Chapter 9: The Grand Finale
Once the curtains closed up, Dane turned to the band and he just thought about how good of friends they were. “Well. You guys in on the movie?” Dane asked with his head filled with ideas for his next song.
“Yeah, sure. We are in, but that is only if it ends up coming out on top. But for now, lets worry about the finale including us and The American Dream. What is your big idea?” Gene asked curiously looking at Dane and then at the other members. Jerry just turned to face Dane with curiosity.
“Yeah, what is the big idea for the finale? You might as well tell us now, since we are here anyway. But if you do not want to tell us right now, we can wait until later. We understand that you might not want to tell one band before you tell the other, but we are just really curious. What will we be doing during the finale so that we can be ready to go and prepared to go out there and play a song or two.” Jerry still looked at Dane waiting for the answer, thinking that he might tell them if he bugs him enough.
“Well. You remember the Long Lost Road To London? There will not be any singing in this, but we will all be playing our instruments and trying to overpower the other team with the sound of Rock And Roll. This will be a judged event by the fans, and maybe there will be an award for the winner. But the only catch is I am not going to be in this final part because I do not think it is fair to play on one side and not the other. So you better get prepared because you only have about a ten minute brake before it. All I have to say is, good luck to you guys and I will see you after the finals and maybe I will give you guys free tickets to my concert tomorrow.” Dane said grabbing the doorknob and twisted it to the right. Doing so, he pulled it open and started to walk out with the band just looking at each other confused.
While Dane was in the hallway, he went up to the soda machine and punched it hard, and watched a soda fall into the slot. He reached into the slot and pulled it out, studying the machine, wondering if anybody was controlling the machine. He stared into the little hole there in the middle of the machine, as he saw a man sitting there inside of it. The midget sitting there was controlling the machine, and that was the reason why he got five mountain dews at a time when he hit the button. He waved in there and called for another Mountain Dew but he just shook his head, no. Danielle was still waiting down by the door, waiting for Dane to go and see her by the door. She knew that the concert was over because she saw the people walk out of the auditorium, so she decided to walk on her way down the hallway to look for Dane.
Dane noticed that it was five minutes past the time he was supposed to see Danielle at, so he decided to turn around and walk off to look for her. Danielle looked down the hallway and saw Dane walk up looking for her.
“Hey Danielle. Sorry that I am late. I got held up by a midget in the pop machine,” he said suddenly remembering that he was being racist, so he just hit himself in the head, before continuing on. “So, you ready to see the showdown in a couple minutes. I will be sitting there with you throughout all of it. But I better get back to American Dreamers, so that I can go and speak with them about the whole showdown. Do you want to come with me?” Dane just looked into her eyes making her say yes whenever he asks her a question.
“You know you do not like you looking at me like that. But I guess it does not matter, because either way I was going to say yes. So, when are we going to be going there? But I got news for you. Your parents, Robby, and Cooper are there to see the bands and they enjoyed the whole concert since you were there. We better get going if we are going to get to them at all.” Danielle said looking at his eyes feeling safe, as she waited for him to lead.
Dane turned around and started to walk his way back down the hallway to a lightened up room to meet with American Dreamers to give them the news. Dane walked his way into the room and looked at the guys. “All right. It is about time for the concert. Just pick your favorite song and get ready for the big finale. It will be a showdown between you and Gene’s band. You better be ready because they are really good, but remember there will be no singing, just instrument playing. This is because the whole thing will be done at the same time which makes the judging a little bit harder to do. I will be out there in the audience to help the people vote for their favorite band performance, and this is because I do not feel like going down and being with one band and then have to make a hard decision on which band I will choose. It is just a little bit harder than I have ever expected, so good luck out there and it is about time to get this started. I will see you guys after the performance, and I will give you a rating on the performance, and this performance will be used in my big video, ’Hall of Fame-A Battle Of The Bands Finale.’ How would you like to be included in that movie?”
“All right. You have our permission to put our performance into this video you are making and we will try our best to make this video rock. But who else will be in this hall of fame video?” Jimmy asked looking at Dane with some curiosity.
“To be truthful, I am also putting in ’Another American Battle’ and ’The Lost American.’ These bands are really good and they will be competing next week in another battle of the bands. But if you can think of any more than just call me up and I will go and check them out. But just get ready, because you only have two minutes.” Dane then just rushed to the stairs and raced down them with Danielle and thought about the whole band performance. He then rushed himself straight down the hallway and to the audience. He went into the front row and stood there waiting for the bands to be ready. Then he jumped over the rail and rushed up the steps to go behind the curtain.
“Are you bands ready yet? These fans are going crazy, they really love you guys.” he looked at the bands and wondered about how it would end up.
“Yeah. My bands ready, but the other band is still getting ready with their amps and their drummers slowing down because he is exhausted.” Jimmy said looking at the curtain, hearing the fans shouting out the name of the band. “I guess they really do love us.” He sat down on his stool and held his guitar and was all ready to get the show on the road. Dane looked out the curtain and then shut them again, as a guy in the second row threw a tomato at him. The audience thought it was funny, but Dane did not. Dane looked down at the stage and lifted up a tomato, and opened the curtain up and threw a tomato at the guy in the second row. Dane laughed while closing the curtain, not taking it serious anymore but making it look like fun.
Another Lost Memory, walked up the steps finally about two minutes after the whole tomato throwing incident. Dane just looked at them.
“Where were you? These fans are restless. They have been throwing tomatoes at the stage, and the whole stage is filled up of tomatoes. But you only have two minutes to get ready, it is almost time to get out there on the stage, so you need to be ready when I open up the curtain because I am video taping this whole performance since I have permission from all of you. I will be out sitting in my front row seat, down by the stage. When you are ready just pull the curtain and quickly get yourself ready and start playing at the same time. Since all of you play with guitars or drums, then I guess you are all ready. Good luck to all of you and I will see you after the show.” Dane said jumping from the stage and landing on his feet. He then walked over to his chair and sat down in it waiting for the bands to be ready.
“Don’t you think you were a little hard on them? They work hard and they need as much time as they can have. Just give them a break and they will try their hardest to get as far as they can get. I mean, Another Lost Memory just got done with their part of the concert and they are getting old. They need time to recuperate and do the best they can, and they need your help to do it, but they will not do what you ask them to do if you keep on yelling at them like that. They have tried their hardest and they will keep on doing so if you give them the chance to earn their trust. Quit being so hard on them and they will quit being so hard on you. Give them a chance for trust and they will earn your full trust.” Danielle said not yelling but just saying. The bands just pulled the lever to open the curtains, as they started to get the grand finale on the roll.
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