the table. “Run Jake, run.” He laughed, nodded to Rand, cut Rielle with a knife-like glance and left.
“I’ll talk to him; I’ll sort this out. It won’t happen again,” said Rand, as they watched Jonas weave across the cafe and through the doors.
He had a hand on Rielle’s shoulder. She pushed it off. “Fucking right, it won’t. He does that again, he’s out. I don’t care how much of a genius he is.” She turned to Jake, those violet eyes violating his relative calm. This wasn’t his first rock star tantrum. It wasn’t his first shouting match over creative differences. He’d sorted out set-ups and lock-downs and walkouts and everything in between but there was something about Rielle Mainline he found unsettling. That tight coil of anger with that edge of something else he couldn’t identify.
She cast her eyes over him, a top to bottom examination, the kind men did to women they were interested in, but with none of the trying not to get caught about it, or the barefaced hope the interest was reciprocated. She meant to be offensive. It should’ve made him cranky, but it did something to his temperature the shouting hadn’t. It lit the furnace, again.
“Welcome to the show,” she said.
4. Ground Control
Four days until show-time and Jonas Franklin was conspicuously absent—again.
All Jake’s stadium crew department heads were present for a pre-production meeting and he wasn’t prepared to waste time waiting
They had a stage to build, rehearsals to schedule and fifty thousand punters to please on one night, with a high octane performance that would include laser lights, a highwire trapeze and pyrotechnics, as well as a set design with two acrobat poles and a telescopic tower device called the Hand of God that would carry members of the band over the heads of the punters nearest the stage.
While the team settled in and a waitress took coffee orders, road manager Glen Ague turned to Jake. “Two things, Reedy. Your bike is here and what’s the low down on the talent?”
“Ta Glen, where is she?” The Triumph was Jake’s sanity on tour. For the smaller tours he had no choice but to leave her behind, but when a road train was involved, and if the stars aligned, Bonne got to go on tour as well.
“Car park.” Glen pressed keys into Jake’s hand. “And?”
“Professional, but there’s a problem with Jonas. Flaky. He should be here now.” Jonas missing in action was a bad sign. In a strictly hierarchical sense, Glen worked for Jake as did all the crew, but practically the roles of tour manager, road manager and stage manager worked closely together, that’s why the absence of Jonas who was both EP and stage manager for this tour was a problem. Without the stage manager’s input there was no one looking out for the specific needs of the band and the other talent on stage and backstage.
Glen grimaced, worrying his new goatee with a finger. “And Rielle?”
Jake shook his head remembering her sharp tongue and water cannon act and the way she’d undressed him with her insane-coloured eyes. “Little hellcat.”
Glen grinned back. “Just how we like ‘em, eh?”
When the last coffee cup was delivered, Jake started the meeting. Each of the team leaders had been provided with a tour bible: a document providing all the details they’d need to produce staging, sound, lighting, and vision based on the show’s creative and technical design.
“It’s standard big venue lighting including gladiators,” said Tim Beatty, the lighting director. Tim wore a t-shirt that said, Don’t mess with an electrical engineer. It megahertz.
“This is no redneck laser show,” Tim’s offsider Lizard said, making reference to mirror balls used in pub and club shows.
“What would you know, you silly spark fairy?” teased the sound engineer, Bruce Ng, sipping his second black coffee.
Tim shook his coffee spoon at Bruce. “Hey, Liz isn’t just an ordinary silly spark fairy: he’s my chief truss monkey as well.”
“For a guy called Lizard he does look a hell of a lot like a monkey,” agreed Bruce, as Lizard made predictable monkey noises and scratched under his arm.
Jake dropped his head and laughed. This crew of guys was like a family with all its ticks and tensions, but with one clear purpose: to stage the most professional concerts possible. They sat there in their standard pre-show work uniform of old, over-washed, tatty tour t-shirts, jeans and rubber soled boots, each of them with an identification laminate on a lanyard around their neck. During the show they’d