What does a scottish laird, hurricanes, and wanna-be groupies have in common? Well, normally nothing, except if you’re headed to a Cake concert with my sister and me.
It’d been pouring all day by the time my sister arrived in Arkansas and our original plan to go see Cake was in jeopardy. I could easily have snuggled into the couch and finished re-reading my 20th/18th century time travel romance novel, so we went back and forth, debating if we should go or not. There was no word that it had been cancelled by 6:30, so we bundled up and headed out.
I told myself that it was probably raining in 18th century Scotland too, so I wasn’t really missing out on my other written life. We showed up and saw people standing in line for tickets. This show better be good. But has Cake ever put on a bad one?
We huddled and let others stand under our umbrella as long as their backsides faced the wind. Suddenly, a young couple started asking around if anyone would buy their tickets. We bargained them down and they asked for cash. Neither A nor I had any, so I suggested I write a check. They groaned but said okay. As I was writing it out, it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time I wrote a check for anything. How very historical of me. If only I had been using a quill.
Finally, we were in! We ran around to find a spot. Our tickets were for the ‘lawn’ area, but managed to get a quick reprieve from the hurricane-like conditions by cutting through the tent area. I felt like a poor child in a Charles Dickens story.. begging for a seat and then getting spat on when they figured out we were lawn trash. We sucked it up and crossed over to the other side, finding a spot near the stage and aaaalmost under the tent. We couldn’t believe our luck. Why was no one standing here? It was perfect!
And then we turned around.
Oh, no biggie. Just major electrical equipment running right by our feet. But man, do we have a great view.
Halfway through the show, we were hooked up with non-lawn tickets by a guy eyeing my sister and pushed our way through. We are cold, thank you very much now let us through. No time for niceties. No time for getting-to-know-yous, so after A politely brushed off our ticket-bearer’s advances, we walked straight to the front of the stage like we owned the place and started dancing.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something red be-bopping around. I turned slowly during Bucket Seats and saw, oh my gosh, the scottish highlander from my novel! Full red beard and pulled-back hair, could it be true?? Did he find the cracked rock and travel 200 years to the future?
So I asked him.
He wasn’t from 1745. He was from 2009 and really loved pot, dropping off demos to record labels, and guessing tree names. The only thing I cared about was the last one, because when the audience was asked what type of tree was on stage, I turned to him for the answer. He said “Japanese Maple”.
I turned and raised my hand. Little did I know that my red-headed protagonist was pointing his hand up and down over my head so that I would be called upon. How gallant! So Cake (I’m sure he has a name?) looked down and said “How about you, oh quiet one, in the midst of a loud crowd.”
I mean, come ON. Look for that line in a new song. He even used the word ‘oh’ which is the first ingredient for writing poetry. Everyone knows that.
Well, the answer was wrong. It was a peach tree. Whatever. One of my favorite bands just shared with the world the first verse of his next song when he called on me. I think I won in the end.
So, of course we had to time-travel back to when we were twelve and conspire with our new tree-hugging (and incorrectly naming) friends how to get backstage. They had motives too. Remember the demo? My sister found an opening and we (okay, only I had to) squeezed through.
On the other side, A saw him (Mr. Cake?) walking to his bus. She went up to him and started talking about random things. It was pretty much a great night. And who would’ve thought… the genesis to it all was a historical romance novel?
cuethebanjo.com 