "……7 years old?"

"Yep, back then I was the youngest ever DJ in the whole country and I loved what I doing. But for some odd reason I stopped what I was doing when I……."

Suddenly, Marcus' face turned to a cold emotion of fear and emotional breakdown.

Marcus quickly turned round and within a flash, something horrible occurred just up the road. A car suddenly collided with a huge lorry; causing the two to smash with each other. Multiple dozens of people ran to the scene in complete horror to help out.

"OH NO! OH JESUS CHRIST. IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!" Marcus shouted in a voice of fear.

"What! What's happening again! Marcus, are you alright?……MARCUS!"

Marcus collapsed onto the snow-covered ground; managing to reach his hands out to stop a complete fall.

"Marcus, are you OK!" Kyle asked in a worried tone of voice. The four boys were very confused in what was going on and tried to help him in working out what was going on.

Marcus sat down by the side of the road and the four boys sat alongside him. Marcus with his head in his hands started crying slightly; tears falling down the side of his face.

"HEY MARCUS WHAT THE F---'S WRONG WITH YOU?" Cartman spoke in a forceful voice.

"Cartman!" Kyle yelled back at Cartman.

"Sorry, just thought that would have helped."

Marcus wiped the tears away that were on his face and finally spoke.

"I now know why I haven't done this kind of thing for so long. It's because of what happened nearly exactly nine years ago in this very same kind of incident."

"Something happened? What?"

"OK, I'll tell you. I'll tell you four boys about the day that truly changed and pretty much f---ed up my life completely. Let me take you back to the time where I was seven and I was still living in my old hometown. Because it was that night in which something terrible happened which I still haven't managed to get over even after all these years……"

And so the four boys listened well. Marcus' flashback story had begun. But unaware to the four boys, the story would eventually end up with them knowing that on that particular night nine years ago, Marcus would lose one of the most precious and most important things you could ever have.