He stands on the edge of the stage and, for the first time in several years, he looks nervous. I have grown so used to seeing him looking victorious, exhilaration colouring his cheeks and a huge smile splitting his face, that this almost sees unnatural to me. Even though I am aware of his volatile nature and dramatic mood swings, it still catches me off guard. He shouldn't be looking like this. Not on stage, where we're most at home. Surrounded by people that love us-how could he possibly be upset?
And yet there he is, trembling slightly. Perhaps it's just the wind, but his hands are shaking and I'm surprised I'm the only one that's noticed it. He's shrunken in on himself, now, and the way he holds the microphone as if it were something fragile suggests that he's more disturbed by earlier events than he's led us to believe.
A blackout. It's been a while since that happened to us, our technology usually perfect now that we've got the right people on the road. It's been a while since anything too bad has happened to us music-wise, in fact, which is probably why it came as such a shock to us. We knew this crowd was going to be difficult to get going, what with our supporting acts being a little dubious, and we knew we were going to have to work hard. This is America; they want to see your effort, want to see your commitment. After twelve years of desperate touring here, we weren't about to give up.
And yet it almost seems as if he has.
Being professionals, of course, we continue with our set as if nothing is wrong. He croons into the microphone and struts around with the guitar swinging over his shoulder, trying his best to impress the hordes of people staring up at us from the field below the stage. To the untrained eye, nothing would seem wrong, but I know better.
He walks towards me at the end of Uprising, and there's a glint in his eyes that unnerves me, the hairs on my arm standing on end. There's an amp to the right of my drum kit, an amp that takes almost as much loving abuse as I do, and he's heading for it like a heat seeker. As soon as they collide, everything will blow up.
The guitar crashes against the amp once, and the sound is so familiar yet completely foreign. There's a look of rage on his face that I haven't seen since the early years, when countless faulty guitar systems had him so aggravated that the whole setup was trashed by his uncontrollable anger. He's a force to be reckoned with, when he wants to be, and, as the guitar hits the amp a second time, I know it's not going to survive.
The Matt-tornado spins to the edge of the stage, swinging the guitar by the headstock as he sometimes does. He goes around and around, once, twice, three time, and then is launched into the sky, cutting through the still air and soaring towards my drumkit. I flinch instinctively as it crashes down against the drum riser and I can see there's a chunk missing from the back, just like there's a chunk missing from Matthew's current demeanour.
The amp falls to the floor with a thump that can barely be heard over the feedback from the guitar, and he's kicking it so hard that he'll end up with bruises tomorrow. I know better than to try and interrupt him when he's in one of these moods, so I merely watch and play, watch and play as he destroys everything around him and hope that he doesn't destroy me, too.
He's still not calm when we're in the dressing room after the gig.
He's still not calm when he's sipping his customary glass of red wine, because I can see his hands are still shaking and his eyes are still narrowed and the lines in his forehead just get deeper and deeper and deeper.
He worries me a lot.
Even when he grumbles into my shirt when I throw an arm around his shoulder and hold him to my chest, even when his fists are clenched and I know that he's remembering the gigs from the early days when nobody appreciated us, he's still himself.
Because he is the anger that boils up inside him. He is the emotions he feels, and he makes everything else part of him. Everything he touches feels what he feels, and I know that his negative energy is seeping into me through our shirts, but I'll gladly take it. It's probably safer in me than in that tiny weapon. I know better than anyone that only the slightest thing can set him off, and he always finishes what he starts.
He will get over this. It might take a few days, perhaps until the next gig, to restore his confidence, or he might be back to normal in an hour or two. He might get distracted and stop thinking about it, might lose himself in a few more glasses of wine and let the memory drift away. Perhaps one day, if I'm very lucky, he'll forget as soon as he crawls into my lap. It's a power I don't possess just yet, but I'm working on it.