Shaking hands with the boy in the band

We went to see a band that was wearing its influences fairly heavily. At times I got traces of Biffy Clyro, Editors and even Coldplay. No one seems as keen as I am to move past that last one yet.

The lead singer was capable of giving it some, when his shyness faded and a hint of charisma broke through, but the rest of the band looked as if they couldn’t be arsed, like they would rather be anywhere else. They were Scottish, later they would be heckled from the crowd in broad Scottish tones and it seemed that most of the people standing around me and my friends were also Scottish.

Among them were two unsmiling men stood near us, looking as if they would rather be anywhere else too, so long as that was somewhere different to the place those on stage were mentally heading to.
The atmosphere of enforced melancholy lasted until they were joined by another friend and became all smiles, suddenly animated. Hugs and backslaps all round, mostly directed at the newcomer. An anecdote was told, then, ‘that’s my boyfriend there’, he said, jabbing a thumb in the direction. I looked too, caught up in people-watching, the band no longer holding my attention and sneaked a brief glimpse of messy red hair, pale skin, distressed leather jacket and pipe-cleaner-esque skinny jeans. The regulation uniform, as if straight from Central Casting. I couldn’t hear the rest of the story over the dirge from the stage, but the bellowed pay off was ‘are you bummers?!!’ met with wild laughter and backslapping.

It was getting more crowded now, people pushing past, forcing into space, making for friends on the far distant side of the club. Where previously maintaining an aloof gap had been possible, now we were all getting squeezed up closer together. I discovered when I went to the bar that the easiest way to move was to find someone going the same way and tail after them, letting them do all the hard work and bobbing along in their wake, trying not to step on too many toes as you went. After I made it back, a trail of people doing the same were wending their way in front of the three gents, coming to a standstill before the last to arrive. A dark-haired girl looked up at him, all wide-eyed in recognition, clutching her Red Stripe, coral-lipsticked mouth open, visibly taken aback. Then she dragged up her poise and a grin and with a breezy ‘hi, how’re you?’ pushed on past. He turned to his friend.
‘Did you see that girl?’ he had to yell to be heard. ‘She acted like she knew me.’
‘And didn’t she?’
‘No way!’
He pulls a face, an unspoken ‘as if’. They laugh and laugh at this and I feel for her, but she is long gone.

My attention wanders back to the stage but it is difficult to see what this could be building towards, where the band is trying to take us. Everyone seems to be waiting for it to end, apart from a few at the front going mad. At a pause, a blond approaches the boy standing near us, shakes his hand and stammers out a variation on ‘I think you’re really great’ which is acknowledged with a crooked smile and a shake of the head. The kid tries to press what he thinks is an advantage, but begins to gush, you can tell from across the room that he is giving it the whole routine.

‘I’ve got that last one of yours, it rocked my world, love what you’re doing, can’t wait to see you play. You guys are great!’
Finally he runs out of words and is given another smile and handshake before he melts off back into the crowd.
The boy turns to his friend, half-proud, half-bewildered, as he turns his palms upwards and shrugs. ‘What can I do? You see that?’
They grin back indulgently but he shakes his head and waves a hand in the direction of the bar.
‘Yous coming?’
They nod and turn, following him through the crowd and out of the swing doors towards a free drink.